5
William G. Cockrill
Davidson College Presbyterian Church
Davidson, North Carolina
September 16, 2007 Luke15:1-10
Where? Oh, Where?
“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?’”
Where? Oh, Where?
If you read the classified ads in the back of the Charlotte Observer, it is one of the the very first columns.
“Lost: Basset Hound, Myers Park. Answers to ‘Buddy’; call 704- and so on.” “Lost: Black and white male kitten, Cotswold, call….” Perhaps it is a sign on a telephone pole. “Lost : black dog with brown eyebrows and brown feet. Reward!”
Oh, sometimes it’s better news: “Found! Small beagle mix. Owner must identify.”
I see those notices. And I sometimes wonder how many of those lost animals eventually are found or claimed by their owners. How many remain lost, never claimed!
I do know that at least some of them are adopted by whoever found them and then took the trouble to run the ad in the paper!
But I fear that many of those animals are like the contents of the “lost and found” box that we have here at the church. Apparently, they are items of so little value that no one has come looking for them: an old t-shirt, a pair of black gloves, a lunch bag, a baby blanket, a hair barrette.
Now, it is true: Some of those animals advertised in the paper are not so much lost as abandoned. But how many of them must be the objects of intense searches! People who grieve over their absence are out, driving up one road and down another, looking in every possible place. They are walking through neighborhoods, calling over and over for “Spot” or “Rusty” or “Buddy”.
And then it occurs to me that even those animals which are lost - the ones that are the objects of searches – perhaps they are oblivious to the fact that someone is looking for them, looking so intently, worried, grieving. I mean if Rusty would but stay in one place, he is more likely to be found.
But then, dogs and cats don’t know that, do they!
And the point is that “lost-ness” is a condition that can be difficult to discern. I mean, how do you know that the dog that wanders into your yard is lost? Or that big taffy-colored dog that you see beside the road?
Now, real animal lovers claim that you can tell that an animal is lost just by looking at it. But I’m not that perceptive!
Once, while traveling in the mountains along the Blue Ridge Parkway, we came upon a dog. My resident “expert” saw him at a rest area and immediately declared the dog to be “lost.” He had a collar and an identification tag saying that he lived in a town some miles away, down the mountain. Still, I was somewhat skeptical; the dog didn’t look lost to me!
Well, we had a very small car, but somehow we squeezed the animal into the car. He insisted on sitting in the front between us as we drove down the mountain. We found a pay telephone and called his owners.
Sure enough, that dog was lost! We worked out a meeting place with his owners, and they were elated to get him back!
But, I wondered: did he know he was lost? Is a dog lost just because his owner doesn’t know where he is? I mean the dog may be quite well-oriented!
Or what about people? Perhaps “lost-ness” is more often a condition sensed by the one who is searching than by the one being searched for!
All of us know stories of children who were lost, or were at least thought to be lost. A child in a large department store is the object of a panic-driven search by his mother, while he gleefully examines goods in the toy department!
On a family vacation at the beach when I was a child, my younger brother, about four years old, wandered off from the hotel. When his absence was noticed, and after a quick search of the nearby beach, the hotel management got involved. Then the police were called, red lights, sirens, the whole deal!
When we found my brother, he was a long way from the hotel; but he was contentedly playing in the sand! So far as he was concerned, he wasn’t lost at all! I remember my parents’ elation at finding him, an elation that quickly changed to stern warnings about wandering off again!
Sometimes we’re lost and do not know we are lost. We don’t know that someone is looking for us. That is true of so many people! I see them most every day. So do you!
The two parables that we’ve read this morning remind us that finding those who are lost - even those who don’t know that they are lost – finding the lost is really what Jesus was all about. Better to say, it is what Jesus is all about.
Now, the Pharisees and the scribes fail to appreciate this. In our text, they are critical of Jesus for his associations with those who were “lost”, such as tax collectors.
The tax collectors have prostituted themselves to the Roman government. They have become agents for collecting the imperial tax from their own people. Moreover, they often profit by inflating the tax; and they are tempted by virtually unlimited opportunities for fraud and extortion.
Then, Jesus also associates with other “sinners,” people who make no effort to follow Jewish law. The Pharisees know that such people as this are lost, too. A good Pharisee knows that he only sullies his own reputation by having anything to do with such folks. I mean, it’s bad enough that Jesus even talks with such people. From time to time one must rub elbows with them, and even speak to them, if only to tell them to get out of the way. But one should avoid such contacts if possible!
“Do you see him there, eating with that scum?”
Jesus, however, actually seems to enjoy their company. And, as we noted a couple of weeks ago, Jesus’ dining with such folks indicates a degree of acceptance that goes beyond mere tolerance. It is a display of great hospitality that Jesus invites these people to eat with him.
Well, apparently Jesus overhears the muttering of the Pharisees. And so he responds to them with these parables. Of course, Jesus does not talk about lost dogs. He speaks of lost sheep.
Now, perhaps, in order to appreciate what Jesus says here, we should understand that a flock as large as one hundred sheep may not belong to the shepherd himself. He may have been hired by and is responsible to the owner of the sheep. Perhaps several owners have put their flocks together.
Thus, in some sense, the general welfare of the entire community depends upon the shepherd.
And so, you see, as the shepherd leaves the balance of the flock to search for the one that is lost, there is a good deal of risk. There is the risk that harm may befall the others while the shepherd is away looking for the straggler. There is the risk that the shepherd may be wasting his time. He may not find the lost sheep. Or he may find it dead. There is even the risk that shepherd himself may become disoriented and lost in the dark.
But, you see, a good shepherd takes the risk! And he takes the risk not only because he has been entrusted with the sheep, and he takes the risk not only because his reputation is at stake.
No! The shepherd takes the risk because the lost sheep is as good as dead. And, in fact, if the lost one cannot be found, it soon will be dead.
You know, in the business world, we sometimes refer to “acceptable losses.” Quite simply, a small percentage of products or goods are expected to be damaged, lost or stolen before they are sold. I used to have clients in the bakery business. And when you are selling bread, you expect to have some “stales”, bread that becomes dated while still on the shelf. It must be discarded. But if stales are only a small percentage of the bread that is baked, they are considered an acceptable loss.
But, Jesus is saying that, for a good shepherd, there are no “acceptable losses.” You know, the shepherd does not say, “Oh, well, I have ninety-nine left. Ninety-nine per cent is doing pretty well! I’ll just write off that one lost sheep.”
No! You see, the loss of even the one is a mark against the shepherd. And most importantly, the good shepherd goes out from the 99 to find the one because, quite simply, the good shepherd likes the sheep. Oh, they are a lot of trouble. They require a great deal of care and attention.
But, you see, the shepherd knows his sheep. And he cares for his sheep.
And so the shepherd takes the risk. He searches until he finds the straggler.
Perhaps it is a lamb that has just wandered away, grazing with his head down from one tuft of grass to the next, until the rest of the flock is left it behind. That’s how sheep become lost, not watching where they’re going.
I guess, when you think about it, that’s how people get lost, too. Going along with our heads down, not paying any attention to how we’re living, just wandering along through life from one day to the next without direction.
Then, one day, we look up. And we realize that we don’t know where we are! We don’t know where we’re going! We’re just trifling away our time. Grazing along in our self-absorbed way, we become lost.
How should we define being lost? One way is to say that being lost is being separated from what God meant us to be. And like the lost sheep, death is fast upon us like a wolf. Indeed, the very word in our text that Jesus uses for “losing” implies “perishing.” Being lost is perishing. For sheep and for people.
But as night falls, the shepherd comes upon the lost sheep, still grazing along, perhaps unaware of its lost-ness even yet. Unaware, that is, until at the call of the shepherd the sheep looks up to see the one who has been so diligently searching.
And so Jesus asks his accusers, “Why do you criticize me? If you were a shepherd, when you found that lost one, wouldn’t you be glad about it? Wouldn’t you go back and rejoice around the fire that evening, rejoice that the flock was whole again?
“Of course you would! You’d even throw a little party, wouldn’t you! You’d invite your friends to share in the joy at finding the one that had been lost. Sure, the rest of the flock is important, but, right now it’s the one that has been lost and is now found - that’s the one whom you celebrate!”
Now, of course, Jesus isn’t really talking about shepherds and sheep nor about lost coins. We know that. He is talking about God; and he’s talking about God’s people, the church.
And he is talking about God’s own rejoicing over each one who comes to him from among all those who are lost – even each of us.
And we need to say that such is cause for our own rejoicing, too, as we realize that no matter how far we might wander from God, God does not give up on us! God knows when we are lost and that grieves God. But God continues to search for us, until we look up from whatever it is that has distracted us or drawn us away from God’s intentions. And we realize that we have been lost. Then we realize that we have been found!
We know that; but don’t we, every so often, need a reminder that this is who we are, as the church: this great gathering of those who were once lost, but now are found. And don’t we need the reminder that the church should be, above all else, and first of all a place and an occasion of joy and rejoicing.
Do you know that Jessica McClure has turned 21? Some of us instantly recognize that name! Last year; Jessica got married!
20 years ago next month, when she was only 18 months old, Jessica McClure fell into an abandoned well in Midland, Texas. The little girl was wedged in shaft only 8 inches wide. And because of the narrowness of the shaft and her inability to do anything to save herself, she might as well have been a thousand feet under the earth.
She was lost. She was as good as dead. One little girl down in a hole.
And yet, don’t you remember how the entire world watched for 2 ½ days! Rescuers tried one way and then another to get her out of the well! “Special Reports” came across our T.V. screens. People watched in their homes, or at shopping malls, or wherever there was a television. “Is she out yet? Do you think she’ll make it?”
And people prayed and people cried. And finally, miraculously, she was broght up out of that hole. And people prayed and people cried! “Thanks be to God!” How we rejoiced!
Do you see? That’s the kind of rejoicing of which Jesus speaks! It is the kind of joyful celebration that the church should be, rejoicing for ourselves, once lost, now found.
And, yet, at the same time it is a reminder of our purpose: not only to celebrate but also to be ever about the “search”.
It is a reminder that no matter what program or ministry we are involved in, whether we call it “fellowship” or “Christian education” or “congregational care” - no matter what it is called, it should always be considered a ministry that somehow seeks out those who are lost! It should always include as one element or aspect of its activity just this: looking, searching for, reaching out to those whom God would call into into the fold.
You see, for us who are disciples, there are no acceptable losses!
“Just so, I tell you there will be more rejoicing in heaven…”
So may it be. Amen.