Weekly Sermon

Following the Shepherd : September 23, 2001

The Reverend Anne Benefield

Luke 15:1-11

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. "Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." Prayer: Lord God, our Good Shepherd, in the past 12 days there have been times when we were as scattered and lost as a flock of sheep without a shepherd, yet you are with us. May we be open to your word that it might comfort, reassure, and strengthen us in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. This passage was the lectionary passage for last week. I couldn't preach on it because I wasn't ready . I couldn't get past my need to be comforted and reassured that God was our refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble. I felt like I was lost. It was hard to remember was that I wasn't alone. Some ministers were able to preach on this passage. One of them was a Catholic priest who was interviewed on the radio. The news reporter said to the priest, "If Jesus were preaching on the lost sheep and the lost coin this morning, what do you think he would have said?" The priest answered, "I think the Lord would have added a third parable. He would have said, 'And which one of you, if you were a firefighter, would not have gone back in to search for the lost in that burning tower?" Perhaps the events of September 11, 2001, were so unsettling because each of us knows we might have been lost on one of the planes, in one of the towers, or in the Pentagon. The horror was too close to home for us. We couldn't draw a line between us and those everyday people who were lost that day. One of the difficult things now is that we still feel a little lost. What makes the parables we've heard today so meaningful is that feeling lost is something everyone experiences some time. The fifteenth chapter of Luke, which includes the two parables we just read about the lost sheep and the lost coin as well as the parable of the prodigal son, has been called the "Gospel within the Gospel" for in these stories we learn the most important things we need to know about God. We learn that in Jesus Christ, God goes searching for the lost, God never gives up until He finds the lost, God carries the lost back to safety. God cares enough to look for us; God can be trusted to keep looking for us; and God's plan is to restore us. As Jesus teaches about the way God behaves, he invites us to follow God's example. He challenges his listeners to see themselves as the good shepherd by saying, "Which one of you…" He is speaking directly to us, "which one of us…" Since in the parable of the lost sheep Jesus was talking to people familiar with sheep and shepherds we can miss some important ideas. Interestingly, the illustration of the firefighter who returns to the burning tower is a very accurate modern day analogy. Lets take a moment to explore what the parable of the lost sheep meant to Jesus' listeners. The first thing the parable did was to assure the listeners that God searches for the lost. In Jesus' parable there are 100 sheep. That is a large herd, a community herd. There would have been several shepherds for such a large herd. One of those shepherds, probably the head shepherd, would have gone looking for the lost sheep. The shepherd who went looking would have been going on a dangerous mission. It was possible that the sheep had been attacked and killed by a wild beast like a mountain lion or bear. The shepherd would have been armed with only a rod and staff. Like David, he might have carried a slingshot. In short, to go searching for a lost sheep meant to risk one's life. Risking their lives was exactly what those firefighters did last week. I believe they knew that that building was going to come down. They could feel the heat and intensity, but they went searching anyway. And we are called to search, too. This is an important day for us as a church. Today we begin talking about stewardship. The place to start is with our ReVisioning plans. Those plans call us to look for the lost sheep, both among us and outside our doors. *We said we would organize a small group program so we could get to know each other better and be servants to each other. *We also said we would begin a Stephen Ministry program. In three weeks there will be a Stephen Minister's Workshop on Caring right down the street in Bethesda. Anyone who wants to learn more about Stephen Ministry is invited to come with me to this workshop. *We said that we would get even more active in community needs, reaching out to some of the nursing homes in our area. *We said we would search for a professional person to lead our youth programs. *And we said we would look at our building and explore ways to make room for all those lost sheep. Our dreams are wonderful. To make them come true, like the woman in the second parable, we will have to search high and low for the lost coins we have let slip into less important things than the work of the shepherd. Our stewardship drive is directly related to our ReVisioning plans. Our Lord never shied away from searching for the lost and reaching out to touch and heal them even when he was risking his own life. He cured lepers by touching them. Ultimately, he saved us by giving up his life. Which brings us to the second thing this parable tells us about God. God never gives up. Most people give up, but God never gives up. That is more clear in Luke's gospel than Matthew's because Matthew says, "If the shepherd finds the sheep," but Luke says, "When the shepherd finds the sheep." Again we can look at the courageous stories of the firefighters of New York. I understand that when that group of firefighters was found alive and rescued that at least one of them ate a peanut butter sandwich, drank some water and went back to work, searching for others. That's what God is like, tenacious and loyal. There is a story about a Coast Guard unit stationed at Cape May, New Jersey. One night a hurricane blew in from the Atlantic Ocean and a ship was breaking up just off the coast. The commander of the unit went to the men under his command and told them to prepare to go to sea. One of the young recruits shot back incredulously, "But, Captain! If we go out there, we may never come back." The captain answered, "Son, you don't have to come back! You have to go out." [Tony Campolo, Let Me Tell You a Story: Life Lessons from Unexpected Places and Unlikely People, (Nashville: Word Publishing, 2000), p. 80.] When we began the ReVisioning process, some people were pretty sure that if we went there, we would never come back. But we went and we found our vision and that vision sends us out and draws us home again. We mustn't give up. The Lord never gives up on us. Lets get back to the shepherd. When we hear that the shepherd picks up the sheep and carries it on his shoulders we see a gentle picture of fatherly love. We see a sweet, little lamb, nestling on the shepherd's shoulder, but it is the stubborn, recalcitrant sheep that tends to get lost. The lambs stay docilely close to their mothers. The sheep that gets lost is all legs and thrashing on the shepherd's shoulders. The other thing we don't understand about the shepherd looking for the lost sheep is the danger he is in. That is why the firefighter image is an accurate way to hear this story. The shepherd is the most vulnerable when he is carrying the sheep because his hands are occupied holding the lamb's legs and his body is fully exposed to attack by a bear or lion. Notice in the story that even though the most dangerous part of the trip is yet to come, the shepherd rejoices. There is still the challenge of restoration ahead, but the shepherd and God rejoice first in finding the one who is lost. Do you remember how our reading began? Jesus was being criticized for associating with sinners and tax collectors. The Pharisees didn't want to welcome in the sinners and tax collectors. They wanted to keep them out-they wanted to keep them out so badly that eventually they killed the person who kept letting them in. The last theme in our ReVisioning plan is finding a way to make room for everybody. When we look around at all the children, youth, and families that are coming…when we look around at the retirees for whom this church is home…when we look around at the Day School, it is clear we need more space. It doesn't do much good to go out searching for the lost ones, if we don't have space for them to sit down next to us, share a pew and the love of Christ. If we want to be a part of God's rescue squad, we are going to need the tools of salvation: Bibles, teachers, and space. We will need special training like Stephen Ministry preparation. We will need open doors to bring the lost ones home. A minister named David Mosser preached on this text ten or so years ago "to some 240 young people at a church camp. After the service one of the counselors came up to [him] and said, 'I was the lost sheep in that parable. For a long time I knew that God loved me, but I stayed away from the church because I was afraid the other 99 wouldn't want me in their midst.' He ultimately decided to return to the church. 'If they rejected me because of what I used to be,' he said, 'then they were lost, not I.'" [David M. Mosser, Exactly Who is Lost? (sermon), Christian Ministry 25:41, May-June 1994] Did you notice that every time the firefighters and rescuers found someone alive they didn't ask the person for some identification to make sure they were worth saving? That's the way God is, too. God just wants to bring home all the lost ones and he wants us to help. That is the vision God has given to us. Amen.