Counting Sheep

Pentecost 14 Sermon Yr C 2019

September 15, 2019

St. Michael’s Episcopal Church

The Rev. Canon Michael J. Horvath

Gospel: Luke 15:1-10

For those of you who receive our weekly updates via email, you probably know that we send you a link to the weekly lectionary readings. You actually have the opportunity to see what our readings will be in advance of a Sunday.  What’s especially great about this week is that we started the class on the Parables of Jesus on Thursday and the parables in today’s Gospel were the first parables our group studied and discussed.  When we talk about parables, we typically refer to the ones that are in Matthew, Mark and Luke and presumably said by Jesus.  Many of us grew up with them and remember them by heart – who doesn’t know the Parable of the Prodigal Son, for example? We know the characters almost personally, the son who took his fortune and squandered it away on food, drink and prostitutes only to be welcomed back into the arms of his loving father.  We know the angry elder brother who worked so hard, and couldn’t believe that his younger brother was getting away with such bad behavior. I suspect that many of us still assume the same interpretation of the various parables as when we first heard them growing up.   But parables don’t have a singular meaning or truth to impart and some of the ways we have traditionally heard and interpreted these parables miss a bigger picture of what Jesus is trying to tell us.

            

In today’s Gospel reading, we have a shepherd who has lost one of his flock and a woman who has lost a coin.  In a happy ending to the stories they both find what they have lost and they call on their friends to celebrate.  Perhaps like I did, you might have first heard these parables and understood them to be about repentance and forgiveness.  The sheep (me) is lost to the shepherd (Jesus) and yet the shepherd searches for the sheep.  I am lost to sin, and Jesus finds me.  That’s a fine interpretation (and again, there is never just one interpretation of a parable), but it doesn’t really work with the coin, does it? Because the interpretation would be as follows:  The coin (me) is lost to the woman (Jesus) and yet she searches for the coin.  I am lost to sin and Jesus finds me.  Well, that just doesn’t seem plausible does it?  So many questions arise for me.  For example, would God ever lose us?   The shepherd is in the business of keeping a flock, not losing them.  And does a sheep, or even a coin for that matter, intentionally lose itself?  I don’t think so.

            

So what is Jesus trying to get across to the crowd which included Pharisees and scribes where were grumbling because Jesus was hanging out with tax collectors and sinners?  Amy-Jill Levine, the author of the book “Short Stories by Jesus”, the book we are reading for our parables class, and, indeed, many biblical scholars, believe that there is a bigger concept being transmitted here.  Jesus is not necessarily asking us to think about being lost to God because of sin.  The sheep and the coin are not examples of being wrong and sinful.  They are examples of being lost, or being missed. God is forever with us, we are never lost to God.  That’s a non-starter.  

            

I don’t think that today’s parables are about assigning blame, or punishment or condemnation.  They are about understanding that there are people in our lives and in our relationships that, if they were lost to us, would leave a hole in our hearts yearning to be filled.   You might know that feeling if, for example, you have ever had a disagreement with a relative or a friend that led you to stop speaking with each other for months or years.  The disagreement may be real and valid, but the loss of relationship can still be even more painful.  Or perhaps you have even lost yourself to depression or grief and were never quite sure you would ever make it out into the light again.  In either case, we are not whole; our relationships are not whole. There is something missing and we end up living incomplete and fragmented lives.

            

Yet even in this state of incompleteness and fragmentation, we are priceless treasures in God’s eyes, and each of us is worth searching for. And God, in the depths of his love for us, only ever seeks to make us whole and complete without us ever having to be lost in order to initiate such love. God is always seeking us.

            

And it doesn’t matter who we are, or what we’ve done, or how far lost we’ve become, just as it didn’t matter which sheep out of a hundred strayed off.  God seeks all of us because God exists solely to love us.  And God exists to love us so that we can take and share that love with others in our relationships and communities.

            

There is an African word “Ubuntu”, made famous through the reconciliation work of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, which exemplifies the importance of interconnectedness, of relationship and of community.  It doesn’t have a direct English translation, but roughly translated it means “I am who I am because of who you are.”  The term recognizes the importance of every person in the development of our own being and selves. There is no one on this earth who does not have the potential to help us form our sense of love and humanity. The term is also a testimony to the fact that the love and goodness I experience from you will allow me to offer that love and goodness to the next person.  And this becomes important because Ubuntu is the transformative gateway to collaboration, to relationship and to a sense of community.  When we fail to seek out those who society might deem lost or unworthy to be sought after, then we miss the opportunity to be better people, we miss the opportunity for relationships that help each of us become more compassionate human beings.

            

In the context of our larger community, I encourage you to reflect and pray about two things this week.  First, who is missing from our lives; who is seemingly lost to our society?  Perhaps it is the immigrants at our borders or the homeless in our land of plenty, or those suffering from addiction in the East Bay, to name a few.   Second, and perhaps more importantly, what are we willing to do to find them and bring them to wholeness? 

            

Viewed in this way, the parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin become something more than an easy interpretation of repentance and forgiveness, to one that highlights the importance of those missing in our lives, and those who need to be found in order for us to experience wholeness.

            

Amy-Jill Levine says, “If we hold in abeyance..the rush to read repenting and forgiving into the parable, then it does something more profound than repeat well-known messages. It provokes us with simple exhortations. Recognize that the one you have lost may be right in your own household. Do whatever it takes to find the lost and then celebrate with others, both so that you can share the joy and so that the others will help prevent the recovered from ever being lost again. Don’t wait until you receive an apology; you may never get one. Don’t wait until you can muster the ability to forgive; you may never find it. 

            

Don’t stew you in your sense of being ignored… Instead, go have lunch. Go celebrate, and invite others to join you. If the repenting and forgiving come later, so much the better. And if not, you still will have done what is necessary…You will have opened a second chance for wholeness.” Amen.