THE LOST SHEEP

PUBLISHED BY
Fr. Deo Camon, LPT, PhD

I was reading an apologia of a Biblical scholar about a recent issue, he mentioned

about the Parable of the Lost Sheep.

It confused me.

I am not a Bible scholar, but I know that the Parable of the Lost Sheep, where the
shepherd left the ninety-nine to find the lost one, is not about tolerance but
repentance.

How do I know? Well, just look at the ending of the parable. It gives the moral
lesson of the story. “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in
heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who
do not need to repent”(Luke 15:7).

The parable was not about tolerance of what is wrong or condemnation of those
trying to be upright. It is about repentance.

The parable is NOT about a shepherd who brought back the one lost sheep to the
fold and lost the ninety-nine who remained.

A good shepherd looks for the lost sheep to bring it back to the fold, not to make
the rest of the ninety-nine look foolish for staying in the fold.

Nowadays, it would seem that the ninety-nine is at fault because they remained
faithful while the lost one is now pampered.

I am baffled by how even the most erudite Biblical scholars can be confused in
what would have been otherwise plain reading.

Maybe that is the effect of being erudite. They tend to complicate what is simple.
And perhaps this is what Jesus was talking all about how God revealed the
message of the Kingdom to the childlike but hid it from the learned.
The radicality of Jesus is not in his tolerance of the sinners but his loving call for
repentance.

It has been the Church’s pastoral principle ever since the time of Augustine that we
need “to love the sinner but hate the sin.” Nowadays, we are no longer making
distinctions. We are not even talking about sin.

This is why I am confused by the opinion that insinuates that the Church was not
merciful in the past. As if mercy has just suddenly appeared lately but was absent
before.

I think the difference is that today we do not anymore follow the pastoral principle
to “love the sinner and hate the sin” because we now “love the sinner by loving the
sin.”

It is the “normalization of sin.”

Of course, we are all sinners. Sometimes, we may struggle for a lifetime to

overcome our habit of sin. But, it does not mean that we stop struggling and just
tolerate our sinfulness.

The confusion lies in the fact that we have come to equate calling sin as judging. It
is not.

I wonder why is it that nobody seems to quote the verses where Jesus said to go
and sin no more (John 8:11, John 5:14, John 8:34, Luke 13:5). Is Jesus judging
here?

Of course not, but still, he did not hesitate to tell the adulterous woman to sin no
more. He did not condemn her, but he did not just turn a blind eye as if the woman
did nothing wrong.

Telling a person to sin no more is not judging.

How can a person “repent” if, in the first place, he or she does not even consider
what he or she is doing as sinful?
Repentance always starts by acknowledging one’s sinfulness. However, in a world
where everyone is trying to be politically correct, “calling a spade, a spade” is
already considered a “hateful speech,” or “judging,” or being “unmerciful.”