That Stray Is Me

Tuesday of the Second Week of Advent A-1

Entrance Antiphon Cf. Zec 14:5, 7 Behold, the Lord will come, and all his holy ones with him; and on that day there will be a great light.

Collect O God, who have shown forth your salvation to all the ends of the earth, grant, we pray, that we may look forward in joy to the glorious Nativity of Christ. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Scripture today: Isaiah 40:1-11; Psalm 96:1-2, 3 and 10ac, 11-12, 13; Matthew 18:12-14

What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them should go astray: does he not leave the ninety-nine in the mountains, and go to seek the one that has strayed? And if he finds it, amen I say to you, he rejoices more for that one than for the ninety-nine that did not stray at all. So too it is not the will of your heavenly Father that any one of these little ones should perish. (Matthew 18:12-14)

That Stray Is Me There is an aspect of our Lord’s parable of today that can be misinterpreted. Our Lord is explaining the all‑holy God’s attitude to sinners and he does so by drawing on an example from everyday life. The one who has a flock of sheep goes after the sheep that has strayed and when he finds it he returns rejoicing far more than for the sheep that did not stray at all. God is like that person in his concern for the straying sheep. But we can slip into thinking that it is only the exception that strays. That is to say that, just as in the parable it was one in the hundred that strayed, so too in ordinary life it is — so to say — one in a hundred that strays from God. So we can think. But no. Our Lord was not meaning to give an idea of the number who strayed from the love for and obedience to God. He was speaking of God and of the love that God has for the one who strays. In fact, we might say, to a greater or lesser extent it is only one in a hundred that does not stray at all. Without the grace of the Holy Spirit, man strays from God and this was the very reason why the Son of God became man, because mankind was constantly and inexorably straying from God. Christ died in order to bring together all the scattered children of God, as St John remarks at one point in his Gospel. All had gone astray because of sin and the wages of sin are death. So whenever any of us reads this Gospel reading of today in which our Lord speaks of his searching out the one sheep that has strayed, and of how he returns rejoicing because he has found it, we ought say to ourselves that the straying sheep is I — I myself am the straying sheep. This parable is directed to me. God loves me and has delivered himself up for me. With St Paul every single person ought understand that Christ loves him and wishes to bring him back to his friendship, in which is found eternal life. As our Lord said at the Last Supper, eternal life is this, to know you Father and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Not only does the parable indicate to me my own situation as a straying sinner, but it indicates to me what God is like. Yes, he is the mighty Creator and Lord of all things visible and invisible. But what is especially distinctive about the God of revelation is that he seeks out the straying one and when he has reclaimed that one to his friendship he is full of joy. God yearns for the friendship of each and every sinner. The all‑holy One does not turn away from the one who offends him but wants there to be a reconciliation. How unlike our fallen world this is! When one person commits an offence against another, the offended person expects (understandably) that the one offending will take the initiative to make up in some concrete way. With God, if we offend him by sin, then he himself at great personal cost takes the initiative to draw us back into his friendship. If we stray deliberately or semi‑deliberately, God seeks us out and finds us, inviting us back into his friendship. He loves us so much that he cannot rest, as it were, till we have returned his love. And this is the story of our lives. Our life consists in God’s search for us sinners who have strayed. It may take the best part of a lifetime, but the search for the stray goes on regardless and it may yield its fruitful result only at the last days of life. A husband abuses his wife with sharp and inconsiderate language, neglects his responsibilities as a father, time and again absents himself from home, and fails to practise his Faith. He has strayed badly from the love and service of God. The long‑suffering wife is patient and loyal. God is working through her and pursuing the stray. Finally, during the last year of the husband’s hapless life, he returns to the Sacraments and to the family. He dies practising the Christian faith once again. God has found his stray and returns rejoicing. The wife has been his principal instrument and the whole of their marriage is to be understood in terms of our parable in the Gospel of today.

Moment by moment and day by day we are in the unseen hand of the living Almighty God. We are not just floating embers that eventually pass out. We each of us is immortal, and we are that by the ongoing creative and sustaining action of God. But God does more that this for us. He actively seeks us out if we are straying, and even if we do not appear to be straying, he is still seeking us out, calling us to holiness of life. Let us place ourselves in his gentle keeping.

(E.J.Tyler)

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