Growing Young: Empathize

Jesus cared about people nobody else cared about.  Luke 15:1ff says that tax collectors and sinners were gathering around Jesus to hear him.  People on the margins of society were attracted to Jesus.  Maybe it was because they felt his love for them.  Maybe it was also that Jesus condemned their religious leaders while never condemning them!  

Verse 2 says that the scribes and Pharisees started grumbling about the fact that Jesus hung around with such people, and even ate with them!  It was scandalous.  These people were to be condemned, not welcomed and loved!

Jesus responded by telling three of his most unforgettable parables: The Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son.  In the first of the three, he pictures a shepherd who leaves behind 99 sheep to hunt one that was lost.  One sheep out of a big flock doesn't seem like much.  But this one sheep was valuable to the shepherd.  When he finds the lost sheep, he puts it on his shoulders and takes it home.  He gathers his friends and has a party to celebrate the sheep's return. 

Of course, the lost sheep in this parable represents the sinners, and the shepherd represents God.  The point of the parable is that Jesus is reaching out to marginal people because God cares about them.  Jesus was able to empathize with the plight of "sinners."

To reach emerging adults, we need to empathize with them.  This doesn't mean that we like all they do, but that we come alongside them and seek to understand their plight.  When we see life as they do, we understand them better, and can help them find identity, belonging, and purpose in relationships with Christ and his church.