Luke 15:1-6
Pentecost 12
September 11, 2022
William G. Carter
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable: “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? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”
Somebody heard this was the scripture text for today. They said, “It’s perfect! All the lost sheep have come home.” I don’t know if they were talking about the end of summer; the vacation is over, school has begun, here you are. I don’t know if they have the growing sense that the pandemic has played out, and it’s time to refill the choir loft and welcome back folks to their favorite pews.
Whatever the case, it is good to see you here. Welcome home. The coffee pot is on. We’re going to have a party.
But let's see if the text fits. You don’t look like sheep. None of you are covered in wool. And if anybody were to call you a sheep, it wouldn’t not a compliment. In the animal kingdom, sheep don’t rate very high on the intelligence scale. They aren’t sly like a fox, wise as an owl, or smugly superior as a cat. No, sheep are pretty stupid.
We had a stained-glass window in my first church. Jesus is standing with a shepherd’s staff. There were a few sheep around him and several rocks. It was time to clean up the window, so we hired a specialist. To our amazement, those weren’t rocks at all. They were the painted heads of sheep, looking about as intelligent as the rocks.
So when the psalmist describes us by saying, “We are the people of God’s pasture, the sheep of his hand” (95:7), that is not necessarily a compliment. We hold it in tension with the diagnosis of the prophet Isaiah, who declared, “All we, like sheep, have gone astray” (53:6). And he did say “all of us.”
Sheep have a way of wandering. Years ago, a good friend bought a few sheep. I don’t know what he was thinking. He lived in the suburbs of Atlanta. Maybe he fashioned himself as a gentleman farmer. In any case, he told me one of them was always escaping. It happened while they are grazing. As my friend put it, “They nibble themselves lost.” One begins to chew, chews some more, keeps chewing, and then loses track of where they are and has no clue of how they got there.
It’s not a bad metaphor for what it means to be human. Our appetites often define us. Look around – some of the flock is missing, Maybe they’re sleeping in. Or they were out late last night. Or there aren’t a lot of weekends left to float on Wallenpaupack. It can become a habit for any of us. Call it “nibbling ourselves out of the pasture.”
Three weeks ago, I was preaching an old sermon in Eagles Mere, about an hour and a half west of here. It was the last day of a two-week vacation. A few days before I went up there, I heard a couple of friends who moved away from here almost twenty years ago. They discovered I would be there. They had plans to be there. “Want to have lunch after the service?” Sure! It was delightful. We talked for almost two hours. And they said they hadn’t been in a church for years.
While we were talking, two of our current church members walked through the restaurant. I called out to them. You should have seen the look on their faces! One said, “Are you checking up on us?” The other said, “You caught us playing hooky.” Hey, let’s be real: I was playing hooky too.
We will sing it in the last verse of the next hymn: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love.” Yep, all we like sheep...
In the fifteenth chapter of Luke, there are some religious people who look down on such wandering. They call themselves the Pharisees, which means “the separate ones.” They profess to be different. They desire to be pure. They want so desperately to live in the light of God’s teaching, that they look down on those who have wandered away. Or have been pushed away. Or have felt like God’s teaching makes impossible demands, and they will never live up to them.
The Pharisees hear that Jesus has been spending time with the wanderers. They are offended. Why doesn’t he stay pure – like them?
And Jesus replies, “Have any of you ever had a wandering sheep?”
The Pharisees say, “No!” They would never consider themselves shepherds. Shepherds let their flocks graze on land that doesn’t belong to them. So first-century shepherds were considered thieves. Because of that, they were not welcome in the Jerusalem temple.
So Jesus goes on, “Did you ever hear about the shepherd who lost a little lamb and went after it?”
Ok, that’s admirable – for a shepherd.
And he says, “That shepherd left the rest of his flock alone in the wilderness to go after the lost one.”
Wait – that’s not admirable. That’s reckless. He’s putting the flock at risk to go after the lost one.
And then he says, “When he finds the one lost, he carries it back and throws a party.”
Whoa – a party? That’s wasteful, extravagant, and totally unnecessary.
The sheep should have known better. The sheep should have come to its senses and come home.
But as the scholar Amy Jill Levine of Vanderbilt points out, sheep are incapable of coming to their senses. A sheep cannot “repent,” because it’s a sheep. It must be found, carried back, and celebrated.
I had always believed this was a parable about repentance, about realizing you’ve wandered, and you need to go home. Thanks to Dr. Levine, I’ve seen something else here. And it’s like the short parable that follows it, of a woman who loses a quarter and searches until she finds it. The quarter cannot repent; it’s a piece of metal. So both parables are not about getting lost and repenting; they are about getting found and being celebrated.
To reframe this whole conversation: let’s not obsess about the sheep that gets lost. That happens all the time. Let’s turn our attention to that shepherd, who risks everything to find what has been lost. Could this be a parable of the Gospel announced by Jesus?
Jesus could have played it safe, you know. He could have stayed up on a cloud and played checkers with his Father. But he leaves what was comfortable to go after those he didn’t want to lose.
He could have come to earth and stayed among the Holy People. Or rather, those who had convinced themselves they were holy. Instead he seeks out those who never thought they’d measure up and chooses to eat with them. Steps over imaginary barriers to be with them. He searches for them in order to stay with them. This is a new definition of holiness, one we will never understand if we hide out in a church. God steps out of the comfortable cloister. God goes looking for us. That’s the good news.
If only we had been paying attention when we read the first couple of pages of the Bible. Adam and Eve, our mythical parents, did something wrong and they knew it. So they hid behind a maple tree. God came strolling through the Garden and didn’t see them. So God called out, “Where are you?” Good question. An old question. It’s the question that never goes away.
Where are you? Oh, there are so many answers. Some are brunching on State Street, others are viewing from home (or say they are). Some may be sick, others disenchanted. Some are nervous about crowds; others are out of the habit of participating. Some might be having fun; others may be annoyed that nobody has found them yet. Who knows?
What I know is that God desires our company. That God desires to gather us in. God believes we are worthy of living in his presence – even to the point of celebrating our return. And it’s not merely a return to these pews or these people – it’s a return to his embrace. It’s the knowledge in heart, soul, and mind that we are loved and wanted – and that God invites us to make a positive difference in his world.
That’s why we are baptizing little Parker today. He is God’s little lamb even before he consciously knows it. Throughout the journey that he undertakes from this day forward, God will be looking for him. Should he ever nibble himself lost, God will go looking for him. Should he wake up and seek for God, that is the proof that God has already found him. His life is held by grace. This is the promise into which he is baptized. Just like the rest of us.
It’s the promise that we hear in one of the Psalms of Israel:
Is there any place I can go to avoid your Spirit? To be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you’re there! If I go to underground, you’re there!
If I flew on morning’s wings to the far western horizon, you’d find me in a minute –
You’re already there waiting. (Psalm 139:7-10, The Message)
One of the privileges of my work is hearing the stories of those lost and found. Someone told me, “I thought I had so much, but didn’t realize how impoverished I was.” That’s a good beginning. Or the person who said, “I had been wandering without purpose, but something clicked and came into focus.” Sometimes it’s the dramatic tale that goes, “My bad habits were causing major wreckage, but one night I woke up.” These days, I listen to for the subtle initiatives, like the person who said, “I don’t how I ever found this church, but here I am.” She didn’t find the church; God found her.
“I was lost but now I’m found” – that’s the plot line of one of God’s favorite stories. And if all of this is about repentance, it’s the kind of repentance that God makes possible. We can run for a while, but we can’t hide. Not really. For we are loved from beginning to end. And the good shepherd will risk everything – even a crucifixion – to make sure we know it.
(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.
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