He Left the Ninety-Nine

The Gospel isn’t about the crowd. It’s about the one.

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Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?
— Luke 15:4

We live in a world that exalts consensus. Crowd-sourcing. Mob opinion. “The right side of history.” Entire ideologies now hinge on the idea that what the majority believes must be what’s right — and that those who wander from the flock are either foolish, dangerous, or expendable.

But Jesus doesn’t speak that way.

In Luke 15, He begins one of the most famous parables in Scripture: a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep to go find the one that wandered off. And He’s not scolding that sheep. He’s searching. Reaching. Rejoicing.

This is the Gospel.

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You can say what you want about the ninety-nine. You can make a case for the efficiency of staying with them. But Jesus doesn’t. He says the real story, the real party, is about the one who wandered — and the love that ran after them.

I think of my Great Aunt Mae, who used to say: “For the truth I’ll stand one to a hill.”
And she did. She lived that truth when the rest of the hill was empty.

I think of my mother, when asked to distance herself from a relative with “strange views.” She simply said, “What if they’re right?”

It wasn’t agreement. It was humility.

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In today’s world, we’ve trained ourselves to fear the one who leaves the fold. We call them “fringe,” “radical,” “conspiratorial,” “cultish.” But the irony is — the most dangerous people in history were almost never alone. They were surrounded by roaring crowds.

The real danger lies not in isolation, but in mobs who’ve stopped listening.

Jesus says heaven throws a party not when the flock stays together, but when the missing one comes home.

That’s why I don’t buy the idea that the one must always return to the ninety-nine.
Sometimes, it’s the ninety-nine who need to be scattered — until they learn how to love like the Shepherd.

📖 Reflectionary is still on the move… just a little slower than planned.

• Through August 31, posts appeared here on Blogger.

• Beginning in September, Reflectionary: The Word and the Real World is preparing to publish on Substack, alongside my longer-form story project, 45 Winters.

• We’re working out a few account and profile kinks behind the scenes — and once that’s resolved, Reflectionary will run in parallel with 45W, where the two journeys will begin to speak to each other.