How would you describe your relationship with God? How would you describe other people’s relationships with God? Perhaps better questions are these: What does God think of you? What does God think of our neighbors? Are we good enough for God? Are our neighbors, family, and friends good enough for God? These types of questions are on the minds of the grumbling Pharisees at the beginning of our gospel today, and they elicit a response from Jesus in the form of parables.
Within these two parables, there is a message for those of us who are here today, who are lost. There is a message for us who are in a right relationship with God and, encounter those who are lost. There is a message for those who believe themselves to be above the fray, and who think their religiousness prevents them from keeping company with those who they believe to be unclean, or unworthy of God’s grace. Most importantly, however these two parables reveal to us the character of God. It is in that revelation, the revelation of God’s character, that we find the purpose of these parables.
To begin, these are parables about the lost, not about those who are not lost. Many people as they read these parables get hung up on the shepherd leaving the 99 to find the one. The primary focus of the parable is not the ninety-nine sheep who are with the shepherd but on the shepherd finding the one who is lost. So, if today you are worrying about the ninety-nine, stop it, the parable isn’t about them. The focus is on the lost sheep and the shepherd.
Second, there are a few interesting cultural factors at work in the parable of the lost sheep, that will help us to adapt this parable to our lives. In the first century shepherding was a despised trade! Shepherds were frequently considered robbers because their animals often grazed on other people’s lands. So, Jesus’s question to the Pharisees would have immediately put them on their heels, as Jesus is describing an inherently unclean profession. In other words, this parable, for the Pharisees is totally unkosher![1]
Another important fact we city slickers do not realize is that when a sheep is lost it tends to lie down and give up. The sheep will not attempt to find its way back to the herd under its own will or strength. That’s why Jesus portrays the shepherd upon finding the sheep, carrying it on his shoulders. Without the shepherd interceding for the lost sheep, it was incapable of being found.
A simple way of adapting these two parables is to say that the shepherd is God, and the lost sheep is us. Or that, the woman searching for the coin is God, and the lost coin is us. That’s an excellent place to begin, but it does not reveal the fullness of the parables. At the beginning of Paul’s letter to Timothy, Paul speaks of the mercy he has received from God, and Paul’s words speak powerfully to the message of these parables. Listen to Paul, the once lost but now found sheep describe how God sought him out and found him. “I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”
In Klyne Snodgrass’s book on the parables, he says that these parables reveal the character of God and the activity of Jesus. In his words, “What is revealed about the character of God is the value he places on even the least deserving and the care he extends to such people. God is not passive waiting for people to approach him after they get their lives in order; he is the seeking God who takes the initiative to bring people back regardless of how lost they are.”[2] “Unquestionably God will seek the lost and restore them. Seeking and Joy are the twin pillars of the parable, and gods seeking does not come with conditions attached. The joy reflects both the attitude of God at recovering the lost and the celebration of the kingdom with its good news that God’s promised redemption has begun. The joy is communal, and Jesus’s hearers should join the celebration.”[3]
For those of you here today who are lost, or have people who are close to you who are lost, remember no matter how lost you feel, or how lost someone you love is, no matter how separated from God you think you are, or you think you have put yourself, or your loved one has told you they are, know that God is searching for you, and for them, with the compassion, and skill of a shepherd, and the diligence of the women who lost her coin. For those of you who were once lost but are now found rejoice in the Lord, and His mercy. And for those of you who believe yourself to be in relationship with Jesus, yet judge others without compassion, and deny that God’s grace is sufficient for salvation of even the most lost person in the world, start praying now to be found by God because you are the most lost among us. The message from today’s parables for all people, in all conditions, is the same, God searches for the lost, and it is in finding the lost, and restoring the lost to their proper place in God’s kingdom, that God finds His greatest Joy.
[1] Snodgrass Stories with Intent, p 102.
[2] Snodgrass Stories with Intent, p 109.
[3] Snodgrass Stories with Intent, p 109.
Sermon preached by the Rev. Christian M. Wood
Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
14 Sunday after Pentecost
15 September 2019