Today's liturgical readings are seen very often as a call to repentance - that the justification for Jesus' conduct in eating and drinking with public sinners was to bring them to conversion of heart. Yet there is an even stronger emphasis - that " alive or dead, we belong to the Lord" ( Rom. 14: 8 ) in the kingdom of God.

Both the readings tell us of the nature of this kingdom of God. In Romans, we are told no one is more perfect than any other in the kingdom of God. God is the only one, the one we belong to, who holds sway over us and passes final judgement on us. "We belong to the Lord." This sense of belonging to the Lord is made more explicit by Luke who gives two parables here, both illustrating God's great love for all, even the most ordinary and unworthy. His kingdom and His intervention do not occur in spectacular situations but in the ordinary everyday events of a lost coin or a lost sheep. Failure in our spiritual progress is no hindrance to God's kingdom being established amongst us and cannot hide God's love from us, IF we can also share God's love with all others, sinners or saints. God's relentlessly merciful love is not that of a heavenly accountant, and so His kingdom is for all, the unsuccessful as well as the successful.