Lost and Found 

Luke 15:1-10

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            I don’t know if this has happened to you, but it has been happening to me with increasing frequency.  I turn on the T.V. and look for my far-away glasses so that I can see the game, but they are not in the case I carry them in, or I look for my close-up glasses to read the paper and they are not where they are supposed to be either.  That will send me on a grand search throughout the house to find what I need to see.  Sometimes that search becomes very frustrating because they are not to be found in their usual hiding places, but I need them so I keep looking, frantically searching until I find them in the strangest places…in the storage shed next to the lawnmower or in the basement on top of the water-heater.  Now, I know that I did not put them there, so they must have crawled up there all by themselves.   

            When I finally find them I rejoice and promise myself that I will always keep them in their cases and the cases on the counter where I put my other important stuff, but I know it’s going to happen again. 

            Today’s scripture is about losing and finding and rejoicing when you do.  Before we turn to God’s Word, let us turn to him in prayer: 

God of hope, remind us again and again that where there is life, there is hope.  Return those who have drifted far from you, and use us as your instruments of grace to that end.  Let our lives reflect the hope that comes from knowing you are still Lord.  Amen.

It was a complaint Jesus heard often.  “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”[1] 

 Of all the problems the Pharisees had with Jesus, and the list was long, this one, “He eats with tax-collectors and sinners” seemed to have bothered them the most.

 Why would they care?  Why would it matter to them who Jesus broke bread with?

            Meals were big back then - almost sacred.  More than food was shared.  Affirmation and acceptance were also offered.  Breaking bread was a symbol of community.  So you thought long and hard about which dinner invitations you accepted because you would be identified and linked with that crowd.  Like High School cliques that divide the popular from the rest, these small towns had their own pecking order.    

             For the Pharisees, the criteria for judgment followed tradition and God’s Commandments, as they understood them. In fact, some think the word Pharisee means, “separated”; because they withdrew from those they thought a bad influence.  Their biggest fear was that one bad apple might spoil the whole barrel so their solution, to mix my metaphors, was to circle the wagons. 

Since some of their neighbors worshipped gods that seemed so much different than their own, or they didn’t worship at all and ignored the commandments of God; they thought it best to just avoid them so they don’t pollute or dilute the faith community.  Better to keep these sinners at bay.

            This notion of building walls is tempting.  They make us feel secure.  They insure that our kind-of-people are protected from other kinds-of- people.  Parents monitor their children’s friendships with the hope of keeping them away from those they see as a bad influence. Homeowner associations create covenants to protect property values.  And even churches erect invisible barriers that let some people know they are not really welcome. Birds of a feather do flock together.

            Jesus understood this, but he did not share this view. His desire is not to shut sinners out.  It is to save them.  It is not to send them to hell; it is to usher them into heaven.  Jesus said, “I did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved.”[2]   Jesus said, “I have come to seek and save the lost.”[3]   As long as there is life, there is hope.  Jesus will not give up.  He will not give up! 

            If it means he has to sift through the rubble of people’s lives – that’s what he’ll do.  If it means he has to go into dangerous places – that’s where he will go.  If it means he must give up his life – give it up he did

            He began with a question:  “Which of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?”[4]  Clearly, Jesus thinks the answer is an obvious, “Of course you go and find the lost lamb”, but I’m not so sure everyone in his audience would agree.  Would you?  Would you leave the ninety-nine to wolves and coyotes and God-knows-what-else to go traipsing after the one who wasn’t paying any attention to where he was going, who was just wandering from one tuft of grass to the next?

            Some might conclude it would be better to just cut your losses in order to protect the rest. That was the cost of doing business. That was the Pharisee view. Sometimes you have to make tough decisions and if that means you give up on the tax collectors and sinners to protect those who are following the rules and trying to live a good life – then that’s what you do.

 

            But, Jesus’ Good Shepherd doesn’t do that.  He goes.  He leaves the ninety-nine and goes looking for the one.  When he finds it, what does he do?  He picks it up and drapes it across his shoulder.  Where does he go?  Does he go back to the rest of the flock?  No.  The Bible says, “He goes home.”  He carries the lamb home.  There is no further mention of the ninety-nine.  As far as we know, they are still grazing somewhere in the wilderness waiting for the shepherd to return.

            Jesus has divided the flock in two parts: the one and the ninety-nine. So, the question naturally arises, whom do these two groups represent?  Some say the ninety-nine are the scribes and Pharisees and everyone else who thinks they’re doing pretty well in life, or at least better than the guy next door.  The ninety-nine are like the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son that immediately follows.  He’s the one who did the chores and followed his father’s list of things to do.  The ninety-nine are the good sheep, the ones who never strayed.

The lost lamb then is the wayward son who squandered his inheritance of loose living, the one who left the Father. He’d fit right in with the tax collectors and sinners. They probably hung out at the same bar.

In this traditional understanding, Jesus just reversed the Pharisee judgment.  Instead of preserving the righteous and abandoning the sinner, it would appear Jesus seeks the sinner and leaves the self-righteous to themselves.  Jesus just came down on the other side of the fence.  But, we need to be careful with these parables.  They may look simple, but they are not simplistic.

One preacher has a different slant. Robert Capon said, “I think the real meaning of the one and the ninety-nine is that the one lost sheep represents the whole human race as it really is. And the ninety-nine who never get lost represents the whole human race as we think we are.”[5]  In other words we are both the one and the ninety-nine.

His view is that all of us have at one time or another been lost, but didn’t know it. Most of the time we think we’re doing pretty well.  We have all the bases covered.  We would never admit to being perfect, but we really don’t think we’re all that bad.  There’s others around us who look like us and act like us.  We’re in the middle of the flock just grazing on the hillside. We think we know where we are.

Page through the scriptures though and it appears God may not agree.  Paul put it this way:  “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”[6]  “There is none who is righteous, not even one; there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God.”[7]  The Bible says, “We are all like sheep who have gone astray.”[8] That’s the way God sees us, but it’s not the way Christ leaves us.

God does not wait for us to ascend to heaven, or find ourselves, or straighten out our lives before he swings open the gate.  God left heaven in the form of a babe born in Bethlehem in order to come and find us.  This searching, seeking, and finding God is seen throughout the scriptures and especially in the life of Jesus Christ. 

 Many people have wandered from God.  They had no intention of doing so. They were baptized and raised in the church.  They went through the confirmation class; stood up before God and everybody and declared Jesus is Lord!  When they said this, they meant it.  If you ask them, they will say they believe it still. 

Somewhere along the way they wandered away from God.  There was nothing deliberate about it.  There was no intentional moment when they said, “I no longer believe in God.”  They just meandered from one sand castle to the next.  They were distracted by so many things that just flutter in the wind. Their attention was drawn to this and that and the other. After a while they drift far away from God – but don’t even know it. 

Until something happens – something cataclysmic shakes their foundations. Psalm 11 captured such a moment. “Someone wicked has bent the bow and let an arrow fly out of the dark.  The foundations (of great buildings) are shaken.”[9]  The thunder of a collapsing world shakes us out of our daydream. Then we see that much of what we invest our lives in are just sandcastles, here today and gone tomorrow. Then you may open your eyes and pray, “I need God! Come, Lord Jesus come.”[10]

 God is faithful and will answer a prayer like that. Jesus is eager to clear away the rubble that sometimes collapses around us.  He is willing to meet you where you are, even if, and especially if you are in a dangerous place.  He breaks bread with you every time we celebrate his Holy Supper because he believes as long as there is life there is hope. 

            In a moment we’re going to sing an old favorite which all of you know, but you may not know, as Paul Harvey used to say, “the rest of the story.”

John Newton was born in London July 24, 1725, the son of a commander of a merchant ship which sailed the Mediterranean. When John was eleven, he went to sea with his father.  After his father died he began service on a slave ship, which took him to the coast of Sierra Leone. He then became the servant of a slave trader and was brutally abused. Early in 1748 he was rescued by a sea captain who had known John's father. John Newton ultimately became captain of his own ship, one which plied the slave trade.

Although he had had some early religious instruction from his mother, who had died when he was a child, he had long since given up any religious convictions. However, on a homeward voyage, while he was attempting to steer the ship through a violent storm, he experienced what he was to refer to later as his "great deliverance." He recorded in his journal that when all seemed lost and the ship would surely sink, he exclaimed, "Lord, have mercy upon us." Later in his cabin he reflected on what he had said and began to believe that God had addressed him through the storm and that grace had begun to work for him.

For the rest of his life he observed the anniversary of May 10, 1748 as the day of his conversion, a day of humiliation in which he subjected his will to a higher power.  He wrote, through many a danger, toil, and snare I have already come; tis grace hath brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.

He left the sea and became a pastor. His church became so crowded during services that it had to be enlarged, but he will be forever remembered as the one who wrote these words:

Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav'd a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

Lord, we know you hear the prayer of each one who cries out to you.  Let each one who calls upon the name of Jesus hear your answer in the “still small voice” spoken through the heart, see your answer in love stretched upon a cross, and feel your answer through the power of the Holy Spirit.  This we pray in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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[1] Luke 15:2

[2] John 3:17

[3] Luke 19:10

[4] Luke 15:4

[5] Capon, Robert Farrar:  The Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin”.  December 29, 1996.

[6] Romans 3:21

[7] Romans 3:10

[8] 1 Peter 2:25

[9] Psalm 11:2-3

[10] Revelation 22:20