Here’s the new perspective on Luke 15 I’m thinking through. You can read the story here. Basically, in the first story Jesus shares, there’s this shepherd who has 100 sheep. One of the sheep wanders off, and he leaves the 99 to go after the one.
Do you know anything about sheep? They aren’t that bright. They’re easily distracted. They don’t intentionally rebel against their shepherd. They just see something cool and wander in that direction. Oooh… yummy green grass.
I think that’s a pretty good description of Christians. We’re under the control of the shepherd, but something distracts us and we wander off and God has to come chase us down. We don’t intentionally rebel against God. We just get distracted and wander off. There are all kinds of distractions: Money, fame, church, sex, worry, religion, insert your distraction here ________.
But what’s so amazing in this story is that God (the shepherd) comes looking for us. He actually abandons the others to go after the wanderer, and when he finds us he doesn’t yell at us and put us in time-out for wandering off. He throws a freakin’ party!
What if, in this story of the lost sheep, the sheep are those who are already followers of Jesus who end up wandering off or drifting away? What if those of us who are in, who are disciples of Jesus, can still get lost? Can you see how this is a new perspective (or maybe I’m just slow)?
(Now before you shoot down my theology make sure you read all the posts. Jesus tells these three stories as a package deal.)
4 comments:
I'm not going to shoot down your theology... I actually have a book you may be interested in that reminds me of this...Who better to make lost (distract) than the Christians... that's the greatest damage to the kingdom because we actually have the power to do something for God. I know I said I related more to the prodigal... but I am usually not just running FROM God... More like running TO other stuff... usually "religious" stuff... perhaps that is my dumb sheep nature coming out, being attracted to the yummy green grass on the other side of the fence.
I'd be interested in the book.
Well you may or may not be interested in the book actually... It's one of those "dreams" books I was telling you about... I'll loan you the book, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up in File 13 along with Viola's stuff!
Honestly, I've never read a "dreams" book. It might be interesting. And I enjoyed Viola's stuff, not that I agreed with it all, but it was very interesting. It made me think about some stuff. I've been meaning to give those books back to you. Sometimes the dementia is well... what was I saying?
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