September 11, 2022 - The Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost - Seeking The Lost

The Gospel, Luke 15:1-10, starts with the Pharisees and the scribes grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." about Jesus. His response is the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin parables. Jesus opens with a question, "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?".

In 2019 I wondered if Jesus was posing a trick question. There appears to be no concern here about the other ninety-nine sheep possibly becoming lost. I speculated Jesus might be claiming he is a good shepherd in that, first and foremost, he is an expert in the business in finding the lost.

Considering Creator now, after the pandemic, I wonder if God recognizes that all sheep are intermittently or best described as lost, whether that is recognized or not. After all Jesus leaves the ninety-nine in the wilderness. The lost sheep is in the wilderness but is alone. How Jesus ends the parable makes much more sense if all being lost plays, at least a part, in his teaching, "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." 

After all who are the righteous ninety-nine who need no repentance?  I'm not sure that Jesus feels the ninety-nine need no repentance. Instead the parables underscore that everyone needs repentance and, after Jesus finds where our connection to each other has been lost, there will be joy in heaven. This week the other epiphany for me is that "being found" is not a permanent state. We remain in the wilderness and each time we are lost, and we are found again - there is joy in heaven. God's grace is truly unimaginable.

These parables are subversive to the way the world is normally understood. What does it mean to be lost? This is not like losing and finding a set of missing keys. There is a relentlessness to these searches as Jesus describes them. Also, do we think the lost sheep is doing something to be found and if any of those efforts are valuable or is being found dependent only on the shepherd?

Scripture mostly pays attention to the least, the last, the lost, the little ones, and the dead. Basically the ones who are easy to ignore in daily life. God's grace comes to the lost and the Good News is how often lost describes a state we are in, despite our best efforts.  

There are similarities in these parables.  In each, after the lost is found, friends and neighbors are called together.  There is a celebration with these gathered friends and neighbors.  The community is restored. And who are these neighbors, who are these friends?  I do not hear restrictions, warnings, or commands in the invitations.  These are all encompassing celebration. And no one is grumbling that a watchful shepherd may have prevented a found sheep from even becoming lost.

Pastor Roger preached on the Psalm on King David and Paul's confession and repentance for major sins and offenses. What next steps are needed for God's grace to be unleashed to repair the damage that they did. They came from the humility these two men showed which brought us back to the Gospel lesson where the parables demonstrate wholeness and completeness are God's way.