Sought and Found

A shepherd has a hundred sheep. One goes missing. He leaves the ninety-nine and goes out after it — and when he finds it, he does not scold it. He carries it home on his shoulders and throws a party.

He tells it a second time, about a woman who loses one coin and turns the whole house upside down until she finds it. Two stories, one point: heaven throws a party over one person coming home.

Zacchaeus is short, rich, and hated — he collects taxes for the enemy. He climbs a tree to see Jesus without being seen. Jesus stops underneath it, looks up, and calls him by name.

Two men pray. One lists everything he has done right. The other cannot even lift his eyes, and just asks for mercy. Only one of them goes home right with God — and it is not the one with the list.

Four friends cannot get a paralysed man through the door for the crowd, so they dig through the roof and lower him down. The first thing Jesus deals with is not his legs — it is everything he has been carrying inside.

Jesus calls a tax collector to follow him, then goes to dinner at his house with all his disreputable friends. The respectable people are appalled. Jesus says the sick are exactly who a doctor is for.

Twelve years ill. Every penny spent on doctors, and no better. She reaches for the edge of his coat from behind, hoping to be healed without being noticed. He stops the whole crowd to find her — not to tell her off, but to call her ‘daughter’.

The story her story interrupted: a father whose daughter is dying. Jesus has time for both of them at once — the important man and the woman with no name until he gives her one.

She comes for water in the heat of noon, when nobody else is there — so she can avoid people. Jesus is sitting at the well, and he asks her for a drink. A Jewish man, speaking to a Samaritan woman with a reputation. It was not done.

He knows exactly what her life has been — five husbands, and the man now is not one. He says so plainly, and he does not get up and leave. She runs back to the very town she was hiding from and tells everyone.

Peter has fished all night and caught nothing. Jesus tells him to try again; the nets come up so full they start to break. Peter’s first reaction is not thank you. It is: go away from me, I am a sinful man. Jesus does not go anywhere — he gives him a new job instead.

A man with leprosy — someone nobody was allowed to touch — asks to be made clean. Jesus reaches out and touches him. The touch comes first, before the healing.

Nothing new today. Read the Psalm slowly, or go back to whichever day you missed. Missing days is normal — coming back is the thing.

There is usually a reason a particular one sticks. It is worth asking why that one.

A shepherd who does not drive the sheep from behind. He walks in front, and they follow because they know his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

The difference between a shepherd and a hired hand: when the wolf comes, one runs and one stays. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He is describing what he is about to do.

Nathanael is sceptical and says so out loud — can anything good come from Nazareth? Jesus tells him he saw him sitting under a fig tree before they had ever met. That is all it takes. Nathanael is undone.

Jesus meets Simon and immediately gives him a new name — Peter, the rock. People do not always have to stay what they have been.

A man nobody could chain, living rough among the graves, cutting himself, tormented. By the end he is sitting quietly, dressed, in his right mind. He wants to go with Jesus. Instead Jesus gives him the first job of the new life: go home and tell them what God has done.

What happened on the boat just before: a storm, and a word from Jesus that stilled it. The same voice that calmed the storm calmed the man.

She walks uninvited into a respectable man’s dinner, where everyone knows exactly what she is, and washes Jesus’ feet with her tears. The host is disgusted. Jesus tells a short story about two people who had their debts cancelled — and the one forgiven more, loved more.

Who was actually travelling with Jesus and paying for it all — a group of women, some of whom he had healed. Not who you would expect to be bankrolling a rabbi.

Six verses, and the only entry requirement is being tired. Not sorry enough, not clean enough, not ready. Just weary and weighed down. Come to me, he says, and I will give you rest.

A bruised reed he will not break; a smouldering wick he will not snuff out. He is gentle with things that are nearly broken, careful with flames that are nearly out.

Mary is crying outside the empty tomb. She does not recognise Jesus even when he speaks to her — she thinks he is the gardener. Then he says one word, her name, and she knows him at once.

How the morning began — the stone rolled away, the running, and how slow even his closest friends were to believe it.

Read it slowly — it is this week’s Psalm and it is worth one unhurried read. Or go back to any day you missed.

‘I am fearfully and wonderfully made.’ Say it as though it were true, because it is.

Levi collects taxes for the occupying army — a traitor for money. Jesus says two words, ‘follow me’, and Levi throws a great banquet for him, packed with his disreputable friends. The religious leaders complain. Jesus says the sick are who he came for.

Why you do not sew new cloth onto an old garment, or put new wine in old skins. Some things cannot just be patched — they have to be made new.

A man throws a great banquet. The invited guests all make excuses. So the host sends his servant out to the streets and alleys to bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame — and still there is room. Fill the house, he says.

Just before this, Jesus says where to sit at a feast (the lowest place) and who to invite to yours (those who cannot repay you). Neither answer is the obvious one.

A woman is dragged before a crowd to be stoned, used as bait to trap Jesus. He kneels and writes in the dust, then says one sentence: let the one without sin throw first. One by one they leave, oldest first. He is the only one left who could condemn her — and he does not.

What he says straight afterwards: I am the light of the world; whoever follows me will never walk in darkness. Said to a woman who had just been dragged out of it.

Bartimaeus is blind, begging by the road. He hears Jesus is passing and shouts for mercy. The crowd tells him to be quiet. He shouts louder. Jesus stops the whole procession and says: call him. ‘What do you want me to do for you?’

Moments earlier, two of Jesus’ closest followers asked for the best seats in the kingdom. Compare what they wanted with what the blind beggar asked for.

A convicted criminal, hours from death, with nothing to offer and no time to make anything right. He simply asks Jesus to remember him. Jesus promises him more than he asked: today you will be with me in paradise. No probation, no earning it.

What happens next, and what the hardened soldier standing at the foot of the cross concludes about the man he has just executed.

Peter had denied even knowing Jesus, three times, when it counted. Now the risen Jesus has a fire going and breakfast ready, and asks him one question three times: do you love me? Not to rub his nose in it — to give him back, one for one, what he had lost.

How the morning started — Peter back out fishing, doing the old job he did before any of it began, and Jesus on the shore calling out with breakfast.

Taste and see — not work it out and see, but taste. Try it. This week’s Psalm invites you to test God’s goodness for yourself rather than take anyone’s word for it.

Which story would you tell someone else? Start there — that is usually the one God is using.