Parables 17: When God is ‘absent’

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Now Jesus turned to the people again and told them this story: “A man planted a vineyard, leased it to tenant farmers, and moved to another country to live for several years. At the time of the grape harvest, he sent one of his servants to collect his share of the crop. But the farmers attacked the servant, beat him up, and sent him back empty-handed. So the owner sent another servant, but they also insulted him, beat him up, and sent him away empty-handed. A third man was sent, and they wounded him and chased him away. “‘What will I do?’ the owner asked himself. ‘I know! I’ll send my cherished son. Surely they will respect him.’ “But when the tenant farmers saw his son, they said to each other, ‘Here comes the heir to this estate. Let’s kill him and get the estate for ourselves!’ So they dragged him out of the vineyard and murdered him. “What do you suppose the owner of the vineyard will do to them?” Jesus asked. “I’ll tell you—he will come and kill those farmers and lease the vineyard to others.” “How terrible that such a thing should ever happen,” his listeners protested. Jesus looked at them and said, “Then what does this Scripture mean? ‘The stone that the builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.’ Everyone who stumbles over that stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone it falls on.” The teachers of religious law and the leading priests wanted to arrest Jesus immediately because they realized he was telling the story against them—they were the wicked farmers. But they were afraid of the people’s reaction. Luke 20:9-19 NLT

On the first reading I thought this parable sounded a bit like the one before – an absent owner who is gone for some time and eventually comes back, kills the wicked farmers and gives the vineyard to others. Like the previous parable, the people left behind are given something with which they are expected to do something, in this case, produce a crop.

But the similarity ends there. The previous parable is about servants who knew their duty, to serve the master, which they did with varying success. This parable is about tenants whose mindset is quite different. Though they are only tenant farmers, the chief protagonists somehow develop the belief that they are not caretakers but owners, that they can treat the vineyard and anything that it produces as their own. Despite evidence to the contrary they behave as if the owner does not exist and any reminder that he does exist (the repeated coming of servants from the owner) and that he has expectations are treated with contempt. The landlord was absent, and as far as the tenants were concerned he was gone for good, and his property had therefore defaulted to them.

The final result – their destruction – is different to the final outcome for the servants of the first story. The ones who were executed in the first parable were not the servants but nameless others who did not want the nobleman as king – but they are peripheral to the main story. In this parable it is the tenant farmers, who are the focus of this story, who are killed.

Jesus’s purpose in telling this story was different to the purpose of the previous parable. This story was one ‘told against’ the teachers of religious law and the leading priests, or so some of his listeners seemed to think. The previous parable had been told to correct a misconception about the coming of the kingdom. In addition, this story is told looking back in time, whereas the other was told looking forward. This parable is about the first coming of God into the world, in the person of Jesus, whereas the previous one was about the ‘second coming’, at the end of time.

The main thing that the stories have in common is the reality of the ‘absence of God’ from the human story for long periods of time. Not a complete absence, of course; in the first era, leading up to the coming of Jesus, God was absent in body but present in recorded history, law, prophecy and poetry, in a narrative arising from the real life story of the Jewish nation. In the second era, the era in which we live, God has been and is also absent in body, yet present as his Spirit, who has done and said some pretty extraordinary things over the last few thousand years. This too is recorded in words, starting with what we call the New Testament, but continuing in the recorded history of God’s people which, while it may not be regarded as the scripture, can nevertheless give great encouragement to any who take the time to read it. In both these stories we see people responding to a master who is, in their minds, absent. It is instructional to see how they respond to this perception, and to realise how much it teaches us about ourselves and the people around us.

What can we learn from this parable that can help us as we navigate life? The first is obvious – Jesus is the son, the one who the wicked farmers killed, thinking that by so doing they would get the vineyard for themselves. But as Jesus points out, the result of that murder was not that God would disappear from human history, as the wicked farmers hoped he would, but that God’s kingdom would be established. There are many down through history who have sought to do just that – get Jesus out of the picture. They have failed, just as the wicked farmers failed. Far from being destroyed, Jesus has become the cornerstone, the linchpin, the hinge on which the world turns. Try as people might, Jesus has not been destroyed or removed from human consciousness, though many who have tried to remove him and the good news he brought, have ‘gone the way of all flesh’ and are forgotten or discredited.

The second thing we can learn from this parable comes from realising how easy it is for us to fall into the same traps as the religious leaders who were listening to Jesus that day, even those of us who say we are Christians: they had no respect for the God they said they worshipped; they refused to give him his due (despite the outward appearance of piety); they had a sense of entitlement, believing that they deserved all the fruit of their labours and God deserved nothing; they wanted God out of the picture and were prepared to go to drastic lengths to make that happen. They were happy with the religion they had created, but it was so well developed that God had eventually been excluded. They were no longer able to see him when he acted, no longer able to hear him when he spoke.

It is easy to condemn the religious leaders, to point the finger, but it doesn’t take much introspection to realise how similar I am to them. I too have a sense of entitlement, believing that I deserve the things that God has blessed me with, rather than giving him his proper credit. It may not be a vineyard, but he has given me so much, not least my profession as a doctor, but it is so easy to see my qualification as my own achievement with no thanks to him. It is so easy to live my life as if God is in a far country and can be ignored while I go about my business, building my own empire. It is so easy to feel entitled to keep all that I have accumulated over the years, whether achievements or possessions, and give none of the fruits of all that to him, without whom I would have nothing. It is so easy to live day to day as if God does not exist, to make myself king of my own kingdom, effectively crucifying him as did the religious leaders of the day.

In this parable Jesus wants his listeners to both understand and be warned. He wants them to understand who he is, and he wants them to know the right attitude to have toward God, and the right way to relate to him. He also wants them to know that continued rejection of him will ultimately be their loss. What does it profit a man if he gains the world, but loses his soul?

Parables 16. What will you do with your life?

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And because he was nearing Jerusalem, he told them a story to correct the impression that the Kingdom of God would begin right away. He said, “A nobleman was called away to a distant empire to be crowned king and then return. Before he left, he called together ten of his servants and divided among them ten pounds of silver, saying, ‘Invest this for me while I am gone.’ But his people hated him and sent a delegation after him to say, ‘We do not want him to be our king.’ After he was crowned king, he returned and called in the servants to whom he had given the money. He wanted to find out what their profits were. The first servant reported, ‘Master, I invested your money and made ten times the original amount!’ ‘Well done!’ the king exclaimed. ‘You are a good servant. You have been faithful with the little I entrusted to you, so you will be governor of ten cities as your reward.’ The next servant reported, ‘Master, I invested your money and made five times the original amount.’ ‘Well done!’ the king said. ‘You will be governor over five cities.’ But the third servant brought back only the original amount of money and said, ‘Master, I hid your money and kept it safe. I was afraid because you are a hard man to deal with, taking what isn’t yours and harvesting crops you didn’t plant.’ ‘You wicked servant!’ the king roared. ‘Your own words condemn you. If you knew that I’m a hard man who takes what isn’t mine and harvests crops I didn’t plant, why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank? At least I could have gotten some interest on it.’ Then, turning to the others standing nearby, the king ordered, ‘Take the money from this servant, and give it to the one who has ten pounds.’ ‘But, master,’ they said, ‘he already has ten pounds!’ ‘Yes,’ the king replied, ‘and to those who use well what they are given, even more will be given. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have will be taken away. And as for these enemies of mine who didn’t want me to be their king—bring them in and execute them right here in front of me.’” Luke 19:11-27 NLT

‘He told them a story to correct the impression that the Kingdom of God would begin right away…

But how, exactly, does this story answer that misconception? At first glance it seems to be a story about financial management, about the importance of ‘seeing your money grow.’ As if the kingdom of God is all about maximizing return on investment. But I think there is a lot more to this story than that.

The story of the nasty nobleman is about someone who leaves as a noble and comes back as a king. This mirrors what Jesus was about to do (even if the similarity ends there), but it had not occurred to the people who were following Jesus that he was about to leave them. As they approached Jerusalem their belief was that they were reaching the climax of Jesus’s ministry, that in the great city he would show himself to be who he really was, the king of the Jews, and that he would usher in a new kingdom, the Kingdom of God (which in their mind was the Kingdom of the Jews), where evil oppressors – aka the Romans and their puppet government – would be banished forever, and the Jewish people would finally triumph in their own land.

The people had of course got some things right, but the immediate ushering in of a new and glorious Jewish kingdom was not one of them. It is true Jesus was coming to the climax of his ministry, but that climax was all about his arrest, trial and crucifixion, not about the revelation of his kingship, at least not the kind of revelation the Jews – or anyone – had in mind when they thought of the idea of being a king. For the Jews what was coming would represent defeat, not glory. For the Romans Jesus was to become a laughing stock.

No, Jesus did not tell this parable to describe the events of the coming days, but rather to help his followers understand that he was ‘going away’ in the same way as the nobleman went away. He was about to leave them alone. He would no longer be there to watch them, to teach them, to guide them. There was going to be a hiatus in history, during which time he might well be there in spirit, but his body would be absent. And during that time there would be work to do.

Jesus, you see, had expectations of the people he would leave behind, just Ike the nasty nobleman had. In the same way, Jesus has expectations of us. Jesus is not uninterested in how we live our lives, as small and insignificant as we may feel our lives are. This parable is primarily about the choices we have before us – the choices about what we do with our time on this earth, the choices about how we live every day of our lives. Jesus says these things matter. Jesus was saying to his followers what he says to us, ‘your life here on earth means something, it is important what you do with it, don’t take it lightly, don’t throw it away.’ God, though he may be bodily absent, is not uninvolved, but rather he is deeply invested in us.

Jesus is quite up front about the fact that different people have different levels of opportunity; he acknowledges that to some is given much, to others is given little – he makes no apology for that, and he doesn’t explain why it is that way, as much as we might like to know, as unfair as we might think it is. He is just stating the way things are in this world. The point of the story is that whatever we have been given, Jesus wants us to use it for good. Our lives are not something to be hidden away and left to stagnate. Our lives are given to us to ‘make the most of’ we possibly can.

At its heart, this parable challenges us: no matter how much or how little we have been given in life, God calls us to use it for his purposes, for his glory, for his kingdom. It is easy for us to spend our lives looking at those who have been given more, seeing what amazing things they have done, and then simply giving up because we have so little potential compared to them, because we have achieved so little. Jesus challenges us to see life in a different way. Even a person with no arms and no legs, a person with no possessions and no education, can make a difference in this world, can help God’s kingdom to come.

I can’t help feeling sorry for the one who hid his ‘gift’ away, because I wonder if that is me. What have I done, with this ‘one wild and precious life’ that I have been given? I am old and I have achieved so little. Yet as I read this story I sense the Spirit of God saying not, “you wicked servant,’ like the cruel king, but rather, ‘there is still time, as long as you have breath in you. Each new day is full of opportunities: do something with what you have given’. Something as small as a smile or a kind word can bear much fruit. Just listening and loving helps to build his kingdom.

The parable is also important in that Jesus emphasizes the fact that he is coming back as king and that there will be a reckoning. The coming back, and the reckoning, is frightening. Our actions, and the fruit that those actions have borne, will be on display for all to see. In the parable, apart from the servants, there is a group of people who are simply executed. The evil king says. ‘as for these enemies of mine who didn’t want me to be their king—bring them in and execute them right here in front of me.’ Who are these people?

Look around. There are many people who have heard about Jesus, who know what he is like, who understand that he makes demands of them. But they choose to ignore him. They mistake his apparent absence as him being gone – gone for good. They are glad he is gone, and they say simply ‘Good riddance. Thank God he is gone. We never liked him anyway. We hope he never returns. We are better off without him. We will live our lives according to our own values and our own wisdom. We don’t need Jesus, or God. Our future is our own. It is in our hands.’

This is a dangerous attitude to have – at least that is what Jesus seems to be saying. To think this way is to bury our heads in the sand, to live in denial. If that is you, if that is me, perhaps we need to rethink the way we are living our lives. Jesus says that it matters.

Parables 15. The right attitude

DavidLeave a comment

Luke 18:9-14 NLT
Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else: “Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not like other people-cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

Humans seem to have an inbuilt desire to look down on others. This parable was told for such people, although I would argue that all people are like this, and that this tendency to look down on others, to “scorn” them as Jesus says, is a mark of humanity. The more I think about it, the more I am persuaded that this tendency could be called the “original sin.”

Of course, the word sin, and the idea of human “wickedness,” are not OK to use anymore. The idea of humanity as “sinful” is seen by many as an outdated Christian concept. It is more acceptable in this day and age to understand humanity as basically good, and anything wrong that an individual does is someone else’s fault. But why did that someone else do the bad thing that caused the other person to do a bad thing? Where did the first evil come from?

Social institutions are often blamed for the evil we see in the world, and humans seem to take great delight in seeing such institutions “brought down.” I’m talking about the government, the church, the police force, the military, the medical profession, the teaching profession. In politics the left blames the right and vice versa. In international relations there is always some rogue nation that is responsible for all the suffering – at present there a number of contenders – Russia, Israel, China, Iran? White people blame black people and black people blame whites. The poor blame the rich. The rich blame the poor. But try as we might we cannot find a common scapegoat. Probably because whatever group we are in we will be the scapegoat for another group. We are all oppressors in the eyes of someone, and we are all victims in our own eyes. Why do people do bad things? Who did the first bad thing, that led to all the other bad things? We know the effects, but we wonder about the cause.

At the same time we seem to have no trouble understanding where human good comes from – it is from ourselves, we believe, from our inherently good human nature. It is fascinating how quick we are to see ourselves as good, and others as not good. Ourselves as victims, other as oppressors.

What is the solution to evil if it is not good? If we could only make people better, cure them of their evil streak, then evil would become a thing of the past. Yet so often our approach to evil is more evil. We rebel against the oppressor. We gossip about the bad people we meet. We signal our own goodness in whatever way we can (like the Pharisees) while pointing out the failures of those around. We excuse our own sin by saying “he made me do it,” or “if she hadn’t said that then I wouldn’t have said what I said.” The result is tension, conflict, in the worst scenario, wars. How can we make people better, so that the world becomes a better place? The standard answers are by understanding, by education, by ending poverty, all good things in themselves. If we were all better educated, wealthier, healthier and happier, then evil would become a thing of the past. But when we look at the barriers to education, wealth and health so often we find human evil behind it all. We are back to square one.

Into the midst of so many fundamental questions about human existence comes Jesus with a simple parable. He contrasts the Pharisee, who the wider world would see as good because of his actions – fasting and tithing – with the tax collector, who the wider world, and the Pharisee himself, sees as evil, and therefore despises him. Pharisees were celebrated at the time, the good guys. Tax collectors were scorned. Yet Jesus says that the tax collector was the one who left the temple right with God, not the Pharisee.

In this simple story, Jesus acknowledges that the tax collector is a bad man – by the man’s own admission, which Jesus does not refute. But he shocks his listeners when he seems to say that the Pharisee is worse, or at least that the sin of the Pharisee is worse than the sin of the tax collector. His listeners would have been shocked, the Pharisees even more so. But what is the Pharisee’s sin? Simply this – it is his desire to stand above, to look down, to be better, to be self righteous, self justified, self made. Jesus implies that this human tendency is the fundamental problem in the world, that it is not limited to one group of people, but is universal, and lies right in the middle of the human heart. It is called pride.

As I read this story, I realise that I resemble the Pharisee much more than the tax collector. I am respectable and do the right things. There is nothing wrong with that. But there is something deeply wrong with my desire to be seen as better than others, to be seen as the good guy, rather than the sinner I know I am. There is something fundamentally wrong with my attitude, which resembles that of the Pharisee far more than that of the tax collector. It is my pride that causes the problems in my life. It is the pride of every individual person in the world that leads to our collective problems. If only we could adopt the tax collector’s attitude, the world would be so much better a place. But we resist stubbornly.

What then is the tax collector’s attitude? ‘O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.’ The world teaches us that such an attitude is bad for us, that low self esteem will damage us and make us do bad things. The world teaches us that the tax collector’s attitude – his view of himself and God – is the problem that leads to evil. But Jesus teaches us that the tax collector’s attitude is the solution.

Yet worldly belief has entered into the church. So often the primary message of our gospel – the good news of the kingdom – has been changed from ‘you are a sinner, but in Jesus there is hope,’ to ‘come to Jesus and he will make you feel good about yourself, you will see that you are amazing, that you can do anything, that you are good.’ So many churches avoid talking about sin, our failings, and talk instead about our goodness, our success, our potential. So many churches in our day have dispensed with the ancient tradition of “confession.” We discourage people from focussing on their failings, their sin, even if deep down we all know that that is the problem. So often in films and books the Catholic practice of the confessional is trivialised and mocked. Why are we so resistant to reflecting on the badness inside us?

We live in a world where the Pharisee is celebrated, where his attitudes and his words are seen as good and where those of the tax collector are seen as bad. Just look at what the Pharisee says: “thank you that I am not like other people. I am good. They are bad.” He celebrates himself. How similar this is to the way we are encouraged to think of ourselves nowadays: we are encouraged to celebrate our achievements, our actions. We are encouraged to believe that we are the best. That we are great. That believing in ourselves is where our salvation lies. We are encouraged to avoid the kind of mindset and words that the tax collector demonstrates. Don’t speak down about yourself. Don’t be so negative. Love yourself because you are amazing. Be like the Pharisee. Realise how incredible you are. You are everything. You can do anything.

We are, every one of us, proud, at our very core. We resist confessing our failures to God, to others, even to ourselves. It is too threatening to our sense of self. But unless we can let go of this sense of self, and understand who we really are – unless humility can replace pride as our defining characteristic – then our problems, and the problems of our world, will persist. Of course the way of the tax collector in this story requires the grace and mercy of a loving God for us to see ourselves as valuable and worthwhile, and we resist this too. We want to be celebrated for our merits, not because of the mercy of God.

Jesus, as usual, is teaching radical truth in a simple story. We would all do well to meditate on this story on a regular basis, asking ourselves the question, who do I look like, the Pharisee or the tax collector? How can I become more like the tax collector? It is not by collecting taxes and ripping off the taxpayer!

Parables 14b. Persistence in prayer

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One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. (Luke 18:1 NLT)

So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! (Luke 18:7-8)

Why does it take such persistence? If we are his chosen people, why do we need to keep crying out to him day and night? Why does God not give us what we ask for the first time we ask? Any who have prayed over and over for something will know that often it seems as if God just keeps putting us off. Yet Jesus says, “I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly!”

Jesus calls us, it seems, to a “relationship with God.” All relationships are based on communication. What that communication looks like depends on the nature of the relationship. There is much talk today about relationships in which there is a power imbalance, and how such relationships can be made ‘safe.’ One way, of course, is to attempt to equalise the power balance, but that is usually unrealistic. If this parable does anything, it recognises the reality that some people in the world have power, others don’t.

In the relationship between the Creator of the universe and humanity we see power imbalance in the extreme. Relatively speaking, we have no power, and God has all power. How should we approach him?

In human terms when such an extreme imbalance exists we assume certain conditions will exist. First, we don’t usually think of approaching people in positions of extreme power. In the ancient world ordinary citizens did not approach emperors or kings – under fear of death. People simply bowed their heads as the ruler went by. Second, they would never have even thought of speaking to him – or her. That would be seen at best as inappropriate, at worst as inviting disaster. Third, if for some reason they did have the opportunity to speak they would expect either no response, or a cursory dismissal of their request. Few would be brave – or foolish – enough to “nag” the emperor. Anything could happen then.

Even in the modern world there is a hesitancy of the impoverished and disempowered to speak to people of power. There are all sorts of protocols that need to be observed to “be heard” by such people.

With all this in mind, Jesus presents a rather unexpected way in which he says it is OK to speak to God. He says it is OK to “nag” – to keep on presenting our requests to God, even though in the first instance there may be no apparent response. This, it seems, will not enrage God; he will not simply smite us to get us off his back. He listens to what we say, he hears our requests, he gives justice to his chosen people who cry out to him.

But why? Not for the reason the unjust judge gives justice – just to keep us quiet, to get some peace. He hears us and acts, Jesus’s words imply, because we are his people. Because we belong to him. Because he loves us. Jesus had previously taught his disciples a prayer which we now know as The Lord’s prayer: “Our Father… give us… forgive us… lead us… deliver us…” This prayer lays the foundation of a God who cares. Why would Jesus expect us to pray a prayer like this if he knew that God was not interested, if he knew that God was unaffected by what we thought or said?

The God that Jesus taught his disciples about – and that he teaches us about – is a God who listens, a God who is interested, a God who cares, a God who is involved. Very different to the “pagan” gods of the ancient world.

But he is God, nevertheless, and he does not exist simply to do our bidding. He is our God, not our servant. If God always gave us what we asked for the first time we asked for it, he would be acting like a servant, like a slave. He does not do that. If he always gave us what we ask for as soon as it came to our minds we would have no opportunity to reflect on what we were asking, no opportunity to wonder what he was thinking, what he wanted, and we would forget him as soon as we got what we wanted, only calling on him again the next time we wanted something.

And what parent gives her child everything he demands of her? What parent does not try to teach her child that everything he wants is not necessarily what he needs, nor is it good for him? What parent does not try to teach her child the importance of delayed gratification?

As we pray, as we ask, repeatedly, our understanding of ourselves grows, and our understanding of God grows. As we speak, and listen, our relationship grows. Ultimately, Jesus teaches about an almighty God who not only wants a relationship with us, but who delights in it, revels in it, enjoys it. This is a God who wants us to know him, wants us to know the things that are important to him, wants us to be like him, wants us to see things the way he does. And he wants to refine us, to change us, to make us better people, for our own sakes and for the sake of the world around us. Prayer, repeated, persistent prayer, is part of his way of achieving that.

Jesus concludes this parable with a cryptic question: “But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith?” I have wondered why Jesus ended with this question, but the more I think about it, the more I see it in the context of this idea of relationship. As if Jesus is saying, “When the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have a relationship with the Creator?” In his parable about persistence he has been teaching people about the concept and nature of a relationship with God. He ends his story with this question as a challenge – are you prepared to enter into this kind of relationship? When Jesus comes back, will you be living this life?

Parables 14a. Prayer: speaking to power

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One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up. “There was a judge in a certain city,” he said, “who neither feared God nor cared about people. A widow of that city came to him repeatedly, saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’ The judge ignored her for a while, but finally he said to himself, ‘I don’t fear God or care about people, but this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’ Then the Lord said, “Learn a lesson from this unjust judge. Even he rendered a just decision in the end. So don’t you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will grant justice to them quickly! But when the Son of Man returns, how many will he find on the earth who have faith? Luke 18:1-8 NLT

There was a judge… who neither feared God nor cared about people. A widow of that city came to him repeatedly saying, ‘Give me justice in this dispute with my enemy.’

This is a parable about unjust judges, about annoying widows, about disputes between people, about persistence, about justice, about human nature. The stuff of life. There is so much to reflect on here. But the crux of the matter, the challenge, is simply this: ‘always pray, and never give up.’

Prayer, it would seem from Jesus’s teaching, is foundational to being a disciple. I find myself wondering if it is foundational to being human. Is it ‘built into our DNA’ as the expression goes? Prayer seems to be part of who we are, whether we follow Jesus, some other god, or no-one. There is something in us that makes us cry out to a higher power when we feel powerless to influence things ourselves, when we feel things are out of control.

As a Christian reading this passage I have often felt guilty, because I am so ‘bad at praying.’ But I realize that how ‘good at praying’ I am depends very much on how in control I feel. There is an inverse relationship between how much I believe I have power and influence and how much I pray. The more in control I feel, the less I pray.

I see this principle at work in this parable. This woman, this widow, was someone without power. She lacked control over her circumstances. She was the victim of injustice and did not have the resources to do anything about it. She was vulnerable, with no money to get help, no powerful relatives to come to her aid. She felt helpless.

In this parable Jesus describes her strategy to deal with her situation. She prayed. Not to God, in this case, but to the unjust judge. And she went on and on, doing the only thing she could – asking, pleading, begging, crying out. Eventually, as a result of her persistence, she got the justice she deserved.

Thinking about her actions, and thinking about my own responses to the cards life has dealt me, has caused me to reflect on the ways we as human beings try to deal with situations in which we feel out of control, helpless, without “agency.” I wonder if the growing sense of helplessness that so many feel, is the reason for the exploding epidemic of anxiety that has gripped our world, especially the younger generation.

Much of our life energy, both individually and societally, is spent trying to gain control. We have a variety of ways of doing this, from simply getting a good education and a good job to ensure a good income, to building the right relationships with the right people, to striving for a promotion to get up the ladder of success. Migration down through the ages is another example of people trying to “build a better life – a life in which they are free to decide for themselves, free from the control of others. Societally we see nations using all sorts of strategies to stay at the top – from trade agreements to armed conflict.

Some of our efforts, while achieving control for ourselves, come at the cost of oppression for others. Think of the man who beats his wife or children. Think of so called “coercive control” – which may not involve physical violence, but is nevertheless a way of controlling others. The goal of such actions may well be understandable – to reduce anxiety – but the actions themselves are wrong, immoral, pathetic and destructive.

Jesus spoke this parable not to teach people how to get power, nor how to use it once you have got it. He does not question the status quo – he does not encourage people to rise up against either the Romans or the power brokers in their own community. He does not encourage rebellion. He does not promote democracy, or education, or self advancement. He does not advocate for a changing of the power balance at all. He recognises that there are those who have power and those who do not, and he speaks to the latter. Many of us find ourselves in that category – the relatively powerless.

Jesus suggests that if we want to get things done, if we want to right the wrongs, if we want to see justice triumph, we need to go to the seat of power and nag. We need to recognise where real power lies, go to that place and ask for what we want. Real power, ultimate power, lies with the creator and sustainer of the universe, our Heavenly Father. We need to pray, and keep on praying, until we see results. This is the way god intends things to be.

It is not a strategy we like, of course. We would rather have the power ourselves than be dependent on others who have it. We don’t like asking for things. We would rather be on the other side of the equation, giving out the favours, not asking for them. Especially if it is blatently clear that those with power don’t care about us.

Jesus has two messages for those of us without power, without agency. The first is that persistent nagging can get things done, even when the one being “nagged” is a a bad person. He encourages us to keep on, to never give up.

The second is that the person who ultimately has the greatest power in the universe is not a bad person who doesn’t give a toss for us, but his – and our – Heavenly Father, who loves us and wants our best. God the Father “gets things done.” Part of his strategy for doing that is to have us ask, again and again and again.

But why does it have to be this way? I will reflect on that question in my next blog.

Parables 13. Rich and poor

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Jesus said, “There was a certain rich man who was splendidly clothed in purple and fine linen and who lived each day in luxury. At his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus who was covered with sores. As Lazarus lay there longing for scraps from the rich man’s table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores. Finally, the poor man died and was carried by the angels to sit beside Abraham at the heavenly banquet. The rich man also died and was buried, and he went to the place of the dead. There, in torment, he saw Abraham in the far distance with Lazarus at his side. The rich man shouted, ‘Father Abraham, have some pity! Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. I am in anguish in these flames.’ But Abraham said to him, ‘Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here being comforted, and you are in anguish. And besides, there is a great chasm separating us. No one can cross over to you from here, and no one can cross over to us from there.’ Then the rich man said, ‘Please, Father Abraham, at least send him to my father’s home. For I have five brothers, and I want him to warn them so they don’t end up in this place of torment.’ But Abraham said, ‘Moses and the prophets have warned them. Your brothers can read what they wrote.’ The rich man replied, ‘No, Father Abraham! But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will repent of their sins and turn to God.’ But Abraham said, ‘If they won’t listen to Moses and the prophets, they won’t be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’” Luke 16-19-31 NLT

This is a confronting parable.

I am the rich man. The community in which I work – with so many broken people – is the poor man.

I live in luxury. I have everything I need. Oh it is true I get stressed about finances. I worry how we will pay for all this luxury. We carry so much debt.

But we can only carry that debt because we are so rich. Poor people have no possibility to borrow money to finance a luxury life style. They are just poor. They have nothing.

What should I do? What should the rich Christians around me do? Lazarus, covered with sores, lies at my gate, longing for scraps from my table. The dogs are kinder to Lazarus than I am.

Why does the rich man go, after death, to “the place of the dead?” Why is that place associated with torment. Why does the poor man go to be at Abraham’s side at the heavenly banquet? What did he ever do to deserve that?

There is no mention in this parable of faith. There is nothing to say that the poor man had more or less faith than the rich man. There is nothing to say the rich man was an unbeliever.

But there is the suggestion that the rich man, like his brothers, had listened neither to the message of Moses and the prophets, nor the message of Jesus. Nor would they, even after Jesus had risen from the dead. But what was the message of Moses and the prophets? Was it a message about “believing in Jesus.” Apparently not. After all, Moses and the prophets did not know Jesus’s name, nor did they know exactly what he would say. Their message was a simple one – of loving God, caring for the poor and needy, extending mercy. Ultimately it was the same message as the one Jesus preached.

There is little doubt that the rich man, and his brothers, had heard the message of Moses and the prophets. They would have gone to the synagogue every week. They would have been taught the Holy Scriptures. But these actions and the teaching they had received were not enough. The problem was not a lack of religious devotion, not a lack of “good teaching.’ The problem is that they didn’t care. They had just left the poor man lying there at their gate and ignored him as they had gone in and out. They accepted the poverty and disease of some as the status quo. They didn’t see any need to change it. It had always been the same, and it always would be. I suspect they didn’t even notice the poor and the sick. They were too focused on other issues, especially their own pursuits for success and wealth.

They were the same as the Pharisees (Luke 16:13-15). They knew the Scriptures, they understood the message, they had been taught the heart and mind of God, but they had been seduced by wealth, by riches, by money. And as Jesus said, you cannot serve two masters.

Money, and all it stands for in this world, can be so seductive. Of course we all need money to live in this world. But how can we avoid its seduction? How can we acquire and use money in the right way, without it becoming our god that we worship. How can we keep it as a means to an end rather than becoming the end in itself? What is the “end” it should be used for? Are our financial goals just ways to build our own life of luxury, or are they ways to bless others?

One way to avoid letting money seduce us is to focus our attention on the poor and the needy. Stop our subscription to the Financial Review and start reading the news we would prefer to ignore, about the difficult places in the world, the places racked by war and famine and exploitation and corruption. Maybe we could even go there, do something. Maybe we need to start seeing the ugly part of our own communities and do something about the ugliness.

It’s time to stop walking past Lazarus. It’s time to stop and talk to him, invite him in for a drink and a meal, be kind and caring and generous. That surely is the teaching of Moses and the prophets. That surely is the teaching of Jesus.

Parables 12: Shrewd manager

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Jesus told this story to his disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had a manager handling his affairs. One day a report came that the manager was wasting his employer’s money. So the employer called him in and said, ‘What’s this I hear about you? Get your report in order, because you are going to be fired.’ The manager thought to himself, ‘Now what? My boss has fired me. I don’t have the strength to dig ditches, and I’m too proud to beg. Ah, I know how to ensure that I’ll have plenty of friends who will give me a home when I am fired.’ So he invited each person who owed money to his employer to come and discuss the situation. He asked the first one, ‘How much do you owe him?’ The man replied, ‘I owe him 800 gallons of olive oil.’ So the manager told him, ‘Take the bill and quickly change it to 400 gallons.’ ‘And how much do you owe my employer?’ he asked the next man. ‘I owe him 1,000 bushels of wheat,’ was the reply. ‘Here,’ the manager said, ‘take the bill and change it to 800 bushels.’ The rich man had to admire the dishonest rascal for being so shrewd. And it is true that the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with the world around them than are the children of the light. Here’s the lesson: Use your worldly resources to benefit others and make friends. Then, when your possessions are gone, they will welcome you to an eternal home.” Luke 16:1-12 NLT

This could be called “the parable of the rich man and the dishonest rascal.” The weird thing is that the one in the story who Jesus wants us to admire, the one who he seems to suggest we should emulate, is the dishonest rascal. This sounds a bit counterintuitive. Surely Jesus should be condemning his dishonesty, not praising it. Surely the rich man in the story should be furious with him, not reluctantly admiring him.

I do not believe Jesus told this parable to praise dishonesty any more than he was using it as a lesson about financial management. Rather it is a challenge to be shrewd. But what is shrewdness? The dictionary says it means being astute or sharp in practical matters. Shrewdness is acumen, cleverness, intelligence, judgement, perspicacity, sharpness, astuteness. Jesus wants his followers to be like this. Not naive or gullible, but smart. He says there is something to learn from people like this dishonest rascal. It is often true that we can learn important lessons from the behaviour of “rascals.” It is important that we observe, and listen to, not just our friends, but our enemies.

The manager was shrewd in his dealings with his employer’s clients. He recognised that he himself was headed for ruin, and he used his employer’s resources to ensure he would not die in misery and poverty. He knew how to make friends for himself. He knew that “money talks.” Disregarding the moral error of using someone else’s resources for his own ends, he hatched his plan and carried it through. This kind of behaviour remains common today – people using the resources of others – in effect stealing from them – to enrich themselves. This is the way of “the world.”

But what does that have to do with us, those who call ourselves followers of Jesus? Are we to adopt the ways of the world when we are functioning in that sphere, while having a different moral code when relating to our brothers and sisters in “the kingdom?” Is Jesus arguing for “situational ethics,” where the rightness or wrongness of the actions are determined by the situation in which we find ourselves? Are there different rules for different contexts?

I suspect that none of these ideas, as fascinating as they are to ponder and discuss, is Jesus’s aim here. He simply makes the observation that “the children of this world are more shrewd in dealing with the world around them than are the children of the light.” Jesus wants us to be wise in our dealings with the world. Wisdom is the central theme of the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament – a book Jesus would have been very familiar with. Wisdom is a characteristic of God. Jesus is the personification of that wisdom. Jesus is challenging us, as his followers, to be wise. In this parable he calls it shrewdness – to display good judgement, to be smart, to be intelligent, astute.

Balancing that with a moral code can be difficult sometimes. I have been thinking about Bonhoeffer lately, the German theologian who ended up involved in a plot to kill Hitler. How did he balance that with his understanding of God’s command not to kill? He needed the wisdom that only God could give him, and realised, I believe, that the choice before him was not one between a good action (not to kill Hitler) and an evil action (to assassinate him), but between two evil actions – to kill Hitler (the lesser evil) or to let him kill millions of others (the greater evil). Bonhoeffer chose the lesser evil, though it did not succeed, and the greater evil seemed, at least temporarily, to triumph, not least in the arrest and execution of Bonhoeffer himself.

Jesus was speaking to people on the dusty roads of Roman Palestine millennia before Bonhoeffer or Hitler was born. But he was addressing similar problems. How do we gain the wisdom to make the decisions that confront us every day? How do we become shrewd? Such decisions are not always easy, they are not always black and white, they are not always clear cut.

I believe, and this is something that I have learned from Bonhoeffer, that we can only gain such wisdom from a living relationship with Jesus, bringing our questions and dilemmas to him each day, asking him in prayer how to manage the situation, reading, studying and meditating on the words of God that we have written down in the Bible. Yielding to the intelligence of the Holy Spirit and allowing that Spirit to suffuse our hearts and minds.

In this story that Jesus told there is a guiding principle which guides the dishonest manager – it is to “use … worldly resources to benefit others and make friends.” The motivation for the manager’s actions is essentially self centred, that is quite clear, but making friends, Jesus seems to be saying, is never a bad thing. As followers of Jesus we should not use dishonest means to achieve the end of benefitting others and making friends, but we should use the resources available to us. The question of our motivation is fraught. Do we do it for our sakes or for theirs? Are we concerned for God’s kingdom or ours?

The questions of life go on and on. Understanding our situations and ourselves and the people around us is a lifelong task. But for me there are three take home messages from this parable.

Work for the benefit of others. Make friends. Be wise.

Parables 11. Lost son

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To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story: “A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons. A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything. When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.” So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’ But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began. Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, and he asked one of the servants what was going on. ‘Your brother is back,’ he was told, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’ The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, but he replied, ‘All these years I’ve slaved for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the fattened calf!’ His father said to him, ‘Look, dear son, you have always stayed by me, and everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’” Luke 15:11-31 NLT

So much has been said about this parable over the two millennia since Jesus told the story, that it seems odd to be thinking I could say anything more. My aim, however, is not to say anything that has not been said before, but rather to read it listening to what God might be saying to me, here and now. That is the goal of all these reflections that I write, and I know that if I was to read the same story a year from now, then the thing that the Holy Spirit highlights might be completely different from what follows. The lovely thing about Bible reading, and asking the Holy Spirit to direct my thoughts, is that I realise that God always has something to say to me. I realise at the same time that God is doing just the same thing for countless millions of other individuals who are also opening their Bibles today. Many stories are familiar, yet I never get bored. Each time I read them again, God speaks to me personally and individually. That is an amazing thought, and an amazing experience.

This parable, so familiar, with its basic message of “welcoming the prodigal,” tells a story and represents an ideal that we have heard so many times that it seems almost intuitive to us now, self evident. Of course any loving parent would welcome home a child who had gone astray. Isn’t that what love is? Isn’t that what it means to be a parent?

Yet I am fairly sure that this is not the way Jesus’s listeners would have heard it. To them what Jesus was saying was scandalous. And if we are honest, and take a step back from the familiar and reflect a little on what is happening here, we probably react in very much the same way. My own initial reaction is, “why would this father waste his time on such a profligate?”

The scenario this story presents is not so unfamiliar. There are two brothers: one who does the right thing, working hard, accepting responsibility, making a meaningful and worthwhile contribution, putting aside his own desires for the sake of the family business, doing his best not just for himself but for others; and one who does the wrong thing, an opportunist pursuing a path of instant gratification, immersing himself in the here and now with no thought for the future or for consequences, taking what he neither earned nor deserved and using it to “have fun” to “feel good” and to “live his best life.”

Then there is the father, who must have found himself wondering where he went wrong, what could have happened that made things turn out the way they did. He sees these two boys, both of them dearly loved by him, but taking such different paths. He has worked his whole life to give them the opportunities they need to make lives for themselves. He treats them equally, gives them both what they think they need to build those lives. One task it as a cash advance, the other takes it in assets. The one who takes cash however, does not use it to make wise investments, buy a business, get established and build a life, but instead spends it all on having a good time. The other uses what he has got to invest in the future. Is Jesus giving his listeners a lecture in how best to build a successful life? It seems not. He has more important things to say. We know the outcome of these two boys’ actions, but why do they act so differently with what they are each given?

I see myself in both of these boys. There have been times when I have “done the right thing,” working hard for worthy goals, delaying gratification for the sake of others and for myself. There have been other times when I have thrown caution to the wind and lived for the moment, with no thought for the future. I have never really sunk as low as the prodigal, but neither have I achieved the success of the hard working brother. I have had the same kind of reactions as each of them in different situations – shame at my own failure, and and indignation when I see others who have made less effort than me getting everything without doing anything.

But this parable is really more about the father than about either of the sons. It’s true we see ourselves in the parables, but often Jesus was using his parables to teach people about the kingdom of heaven, and about the “king of heaven,” rather than about ourselves. I don’t think Jesus was telling the stories of these two young men to teach us how to build a successful life. This is not a moral tale to teach us the depths of degradation that can come from wild irresponsible living, or the temptation to pride and self righteousness that can come from working hard for success, though of course we see both those things. Nor is it a cynical view of a world where some do everything wrong and still get rewarded, while others do everything right and never receive any recognition.

I think Jesus was simply pointing out that we see both kinds of people in the world, we recognise both kinds of lifestyle, and we react to such people in the same way as his listeners did. We are quick to judge, to see the faults in both kinds of people, not just the younger reprobate, but also the older self-righteous bore.

But Jesus describes a father who has a different response to the lost – because the more I think about it, the more I see both sons as “lost.” The one is lost in physical degradation, the other in spiritual degradation. The father welcomes his messed up, broken son home with open arms and celebrates. Then he speaks with tenderness and kindness to the indignant older son, and does not exclude him from any of the benefits of his love, welcoming him to the same party.

Perhaps there is a difference in attitude on the part of the two sons – one is overwhelmingly grateful for his father’s graciousness, the other grumpily attends what he sees as his rightful reward. There is no doubt which of the two feels the most “blessed.” It makes sense of the well known saying of Jesus, “blessed are the poor in spirt, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

If we are more like the prodigal son, we have plenty of reasons to feel grateful. If we are more like the older son, we need to be on our guard against attitudes and actions that will separate us from our Heavenly Father – we might even be at greater risk of losing him than the prodigal. But regardless of which son we identify with, we are each of us called to see the people around us the way the father saw his sons – welcoming the messy ones into our homes and our lives, loving them with a fierce love, celebrating with them, but treating the successful ones with tenderness and kindness, not because of their success, but because they are people too, at just as much risk of damnation, but in just as much need of love, acceptance and affirmation.

Parables 10. Lost coin

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“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents.” Luke 15:8-10 NLT

Just as in the previous parable about a lost sheep, the lost coin in this illustration represents the “bad people” of society, the ones that are avoided by good respectable citizens. Focussing on coins gives us more understanding of how God sees us, whether we be among the nine coins that are not lost, or if we be the one. It gives us a better understanding of how we should view society if we are to have the “worldview” of Jesus.

First, every one of these coins is silver. They are all of equal value. The one that is lost is not worth more than the others, but neither is it worth less. All through history some people in the community have been viewed by others as being of less value. At times they are seen as a nuisance, at times as dangerous. They are sometimes ignored, sometimes feared, sometimes treated with contempt. They are sometimes “written off” and at some of the most frightening points in history they have been the victims of eradication, either by removal or by destruction. Human wisdom has repeatedly tried to rid the world of the “bad people” and continues to do so. Think of the horrendous pogroms, the genocides, of the last century, or the Highland clearances, the Irish famine, not to mention the colonial atrocities of the century before – but these are not unusual – humans have even treating each other this way for as long as history has been recorded.

The way God views people is, however, different from the way people view each other. For Jesus, every person is of equal value, every person is like a silver coin, and everyone is worth finding and saving, and when recovered and brought home, every one is worth celebrating. Do we treat people that way – valuing every individual equally, whether they be young or old, rich or poor, able bodied or disabled, black or white, rich or poor, beautiful or ugly, success or failure?

But there is a second lesson to learn from this parable, and that has to do with prioritisation. While the woman is searching obsessively for the “lost coin” the other nine are ignored. They are, of course, safe and sound, and don’t need her the way the lost coin does. But the nine could very well feel ignored, neglected, even forgotten.

Jesus is teaching us something important here. There will be times when it will be necessary to prioritise the lost, the broken, the marginalised, the disadvantaged. Sure it may look as if they are getting too much attention, too much special treatment, too much privilege – and the majority may indeed feel put out, indignant, especially as these “lost coins” are not the sort of people we should be prioritising anyway. Haven’t they forfeited their right to be treated equally anyway, given their notoriety, their “sinfulness”?

Not according to Jesus. And that is his point. He will go after them, and he will keep searching until he finds them and brings them home. Then there will be celebration in heaven.

He wants us to be the woman in this story. He himself is the woman in this story. He wants us to be like him.

Parables 9. Lost sheep

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If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away! Luke 15:4-7 NLT

The context of this story was the following description of what was happening in Jesus’ life at that time:

Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them! So Jesus told them this story… (Luke 15:1-3)

There is so much we can learn from this.

First, it is fascinating that tax collectors and notorious sinners were interested in Jesus’ teaching. How interested are the “notorious sinners” of our day interested in what we, as Christians teach? Not very, would be my immediate answer. Most have written Christianity off as irrelevant, outdated, curious, even dangerous – often without looking at the teachings of Jesus at all. They are just following the prevailing and generally uninformed narrative of the Western world.

Should we then try to make our message more interesting, attractive, acceptable to the modern listener? I believe the answer is yes, but to do that we need to become caught up in the extraordinariness of what Jesus taught, because when we are passionate about his teachings it will be contagious. The mistake we must not fall into is listening to the watching world to try to gauge what they want, then changing Jesus’ message so that it appeals to contemporary sensibilities. That will lead to a gospel which is neither powerful, nor good news, but insipid and fawning. Better to let the radical message of Jesus confront, offend, challenge those who hear it. There are few who will get bored then.

Second, what is the radical message that Jesus spoke in this parable? Simply this, that Jesus is focussed on the lost, just as the shepherd in the parable was focussed on the lost sheep.

Two things stand about “the lost” in this parable. The first is that it represents “notorious sinners and tax collectors” – who were the despised of Jesus’s day. Who are the “notorious sinners” of our day? Think about that for a moment, because even in our “permissive society” there are certain individuals who are despised – white supremacists, misogynists, right wing extremists, pedophiles, murderers, die addicts…. the list goes on. “Tax collectors” could stand for government corruption: there is no end of conspiracy theories about the “deep state,” the “intellectual elite,” not to mention simply crooked politicians, for us to understand the kind of people Jesus was spending time with. The Pharisees of Jesus’s day were incensed that Jesus could even speak to such people. The Pharisees of our day will be quick to condemn us if we give such reprobates our time or attention.

The second is that this sheep that the shepherd went out after was just one of a hundred. Not very democratic. Surely the majority should receive the most time and attention, not the minority. But Jesus seems to indicate that it is worth leaving the ninety nine to fend for themselves and focussing all his attention on the one. If we have ever been “the one” we know the embarrassed wonder of being the centre of God’s attention. Why would God care for me, when there are so many others in this teeming world to be cared for? Yet that is so very like Jesus. He prioritises the one that is in need, whoever that might be, even the notorious sinners. He brings the lost sheep home, and then calls all around to rejoice with him over the one that has been restored.

As so often in Jesus’s teaching, this parable does not just show us what God is like, but shows us what we should be like. Do we have that same focus on the lost and needy, though they may be a small minority of the whole? Are we as unafraid of the nasty, the corrupt, the evil, in society as Jesus was, as willing to spend time in the worst possible company, the hardest places, to bring light into the darkness?

That is what it will take if we are to be like Jesus.