More Joy In Heaven (Luke 15:7)

 


Monday, March 24, 2025


Psalms 56; 57

Genesis 46:26-47:12

Luke 15:1-10


Observance: Oscar Romero, archbishop of San Salvador (d. 1980)


More Joy In Heaven (Luke 15:7)


Today we begin a dive into some of Jesus’ most well-known and most beloved parables. The idea of God as our shepherd, going out into the open country until he finds us, is of such comfort that superlatives defeat us. Same too with the woman searching the house, seeking diligently until every last one of us has been brought into God’s kingdom.


But let us be particular about these images Jesus is using. First, he speaks of a shepherd and his sheep. Then, as now, sheep and money are pretty much the same thing. A single sheep can do a lot: a lifetime of wool, or a prize breeder to make more sheep, or food for many families for a long time. A single sheep is a valuable thing, and if this were not a parable – that is, a story about heavenly things – we might miss out on the soul comfort and only see financial concern.


Which leads us into the next parable, which is explicitly about money. The woman has ten silver coins, and loses one: our coins are cheap metal, but imagine having even one made of silver, let alone ten. Anyone would turn on the lights and turn over the house just to find one that was lost!


Yet these two stories are parables. Jesus wants us to use the imagery to help us see through them to the heavenly lesson. And so if we can be so frantic over our own wealth, how much more is the Lord concerned over his wealth. Wait, hang on – what does this say about what the Lord considers his wealth to be?


God has everything; he needs nothing. And yet we are his treasure, his jealously guarded wealth. And he will not rest until he has gathered us all to him. If we were lost for words at the first reading, then we certainly have no more words now. All the stains on us; all the burdens we carry; all the evil we delight in; the short wisp of time we are alive on this earth – we are his treasure. He searches us out without rest until he has gotten us and brought us back to him, all out of his great love for us.


How do you see yourself? How does God see you? How does Christ’s death on the cross for your sins tell you how much you are worth to God?


God our Shepherd, who lights the lamp and sweeps the house and searches diligently until we have been returned to you: reveal to us your great love for us, not from anything we have done, but simply because you are the God of love.

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