Beyond the Familiar!

Thursday, November 5, 2026

Phil 3: 3-8a; Lk 15: 1-10

Today’s Gospel takes human goodness for granted. 

Jesus gives us two parables: the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin. As we all know, both of them highlight God’s mercy, His concern for the lost, and the joy of finding what went missing or was lost. While this is what everybody understands and appreciates, there is something beyond what looks often familiar.

Jesus constructs his parables in such a way that they take fundamental human goodness for granted. As such, these two parables appeal to natural human goodness. His anthropological vision is quite positive that he wants his audience to discover the positive vision of humanity, constantly advanced by the Kingdom of God. This is how Jesus wants to spread the ripples of goodness. 

The first parable of the lost sheep shows a shepherd who goes after the one sheep that goes astray, leaving the ninety-nine behind. While we know every reasonable person would search for the missing one, worry about its safety, and make every effort to bring it back, abandoning the ninety-nine just to find the lost one seems unbelievable. But Jesus speaks in praise of the radical love of the shepherd. 

What is more, Jesus shows that his friends and neighbors share the mind of the shepherd and his joy without challenging his decision. In the parable, nobody questions whether leaving the ninety-nine sheep behind to search for just one was worth the risk. Nor does anyone wonder why the shepherd is making such a celebration over one sheep. The same argument and reasoning holds good for the second parable of the lost coin as well.

What Jesus tries to achieve here is something amazing. He does not merely tell us about a shepherd, whose love is extraordinary and radical. He also imagines a community that is capable of receiving and celebrating such generous love. Thus, Jesus takes human goodness for granted. The community’s capacity to rejoice in another person’s happiness and to appreciate an extraordinary gesture of love is also taken for granted by the Lord. 

This is how Jesus reveals the heart of God. If the Pharisees and scribes begin to complain that the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to Jesus, his parables reinforce the idea that God’s generous love is not conditioned by calculations of worthiness or usefulness. God’s loving heart is blind to the human economy of merit. God’s mercy and compassion are unconditional and infinite. That is the God that Jesus highlights through his parables. 

Now Jesus wants his audience to imitate such a God without hesitation, so goodness becomes our natural instinct and response. 

Let us pray for a heart that imitates God’s own, spreading goodness and love. 

Fr. Dhinakaran Savariyar