Here He Comes

Preparing for Jesus by understanding his parables

12/06/2022

Mt 18:12-14 Jesus said to his disciples: "What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray. In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost.”

I’ll never forget when Msgr. Scott Friend explained that there are several things that Jesus was bad at. I remember that startling me because I thought: “No, way, Jesus is good at everything.” But in fact he was right, there are several things that Jesus does very poorly. For example, he mentioned that Jesus is a very bad gardener. Our Lord says that we should let the weeds grow up together with the wheat. No master gardener would do that, only a bad one.

And then he said that Jesus is a very bad businessman. How so? Well, he hires people and pays those who work a full day exactly the same amount as those who only work one hour. No CEO would allow that because you would go bankrupt, but the unions would love that! That shows that Jesus is a bad businessman. And monsignor was right.

And in the gospel today we see the third thing that Jesus is bad at, namely, in being a shepherd. Again Jesus says that it is very clear that if one sheep goes astray, you should leave the ninety-nine and go in search of the one that is lost. Well, no good shepherd would do such a thing. A good shepherd would make sure that the ninety-nine are safe so that he doesn’t lose any more. Cut your losses by letting the one stray go.

And so it is true that in our calculation, our way of thinking, human thinking, earthly thinking, Jesus is bad at these occupations. He is a poor businessman, he is a poor farmer, and he is a poor shepherd. But Jesus is trying to teach us another kind of thinking, an eternal way of thinking, God’s way of thinking, a heavenly way of thinking, that looks pretty poor by earthly standards.

Today we see what, at least I believe this parable means, that when Jesus says he leaves the ninety-nine in search of the one stray, he’s talking about leaving the righteous in search of the sinner. And we have to be very careful when we listen to that parable, because we all have a tendency (myself included) to think that well I’m doing pretty good. I must be among the ninety-nine.

And we conclude sometimes too easily that of course the big sinners live in the big cities and commit all the big sins, the drug lords and the prostitutes. They are the stray; they are the one lost sheep. Me, on the other hand, I am right here in church going to Mass and doing pretty good. Surely, I am among the ninety-nine righteous. Well, that is precisely not the point of Jesus’ parable.

My understanding of it, and I might not be exactly right, is that when Jesus leaves the ninety-nine in search of the stray, he is really leaving heaven, where the ninety-nine righteous are. He’s leaving the good angels, who have been saved and are eternally righteous, in search of the lost sheep. That one lost sheep symbolizes all of humanity, all of us, each one of us, here on earth. Jesus, in other words, leaves the righteous angels in heaven and comes in search of us on earth, the lost sheep. And thank goodness that he does!

That is the point of all the parables. We are not the workers who work the full day. We are the ones who look for short-cuts and work only the one hour. And yet, in his generosity and his mercy he pays us more than we deserve. We are not the wheat in his garden, we are the weeds. We are the sinners who he allows to continue to grow in the hope that we might change before it is time for the harvest.

We are the weeds, we are the lost sheep, we are the one-hour worker. That is the point of Jesus’ parables. We are not the righteous sheep, we are not the wheat, we are not the diligent workers. And that is what Christmas is all about. Here he comes. Here he comes, to save us.

Praised be Jesus Christ!