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In Matthew\u2019s and Luke\u2019s gospels we find this parable. It is used in different contexts for two different narrative purposes in each. We\u2019ll look at both.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off.\u201d (Matthew 18:12-13)<\/p>\n
\u201cSuppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn\u2019t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, \u2018Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.\u2019 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.\u201d (Luke 15:4-7)<\/p>\n
In Matthew, this saying about 99 abandoned but safe sheep focuses on the vulnerability of the one lost sheep. Matthew prepares the reader by Jesus saying first, \u201cSee that you do not despise one of these little ones.\u201d (Matthew 18:10)<\/p>\n
The context is Jesus\u2019 teaching about children or those most vulnerable in a given society.<\/p>\n
In Jesus\u2019 ancient Mediterranean world, children were at the bottom of the social and economic scale when it came to status and rights. Thomas Carney, in The Shape of the Past: Models of Antiquity, explains:<\/p>\n
\u201cAge division, and commensurate power and responsibility, were hierarchical, sharply demarcated and significant. Authority ran vertically downward. Age and tradition were revered and powerful . . . Early training was harshly disciplined. It was not until early adulthood that the young person began receiving serious consideration as a member of the family group.\u201d (p. 92)<\/p>\n
Here in Greenbrier County, WV, I sit on the board of our Child and Youth Advocacy Center (CYAC). This CYAC brings justice, hope, and healing to children in Greenbrier, and the nearby Monroe and Pocahontas Counties. The CYAC is a nationally-accredited child advocacy center that compassionately and effectively puts first the needs of children who are victims of abuse. In a society where those with access to resources have greater power and social control, children have access to neither power nor resources. In Western society, children have no independent access to the typical avenues to power and self-determination: education, income, or work. They are the most vulnerable to abuse and neglect so child advocacy and children\u2019s rights are much needed. Whatever discrimination we speak of on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability, color, or ethnicity, we must remember that all of these discriminations are significantly compounded when they apply to children who depend on others for both their survival and their thriving.<\/p>\n
Matthew points to the singular lamb that receives the shepherd\u2019s preferential option for the most vulnerable in his flock\u2014the \u201clittle ones\u201d Jesus taught about.<\/p>\n
Gustavo Guti\u00e9rrez often states that Jesus\u2019 preferential option for the vulnerable is 90% of liberation theologies, and it\u2019s this preferential option that we come face to face within our passage. What does \u201cpreferential option\u201d mean?<\/p>\n
The world of society\u2019s most vulnerable is a world of both poverty and death. Poverty, in most societies, means death before one\u2019s time. Societal vulnerability comes in multiple forms and has different causes, but is characterized by certain ones in a community being considered less than, other, insignificant, or less human. They become dehumanized and objectified. Vulnerability can be simply economic or can also involve gender, race, gender identity and sexual orientation. Because it is complex, vulnerability demands more than individual acts of charity: it requires the work of justice. As I am fond of saying, the prophets did not call for charity; they called for justice. Our tools must help us to identify and then actively resist the unjust structures that cause societal vulnerability.<\/p>\n
So when liberation theologians speak of a preferential option for the vulnerable, they do not mean that it is optional. Option, in this case, means a commitment. It means to opt for this rather than that. In our passage, we see a teaching that calls us to choose the side of the vulnerable people in our societies.<\/p>\n
Making certain ones vulnerable to benefit others at their expense wounds the entire society. Their vulnerability can only be healed by us \u201cchoosing\u201d solidarity alongside the vulnerable. And that is where the preferential part comes in. By \u201cpreferential\u201d we mean who should first have our solidarity? The preferential option means subscribing to Jesus\u2019 vision for society where the last become first and the first become last. Jesus\u2019 followers are to stand in preferential solidarity with the \u201cpoor,\u201d the \u201chungry,\u201d and those who \u201cweep\u201d (Luke 6:20-21)<\/p>\n
The passage in Matthew calls each of us to stand in solidarity with the ones who are vulnerable rather than remaining safe in our social status among the ninety-nine who are not threatened.<\/p>\n
Luke\u2019s use of this saying is similar but different. He uses this saying to explain why Jesus is standing in solidarity with people whom some of the more popular religious leading voices of his day said are unclean, are sinners, and should be marginalized.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, \u2018This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.\u2019\u201d (Luke 15:1, 2)<\/p>\n
The use of the label \u201csinners\u201d in the gospels is specific, not universal. Christians today, especially evangelical Christians see the label of \u201csinner\u201d as applying to everyone. In the Jesus stories, there\u2019s a cultural context for the label \u201csinner.\u201d It was used to refer to Jewish people who were not living up to contemporary interpretations and definitions of Torah observance.<\/p>\n
In Luke, these \u201csinners\u201d are responding positively to Jesus\u2019 economic teachings while the wealthy progressive Pharisees are not.<\/p>\n
Luke 5:27-28: \u201cAfter this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. \u2018Follow me,\u2019 Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luke 19:1-9: \u201cJesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, \u2018Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.\u2019 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, \u2018He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.\u2019 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, \u2018Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.\u2019 Jesus said to him, \u2018Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Now contrast those passages with this one.<\/p>\n
Luke 16:14: \u201cThe Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ched Myers does an excellent job of distilling for us the social and political positions of the Pharisees in the Gospels. The scholarly evidence can be found in his book Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark\u2019s Story of Jesus (see pages 75-78 and 431). What I had missed in my modern reading is that one of the tensions between the Pharisees and the Sadducees in the Jesus story was political power from their interpretations of the purity codes. (We\u2019ll unpack this in detail next week, too.) The Sadducees kept a tight rein on political power by maintaining a more conservative interpretation of purity that keeps them firmly centered as social elites and sole community decision-makers.<\/p>\n
By contrast, the Pharisees sought to gain political power by opening up the definitions of purity to more people but still leaving themselves in control of determining who was \u201cclean\u201d and who was \u201cunclean.\u201d The Pharisees\u2019 interpretation of purity according to the Torah was much more progressive or \u201cliberal\u201d, and therefore gave access to more people than the Sadducee\u2019s interpretations did, but it still left them holding all the reins. It was, therefore, more popular with the masses than the Sadducee interpretation and was what gave the Pharisees their social power.<\/p>\n
But whereas the Sadducees appealed to the upper-class elites, the Pharisees appealed to those we would today call \u201cmiddle class,\u201d and the poor masses were still unclean and therefore excluded. Jesus emerged within Galilee as a prophet of the poor. The Gospels are an effort to convince readers that \u201cthe Pharisaic social strategy practice, that it is not the populist alternative it seems, but merely a cosmetic alternative to the oppressive clerical hierarchy.\u201d Jesus does this repeatedly in the stories by \u201craising a deeper issue concerning the place of the poor in the [Pharisaical] social order\u201d (Ibid. p 431).<\/p>\n
This brings to my mind the reality I\u2019ve witnessed within more progressive strands of modern Christianity. A Christian group or ministry can be very progressive compared to others, but still be racist, sexist, heterosexist, classist, or capitalist. The label of \u201cliberal\u201d is not synonymous with liberation, and \u201cprogressive\u201d does not necessarily mean radical.<\/p>\n
Jesus wasn\u2019t a liberal. He taught what could be termed radical liberation. Jesus wasn\u2019t offering people greater access and opportunity in the current domination and\/or competition system, but he rather offered an entirely new way for people to relate to each other as humans in community. Because he repudiated the then-present system and had an alternative vision for human community, Jesus rejoiced in centering voices long neglected rather than those who through religious ritual perfection and purity located themselves at the center or top of community power structures.<\/p>\n
This has implications for our justice work today as well. There are two types of justice work. One seeks to give people equal access to a competitive system where there will still be winners and losers regardless of race, gender, orientation, or other traits. The other is a type of social justice that seeks to include everyone, yet has a radical vision for a society of no more winners and losers, and cooperation over competition. In the second vision, people aren\u2019t simply given the education and tools required for them to play the game with equal ability. Rather, we call into question whether the game itself is good for humans to play at all.<\/p>\n
Where Matthew focuses on solidarity with the vulnerable, Luke focuses on including those who have been marginalized as unclean outsiders, announcing their inclusion in the shared table that Jesus is promoting. Both Matthew and Luke give us much to ponder in our work today.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are two types of justice work. One seeks to give people equal access to a competitive system where there will still be winners and losers regardless of race, gender, orientation, or other traits. The other is a type of social justice that seeks to include everyone, yet has a radical vision for a society of no more winners and losers, and cooperation over competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[729,7],"tags":[411,1248,1887,2364,1488,2367,16,284,2370,203,753,19,13,1257,450,453,10,1914,22,873],"class_list":["post-1992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberation-theology","category-social-gospel","tag-capitalism","tag-classism","tag-communism","tag-gustavo-gutierrez","tag-heterosexism","tag-justice-work","tag-liberation","tag-liberation-theology","tag-little-ones","tag-marginalized","tag-racism","tag-reparation","tag-resistance","tag-sexism","tag-sinners","tag-socialism","tag-survival","tag-thriving","tag-transformation","tag-vulnerable"],"yoast_head":"\n