Maybe we are the shepherd and the woman. How often do we take inventory of our communities, and upon identifying those who are now “lost” and disconnected from us, take ownership for the role we may have played in their estrangement? In this view, lost-ness does not quarantine “outsiders” from “insiders.” It makes space for “insiders” to own the roles they’ve played in fracturing community and work to reconcile “outsiders.” If religious “insiders” began living that lesson, there would truly be “rejoicing in heaven.”
