Gospel: Luke 15: 3-7
This parable is filled with ironies and hyperbole. First, most shepherds would not risk leaving their flocks untended in order to seek out a lost sheep. Most would likely leave the lost sheep to die among wild animals. But that is the point of the entire parable! The listeners would know this fact, and Jesus' point is that God is not like us at all. God would - and God does - seek out the lost and errant sheep out of deep love.
The second irony is the idea of ninety nine righteous people compared to one errant sinner. Is there a person among us who is not a sinner, one who is not needing repentance? There are no righteous; there are only sinners, all in need of God's mercy and love. And again, that is exactly the point Jesus is making in this parable. God would go to these great lengths for any one of us, for every one of us without hesitation.
This parable is the first of three parables of the same theme in this chapter: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. It highlights for us how valuable each one of us is, how loved each one of us is in the eyes of God. These readings and this feast highlight the only relevant fact about God that is necessary: that God is love. The entire life of authentic religion is about love and its wider expansion of its presence in our lives.
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