The Lost Sheep
Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 11, 2022
Jeremiah 4:11-12 • 1 Timothy 1:12-17 • Luke 15:1-10
One of my favorite parables is The Parable of the Lost Sheep. It makes a good childrens’ sermon as well as for adults. It would be fun to hide a few little toy sheep and then count to ten and then go looking for them like the good shepherd looking for his lost sheep. Only intentionally overlook one. And then pretend that we were running out of time and needed to go on with the service. I bet the children would say “Oh, no!” “You can go on ’til you find the last sheep.” Of course, that’s the point.
Artists have depicted The Parable of the Lost Sheep in many ways over the years. There is one where we see a young shepherd boy standing precariously on a high ridge holding on to a rock with one hand above him, while reaching down to a stranded sheep on the ledge below. The strong muscles of the shepherd flexing to maintain his grip and keep his balance, while, at the same time, reaching for the stranded sheep is dramatic. What makes this particular work compelling is that, overhead, you can see that the vultures are already circling, waiting to tear into their helpless prey, should the shepherd fail.
Well, the point of the parable is obvious: The kingdom of God is like a good shepherd who has a flock of a hundred sheep who, losing just one of them, will leave the others and go after the one that is lost until he finds it and brings it back to the fold.
It’s a simple point, really. Yet, looking closer, the parable hits home in a number of unexpected ways, and that’s what I’d like for us to think about this morning. Specifically, what does this parable say about the nature of God; what does it say about us; and what does it say about our relationship to each other?
First, the parable challenges our value system and confronts us with the magnitude of God’s infinite mercy, forgiveness and love. Listen once more:
“Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them,wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it?” (v. 4)
The answer is: Nobody! Zilch. Nada. That’s not the way we think. If you have a hundred sheep and you lose one, well, too bad. That’s just the cost of doing business. One sheep out of a hundred is an acceptable loss. Hey, it’s only one percent. No big deal.
When you think about it, our whole lives are based on an acceptable percentage of failure. We start every school year knowing there will be a certain dropout rate. Not everyone will graduate. Marriages start out with a predictable rate of divorce. Not every marriage will make it. We’re happy when the employment rate is below five percent. We don’t expect everyone to be able to keep a job. And sad to say, not every newborn baby will live.
You get the point: As far as we’re concerned, losing only one sheep out of a hundred is not so bad. You might even say it’s remarkable. But with God, every sheep counts. And that’s the main lesson of the parable: With God, nothing is lost.
We are the lost sheep, and we are also taught by this gospel to look out for each other as other lost sheep.