Scripture: Luke 15: 1-7
I remember it well, even though it happened over 45 years ago. My mother, my aunt, and my grandmother decided to take all seven of us kids (ranging in age from 2-13) to a little town called Nashville, IN. It’s a little artsy tourist spot and remains much the same to today. Well, we were all going along and with 7 children made the obvious restroom stop. There were three of us who were past 12 and we were supposed to keep an eye on our 3 year old cousin—well, we got distracted by something or another and when everyone came together outside the restroom door, Denise was lost. I shall never forget the feeling of panic that spread through every one of us except, perhaps, her two-year-old brother. Denise was the cutest little rolly polly curly blond, blue eyed little girl. I realized much later why the adults in the group were terrified, she was a walking target for a predator. After we split up, with screaming directions from our usually quite staid and dignified grandmother about how not to get further lost, we all scrambled down the crowded streets to find her. I saw her first—several blocks away holding the hand of a nice looking young man who fortunately intended her no harm. I was with one of her sisters and we both ran for her at the same time. The horribleness of the feeling when she was lost was matched only by the gratitude and relief we all felt when she was found. It’s a family story now, one which I am sure Denise is tired of hearing, but one which reminds us, even 45 years later, of the joy that we felt when she was ‘found”. This is the joy of which Jesus speaks when the shepherd finds the lost sheep. And the joy that I felt when my little cousin was retrieved is magnified one hundred-fold in the joy that Jesus is speaking of when one of God’s own is found.
Now many of us come from traditions where being lost equates in some theological way or another to being a “sinner”, “in sin” or however your earlier tradition may have described it. And the older translations of today’s story seem to support just that. But, today, I want to expand our idea of what it means to be lost and, much more importantly, what it means to be found. If we look specifically at Jesus’ story of the lost sheep, it is easy to get a second read (an expanded read, if you will) about this story. Ninety-nine sheep in this story are safely milling around together in the field. The shepherd realizes that one sheep has become separated from the rest of the herd and from the shepherd herself or himself. This separated sheep is who the shepherd goes to find. And I ask you, have there not been times when you felt separated, different from everyone else in your world? I think not many of us have made it to this place without some sense of being ‘lost’ from our world or ourselves, and maybe even our God.
We use the word lost in just this way—when a friend seems hopeless, alone, in despair—we say “she seems lost”. “A lost soul” causes us to look on in compassion. And so, lost makes more sense for many of us when we look at the separation from God, from each other, and even from ourselves that places us in a ‘lost’ place. For those of you for whom the opposite of lost seems rightly to be saved, please do not hear me trivializing God’s act of salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I am merely expanding upon our understanding of lost, there is no necessity to choose one over the other. For that is the very meaning of the Gospel, that Jesus brings us to a place where all our needs are met in Him, and through Him.
It is always important to look at the context of Jesus’ teachings and in this chapter it is crucial. There were a lot of people who were not ‘socially acceptable’ hanging around Jesus. Charles H. Spurgeon, by all reputation, one of the greatest preachers who ever lived, in a sermon in 1894, interestingly described the crowd around Jesus like this: “OUR Lord Jesus Christ while he was here below was continually in the pursuit of lost souls. He was seeking lost men and women, and it was for this reason that he went down among them, even among those who were most evidently lost, that he might find them. He took pains to put himself where he could come into communication with them, and he exhibited such kindliness toward them that in crowds they drew near to hear him. I dare say it was a queer-looking assembly, a disreputable rabble, which made the Lord Jesus its centre.”
It was an assembly indeed in which many of us would have been quite at home—Spurgeon suggests that these were the lostest of the lost—so lost that Jesus had to associate with folks he might otherwise would not just to be in the same place as they were so they could be found. The religious scholars were criticizing Jesus for being seen with these unfortunate social outcasts. It is in response to their criticism that Jesus tells the three stories that follow in Luke, Chapter 15. He uses an interesting kind of argument—a “what would you do” argument which brought at least silence to their complaints if not agreement. He started with an obvious argument that anyone living in the community could understand—sheep were considered to be one of the most significant signs of a family’s wealth. So losing even one sheep would warrant the shepherd leaving the other sheep safely behind to go search for the one. And indeed one might have called the neighbors to let them know that it was found. The next two parables in His response illustrate with increasing value in each story just how much God rejoices over one of us when we are found. In fact, Jesus didn’t much care about what the religious scholars thought of His ministry—He dismisses their concerns by saying “I am where I am supposed to be”.
Let’s look at my family lost and found story one more time—I imagine many of you have similar stories—found children, found pets, found things. The bottom line is that the story stayed active with my family for almost 50 years because of the joy that we experienced when she was found. Had she not been found or been harmed in some way, the story would, at least in my fairly dysfunctional family, have become a dark secret that no one spoke about. But in the finding, comes rejoicing and in rejoicing comes telling. This is how we pass on the blessing of being found. Many of us here today, have an “I was found” story. If you are still waiting for God to find you, I pray that Open Circle is where you allow God to reach out and pick you up. For we have no need to be lost to God, to each other and to ourselves. Jesus tells us that God wants to find us; that God comes and associates with us, no matter who we are or how badly we feel. Jesus is clear—let those who believe that they have no need for God or God’s people go their own way—Jesus wants to walk and talk and sit with those of us who have experienced great pain, who have been lost, separated from God’s people and, more importantly, separated from who God made us to be. This is the Gospel we hear today—no matter what you have been told before, God made you to be who you are and God loves you—and when you lose your way, God comes looking for you.
I invite you in the following weeks to see yourself more in the role of the shepherd that God is sending out to find those who have not yet heard the message of God’s complete and loving acceptance of all of us. I think you do not have to look far to find someone so scarred by what the Pharisees and religious leaders of today have told them that they are lost to the family of God—for God’s sake, for their sake and for your sake—go find them. Leave this open field where God’s sheep are gathered today and seek out the one who is lost. We have been blessed by being found—may we find the compassion, commitment and fire inside us to go out and seek those who are waiting for this good news—those who are waiting to be found. May we be the ones to welcome them home. Amen and amen.
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