A Mission to Save

Gospel: John 12: 44-50

For a second time in John's Gospel we find Jesus say that he came not to condemn the world but to save it.  The means by which he chose to do this contradicts human logic and that of institutional religion.  Jesus chose to die, to accept humiliation and death, in order to save human beings.  Human logic always seems to justify violence and exclusion as means of saving people: appeals to war, the death penalty, expulsion from churches and society are all justified with this warped logic that only saves a few, not all.

But Jesus came to save all and in so doing overturns human logic and its appeals to violence and exclusion.  In giving us the image of the shepherd who goes out seeking the lost sheep, Jesus again overturns a human logic that would have written off that one sheep and focus instead on the ninety-nine.  The mission of Jesus - and for those who claim his discipleship - is to the one, to the lost and marginalized.

What would religion look like if its primary mission were to the lost and outcast: to those in prison, in care facilities, homeless shelters, refugee and migrant camps, streets and alleyways, hospitals and rehabilitation centers, domestic violence shelters and addiction centers? These are the people who are written off for the sake of the comfortable Christian of the suburbs.  What if they were our focus as they were for Jesus? Then we would bring light to the world as Jesus did.