Brief synopsis of the readings: Exodus begins today with God speaking to Moses. The former slaves had escaped Egypt and were in the wilderness. Having recently received the Ten Commandments, Moses was still on Mt. Sinai. Meanwhile his people had fashioned an idol, a golden calf, in clear violation of the First Commandment. God told Moses he would destroy them, leaving only Moses. But Moses implored God to mercy and God relented. In Luke’s Gospel the Pharisees accused Jesus of welcoming sinners. Jesus responding with a parable about shepherds. He spoke of a shepherd with 100 sheep who saw that one wandered off. He left the remaining 99 to find the lost sheep. Jesus then spoke of a woman with ten drachmas. When she lost one of them she lit a lamp and searched for it. On finding it she rejoiced and told all of her friends. He concluded with: “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing among the angels of God over one repentant sinner.”

Let me begin by saying that this week there is a long Gospel and a short one. Both include the parables of the shepherd and the woman with ten drachmas. The long version also includes the parable of the prodigal son. Frankly, while I find the prodigal son rich in material, this year I’ve decided to concentrate on the first two. If you’re looking for insight on the prodigal son you can go back in my archives for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time in 2019, 2016, and 2013 .

I’ve often spoken about this but when reading literature from 2,000 years ago (or more) we need to recognize that things that were obvious to the contemporary audience can entirely miss us.

Even if we knew about shepherding today we would probably miss the point because the industry has progressed. Back then the process of making sure the sheep had enough food and water and were protected from wolves was incredibly difficult. Given that any shepherd who recognized that one of them wandered off would just cut his losses. As cute (and tasty) as sheep are, they are not talented in survival and will wander into the wolf’s den at a moment’s notice. Simply put, sheep are stupid. We recognize that we need not only shepherds but also sheep dogs while we don’t need cow dogs. A “good shepherd” at the time would have forgotten about the wanderer and focused on his remaining 99 knowing he would take a 1% hit on his income.

Likewise the woman with the ten drachmas was equally foolish. A drachma at the time was the equivalent of a day’s wages; we can see how she was living close to the edge. People like her lived their lives according to the sun and when the sun went down they stopped nearly everything. She likely didn’t have a lamp or even a candle and burning one for more than a few minutes would have cost her much more than one drachma. A wise woman would have simply waited for sunrise.

And so why does Jesus hold them up as wise, as people we should emulate? Well, to quote Isaiah 55:8, God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and God’s ways are not our ways. If we wish to follow God we need to pay attention more to the lost sheep or misplaced drachma.

But first I feel compelled to say this: We can read something today with an understanding that would have bewildered the people of the time. Unlike first century Palestine, today there are times when we need to give up on people, or at least give up on allowing them to continue to hurt us. I’ve long lost track of the number parents, spouses or children who describe to me a person who takes advantage and uses their love or generosity to cause more pain. They recognize, often at great cost, that this person does not return generosity or love but feeds on it for their own gain. There are, simply put, times when we need to give that person back to God in the hopes that someone else will have more success. There’s an old adage that we need to stop watering dead plants.

Back to the reading God continues to call us to love the lost sheep and also recognize that too often we cut our losses based on things God cares nothing about, particularly wealth. Here in the United States we have thousands of students who borrow for secondary education and then find themselves being crushed under their debt. Recently some of them have been given partial forgiveness of these loans, followed by many Americans who find this unfair and believe that regardless of circumstances they should repay 100% of what they owe.

But at the same time we also recognize that when the pandemic first struck 2 1/2 years ago many businesses were in grave peril. That same government provided generous loans to keep those businesses afloat with the provision that if they followed certain rules much of their debt would be forgiven. In the wake of the student loan forgiveness we’ve learned that several large corporations who were never in danger of bankruptcy (e.g. professional sports teams) had much larger loans forgiven. We’ve also learned that at least some of the politicians who criticized the student loans had themselves been forgiven of PPP loans.

I know this is controversial but when we believe that loans to the wealthy should be forgiven while loans to the poor should not, we miss the point of today’s Gospel. Nobody should be beyond God’s love and nobody should be beyond ours. The lost sheep may hold only 1% of the shepherd’s concern but it holds much more to God.

We have in common the reality that God created all of us and God loves all of us. But from the time of Cain and Able we’ve decided that some of us are more important than others, that some are more deserving of our love, and indeed some are more deserving of God’s love. But for God even a 1% loss is unacceptable. When we cut our losses we ourselves choose to wander from God (and ironically recognize that we are the 1% and God won’t wander from us).

It’s worth asking about our 1%. Perhaps it’s those who disagree with us on politics or religion. Or it’s someone who has hurt us. Or, more likely, those our friends warned us about.

The Kingdom will be built when the 99 all go in search of the 1.