Thirteenth Sunday After Trinity
“there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”
Summary
The story of the lost sheep in Luke 15:1-10, reassures us that, whatever wrong turns we take, we still belong to God. But it also tells us that if we belong to God, we also belong to each other. The one and the ninety-nine need to be reunited. Jesus addresses this story, not to the one lost sheep, but to the “99 righteous persons”, who have neglected to search for the missing one and are incomplete without it.
The story of God’s people wandering in the wilderness in Exodus 32:7-14 reverses the situation: here it is not one sheep who has wandered off but the whole people of God who have “turned aside” and followed their own path.
Moses is the one remaining. He is offered the chance to become a great nation but he refuses the blessing unless it is shared with all God’s people. He reminds God that, for better and for worse, they all belong to God, all heirs to God’s promise.
Would it have been easier for Moses to abandon his people to their fate? hell yes! God’s people are not always easy to live with. But faith is not given to us as individuals, it is given to us as a community. A relationship with God is always also a relationship with all God’s people. The one cannot be saved without the many, the many cannot be saved without the one. Just as we all need God, we all need each other. God’s promises can only be enjoyed when all share in them.
FIRST READING
Exodus 32:7-14
The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’ ” The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, and of you I will make a great nation.”
But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’ ” And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.
GOSPEL
Luke 15.1-10
“Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
So he told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
