Friends
Peace be with you.
The other day, I was sitting in my office and I realized I needed to ask Shannon a question. I saw a receipt on my desk that needed to be turned in and a book that needed to go back on my bookshelf on my way out the door. I walked to my mailbox past the candy bars and resisted the temptation to grab the tiny Milky Way which sat at the top of the glass jar. Nonetheless, I continued on to the mailboxes and dropped the receipt into Tom’s mailbox before noticing that there were several pieces of new mail in my mailbox. I sorted through them, throwing out the junk mail and quickly opening the one bill that was in the stack. My cell phone buzzed in my pocket so I pulled it out and noticed that my friend sent me one of his daily comedy messages on facebook messenger. I turned the corner to Shannon’s desk and looked across the alley and remembered that I forgot to bring something from my house that morning that I was going to need for an upcoming meeting. I then turned my attention to Shannon, resolving that my next step would be to go across the alley to my house to get what I needed and I realized that I had no idea what the question was that had started this whole process. I stood there with this blank look on my face. Did it have something to do with Milky Way candy bars or the mail? No, neither of those. I walked back to my office in an attempt to jog my memory. I sat down at my desk because I felt like it had something to do with something on my computer but I couldn’t, for the life of me, remember what it was. The good thing was that, after a couple of minutes of looking, I realized what the question was so returned directly to Shannon’s desk to ask her and then went back to my office feeling like I still was forgetting something…a feeling that would be fulfilled when I went to a meeting that night without a form which was still sitting in my apartment.
Does this ever happen to you? It seems to happen to me a lot, to the point where I’ve worried that I may be prematurely losing my memory. Thankfully, my previous doctor told me that I’m simply trying to do too many things at one time and my memory can only hold about six or seven things at any given time.
You know what I didn’t do when I finally remembered the question I needed to ask Shannon? Call the staff together and celebrate. That’s the irony of Jesus’ two short parables in today’s gospel. A man has a hundred sheep and he loses one. Now, it’s absolutely ridiculous that the man would leave 99 sheep alone in search of a lost one when you think about it. I’ve always imagined that the shepherd just left the 99 under the protection of another shepherd or a paid laborer but that’s not what’s implied. In this parable, the ninety nine sheep are in danger while he’s looking for the one that just wandered away such that, when he found it, he’s undoubtedly relieved but probably also quite annoyed, enough that the last thing he’s thinking about doing is celebrating. Or, think about the woman with ten cents who searches everywhere for one lost coin. It wasn’t stolen, it was simply misplaced by her carelessness. If I celebrated every time I found something I’d lost by carelessness, I wouldn’t get anything done in the day and, quite rightly, people would be annoyed with me. In both cases, the reaction the people have, “Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep” or “my lost coin” is silly. They would have, at best, felt relief but they probably wouldn’t want to draw too much attention to the fact that she can’t keep track of ten cents or he can’t keep his sheep safe.
But, thankfully, that’s not how God thinks. God rejoices over a sinner who repents, even a foolish one, even more so than over all those who don’t need to repent. We may feel unworthy of God’s forgiveness, like we haven’t fully repented or like we aren’t as sorrowful as we need to be, but God wants to celebrate our forgiveness with him in the sacrament of reconciliation. What’s stopping us from feeling a little foolish and celebrating God’s forgiveness?
