Passage: Matthew 18:12-14
Speaker: Rev. Vivian McCarthy, Pastor
Series: What Did Jesus Ask?
Category: Jesus' Teachings
Keywords: discipleship , lost , outreach
In Matthew 18:12-14, Jesus was teaching the disciples that it was essential to reach out beyond the majority or the “in-crowd” to show love and care for those on the margins of life – the minority. Take a look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1qtv7uKUlY
Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord; The Heart of Worship; You Are Holy , just to name a few. He will tell you he is a songwriter and singer and performer -- not a theologian. Yet he nailed his meditation on this question that Jesus asked. He did what we need to do every time we look at a biblical story – he looked at the context.
So, before I go too far down that track, I want to tell you that this story is told in both Matthew and Luke and that the context makes quite a bit of difference. In Luke, the audience is tax collectors, sinners and the Pharisees who are muttering – their best tone! There isn’t a lot more context in Luke. It is told just before the story of the woman who lost a coin and the man who lost his son. The emphasis in Luke seems to be on comfort for those who know they need God and the assurance that God will always seek after us and delight when we come back.
In Matthew, Jesus is talking to the disciples
Michael W. Smith writes this:
Jesus does what he always does: he disappoints our appetite for power and intrigue.
He reaches for a child. He said, “Unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom.”
That was his secret? That was his plan for world domination? We must become like children. Humble, open, obedient, joyful, risk-taking children.
He then goes on to reprimand and warn the disciples against overlooking the “weak “ and the simple.
And that brings us to his final point – [the question about leaving the 99 sheep to go look for the lost one.]
The question says a lot of things to us, too many for me to enumerate here, but the one that strikes me to the core is the reckless inefficiency of the shepherd’s response…
What kind of shepherd would put the whole flock at risk to go after just one weak, misguided sheep?
I can’t support the logic of such a decision. But I can stand behind the results.
See, I was the one.
I was the sheep who lost my way. And I am so grateful that God was “reckless” enough to come find me.[1]
Remember friends that Jesus is talking to the disciples – not the crowd, not the Pharisees. May I tell you that I sometimes feel this terrible urgency about how we shape disciples in our congregation? To be more like Christ? I say that because I wonder if Jesus was feeling that, too. I think he must have suspected that his time for ministry would not be long and he needed to teach the disciples everything he could in a short period of time because they would need to carry the message and teach others how to live like Jesus. I haven’t always felt that kind of urgency. Maybe it’s partly my age. Maybe it’s that the church – every church – needs to be different if we are going to reach the 2 generations that are in many ways lost to the discipling influence of the church. Young adults and youth who see church people as unloving, judgy and uncaring for a world in need. And when they see us turn away people who are in pain or in desperate need, they simply can’t see Jesus in that and walk away.
Some of you have asked me the “inside story” when some United Methodist churches have closed – why the conference did that to them. Most of the time, the churches that close have simply died. The people have gotten older and have died without bringing along the next generations. Or the church resolutely refused to change along with the community. We often insist on having things our own way.
Jesus knew that the disciples needed to know how to reach out – to risk meeting those who are in the minority.
Michael W. Smith wrote that we have
“a ‘more-than-enough God.’ A God so extravagant in his love that he leaves the majority to reach the minority.
And as I travel this planet, I see a world that is confused and hurting.
I see the one sheep. I see them everywhere. What can we do to go find them? To love them?
I think this is a question Jesus is asking the world. Will we lay down our ideas of self-importance and efficiency and do one act of extravagant love today? Tomorrow? The next day?
He did it for us.
I can’t speak for you, but I know how I hope to answer his question.”[2]
[1] What Did Jesus Ask? Copyright © 2015 by Time Inc. Books. From Chapter If a man owns a hundred sheep… page 46
[2] Ibid, pg. 47
