Attracting Sinners, Smelling Like Sheep

One of my spiritual disciplines is reading the Bible everyday. Part of that practice is reading through the New Testament over the over throughout the year.[1] Each morning I’ll pick up where I left off, read the text prayerfully (in the spirit of lectio divina) until the Spirit prompts me to stop and reflect on a given passage, insight or idea. Sometimes I’ll read several chapters or pericopes, other times just a few verses.

This morning I was stopped dead in my tracks with a single verse:

Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach.[2]

I couldn’t read on. I wanted to but I couldn’t. I just hung there, suspended in time with this single idea. Notorious sinners often came to hear Jesus teach.

For some reason it hit me like a ton of bricks. The biggest sinners in town were drawn to Jesus. They were attracted to him. They couldn’t stay away from him. The very people who were shunned, shamed and ridiculed by the religious establishment, the people who were not welcomed in religious circles, those sinful people who didn’t “fit in” with the religious insiders – these were the people who couldn’t get enough of Jesus.

And Scripture paints a picture as clear as day, Jesus intentionally sought these people out. These were the folks he actually preferred to hang out with. We could even go so far as to say that these were exactly the type of people that he came for. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick,” Jesus said. “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”[3]

Cyril of Alexandria, early church father who strongly influenced the Christological foundations of the faith in the 5^th century asked, “Tell me, O Pharisee, why do you grumble because Christ did not scorn to be with publicans and sinners, but purposely provided for them this means of salvation?”[4] Jesus purposely sought the sinner, the lost, the reject, the rowdy, the unruly, the unchurched so that he could intentionally show them “the way.” This was his audience. These were his people. And they could sense it. That’s why they couldn’t resist him.

Can we say that about the Church today? Can we honestly say that about ourselves? Do we find ourselves surrounded by “sinners”[5] or are we enjoying the company of our little holy huddle? Do we wake up in the morning propelled out of bed by the idea of reaching out to help, to serve, to save the lost? Or are we happy maintaining the institution - building buildings, sitting on committees and keeping “our own” satisfied?

Pope Francis challenges us all in his recent exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel):

The Church which ‘goes forth’ is a community of missionary disciples who take the first step. . . An evangelizing community gets involved by word and deed in people’s daily lives; it bridges distances, it is willing to abase itself if necessary, and it embraces human life, touching the suffering flesh of Christ in others. Evangelizers thus take on the ‘smell of the sheep’ and the sheep are willing to hear their voice.[6]

Let this idea stop us all dead in our tracks.

Are we truly following Jesus? How do we even know? A simply answer is, we’ll be doing what Jesus did – loving the sinner, going after him, being with her, getting out of the comfortable confines of the “acceptable” and reaching out and touching the wounds of the reject, sharing in both the joys and the suffering of the lost. We’ll know that we’re following Jesus when we, to borrow Pope Francis’ words, “smell like the sheep,” and like Jesus, find the sheep willing to hear our voice.

---

[1] I typically delve into the Psalms everyday as well, in addition to daily readings in the New Testament and supplemental spiritual texts. And yes, of course, I read the rest of the Bible too but I’m just being transparent about my daily staples.

[2] Lk 15:1 (NLT).

[3] Lk 5:31.

[4] Cyril of Alexandria, “Commentarii in Lucam,” Opera Omnia, 72.

[5] Of course we all are sinners but you know what I mean.

[6] Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), 24.

The Light of My Life

Jesus tells us, “Your eye is the lamp of your body.”[1] When our eyes are good, Jesus says, our whole bodies are filled with light. I’ve always pondered what that meant. Theologians throughout history have reflected on this passage, suggesting that what Jesus was really getting at was simplicity of mind.[2] When we are singularly focused on the good (or in this case the ultimate Good), God’s light can then pervade every part of our lives.

We can see this in Jesus’ statements about the kingdom: “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you”(Mt 6:33, Lk 12:31). When our sole purpose is aligning ourselves to this kingdom, beckoning its coming, participating in its fulfillment through Christ Jesus, the rest is details. This insight allowed Teresa of Avila to exhort, “Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life, which is short and has to be lived by you alone; and that there is only one glory, which is eternal. If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing.”[3]

There are majors, in other words, and there are minors. “Major in the majors,” Jim Rayburn would say. “Don’t ever let ‘em quit talking about Jesus.” Pope Francis, in his much-awaited apostolic exhortation released yesterday, declares, “I never tire of repeating the words of Benedict XVI which take us to the very heart of the Gospel: ‘Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person [Jesus], which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction.”[4] The ultimate “major,” upon which everything else rests, is a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ.

It’s not about getting people to believe a bunch of doctrines. Pope Francis insists it’s “not obsessed with the disjointed transmission of a multitude of doctrines.” Rather, “the message has to concentrate on the essentials, on what is most beautiful, most grand, most appealing.”[5] It's what Rayburn called "the strongest, grandest, most attractive personality ever to grace the earth."

And what/who is that?

In a word – Jesus. “In this basic core, what shines forth is the beauty of the saving love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ.”[6] This is the underlying truth that sustains our lives. This is the essential message kids need to hear. This is the simple light that illumines the whole. If we get this one essential thing right, everything else follows. “Every expression of true beauty can thus be acknowledged as a path leading to an encounter with the Lord Jesus,” Francis says.[7] The simple light is Christ.

Lord, give us the eyes to truly see you. Let your Light shine into every part of my life. And allow your Light shine through me into the lives of others.

---

[1] Lk 11:34.

[2] Symeon the New Theologian, 10^th century monk and mystic, notes, “The simple light is Christ. He who has his light shining in his mind is said to have the mind of Christ. When your light is this simple, then the whole immaterial body of your soul will be full of light . . . So see to it, brothers, that while we seem to be in God and think that we have communion with him we should not be found excluded and separated from him, since we do not now see his light.” 1 Cor 2:16; 1 Jn 1:6; Discourses 33.2, SNTD 340-41.

[3] The Life of Teresa of Avila, ed. E. Allison Peers (Garden City, NY: Image, 1960).

[4] Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), 7.

[5] Ibid, 35.

[6] Ibid, 36.

[7] Ibid, 167.