Lost Sheep and Big Parties

Scripture: Luke 15:1-7

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." So he told them this parable: "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? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’" Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. 

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This scripture is part of trilogy of lost things (if I may barrow a phrase from the many Tinkerbell movies I have watched recently) a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. In all of them there is searching and seeking, risk and longing and I think most important, a party. Like, a huge party, which would likely cost more than the lost sheep or lost coin itself. These are stories of a God who searches and seeks for us no matter where we are and then sets a big table to celebrate our being together. Hold that as we read this scripture once more.

Luke 15:1-7

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." So he told them this parable: "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? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’" Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. 

These parables are shared as Jesus is engaging the religious establishment of his day and they begin with the grumbling “Pharisees and scribes.” So often Jesus is engaging religious and political leaders and they are grumbling, plotting, reaching for some way to mute the light Jesus is sharing in the world. And so let me begin with an Anti-Anti-Semitism PSA …Jesus is in conversation with the religious leaders of his day because we are in a world with rising anti-semitism and a congressional leader who loves conspiracy theories about Jewish Space lasers. Whenever we see the words “Pharisees, scribes, Priests, and Chief Priests,” we should do some translating and, instead, say, “the religious leaders” and whenever we see the words, “The Jews,” we should think, “the community around Jesus.” Because Christian anti-semitism begins in this language and the self-righteous attitude that Jesus would not be in conflict with us today. The Pharisees are often in conflict with Jesus and that conflict is between people who love their tradition and their people. We forget they are discussing their own identity politics, the meaning of their own faith tradition in community, and they are doing this under the oppression of the Roman Empire. This Scripture, according to Amy Jill-Levine, has invited a number of commentators to suggest Jesus is making the Pharisees mad just by bringing up shepherds and women…despised classes of people. Well, gender politics is still complicated today. But I just think this is an unreasonable direction. The people of Israel are dependents of shepherds, and while there are cultures around them that are less in love with shepherds and maybe consider them to be as stinky and stupid as their sheep, the Pharisees, like Jesus, are rooted in a tradition where every great leader passes through the vocation of Shepherd. It’s like leadership development 101. It is an honorable profession, caring for dependent animals, enduring hardship and weather, knowing their needs. Every great leader was a shepherd. Moses spent time tending flocks. Jacob, on his way to being re-named Israel, tends animals. And David, the greatest King in Israel’s history, was a shepherd. So perhaps rather than Jesus trying to further throw dissent in the face of the religious leaders, perhaps, I imagine, he is inviting them to think about who they are and the nature of God with one of the most powerful metaphors in their shared culture: a shepherd and a lost sheep.

This lost sheep metaphor must have been a go-to in Jesus’ narrative toolbox because it appears not only in Luke, but in Matthew and the Gospel of Thomas. I realize you may be thinking “Gospel of Thomas, where is that,” and that is fair, it didn’t make it into our cannon, but it might still be able to teach us about early Christian faith and identity. In the Gospel of Matthew, rather than the sheep being lost…perhaps wandering off at the sight of a good looking bush, the sheep is deceived, it is tricked away. So rather than a story told to explore repentance, or turning around or the Greek word metanoia…it becomes an exploration of being deceived or trying not to deceive by bad theology and cruel people.

After speaking with our local extension agent about sheep, it seems that a sheep getting lost is likely only going to happen if there is a reason to fear, not because of some seductive shrubbery. Sheep may have a flocking mentality, but when one realizes it is lost, it will find a rock or a bush to hide in and then begin to bleat, to cry out for the shepherd to find it. Kenneth Bailey reminds us that the hormones have so poured into the lost sheep that they can’t walk back to the flock, they can hardly stand and so the shepherds lovingly carry them back to the flock. In all of the metaphors, the shepherd could have brought the flock to an enclosure or secured them, there were pens and shallow caves the Shepherd may secure sheep in and close the opening with a large stone. The gospels should have said that, but they didn’t. The search is risky for everyone. Bailey tells the story of this parable being raised as a reason to not welcome Christian practice in China, it was irresponsible for the Shepherd to go seeking one at the risk of the 99 and the Christian response was the shepherd gives assurance to all the sheep by seeking the lost. Assurance that if you are lost, God, the good shepherd will not give up on you. God will find you. God will seek you and take the risk of finding you.

We are invited to be part of this story - just like Jesus invited the Pharisees when he said, “Who among you having a hundred sheep?” We, as modern people, don’t often deal in sheep every day. And so it’s important to remember that Jesus is presenting a person of means, the woman with her 10 coins has a lot of resources, coins have meaning in her day unlike our day when we might toss them in a wishing well or leave them on the sidewalk. She is not desperate because she won’t eat without this coin. A woman with 10 coins is probably like the women who funded Jesus’ ministry. Owning 100 sheep means owning a large flock. Jesus is talking about one with enough seeking out what is lost or missing; not out of desperation, but out of abundance. The owner of the sheep realizes one is missing, sets out to search, recovers the sheep, and brings the flock back to completion (or makes it whole again). The woman with the coin lights the lamp, gets a broom and goes to work searching. And both of them at the end invite friends to rejoice. Which is code for party…and hopefully they killed the fatted calf rather than serving lamb chops. Regardless of the menu, the point of “rejoice with me” is extravagant celebration in honor of finding what was lost.

We might love a big party and a celebration, but we might also be a little nervous about actually being found. We live in a world that often questions our worth, that frames our worth in numbers and measures us by standards that are not God’s. We often don’t want to really be found, we say we are fine. We hide in plan sight, we numb with Netflix, we share memes rather than our whole selves and don’t even call out to be reconnected like the lost sheep. Karoline Lewis names that God’s radical searching for us can overwhelm us even if we are excited or thrilled by it. We question our worth in being found. This question of worth, that is not the God Jesus is pointing us towards. The Sheep doesn’t question its worth and the Shepherd isn’t mad at the sheep for being lost.

Fred Rogers loved this text and imagined God as the searcher, looking for us, no matter the cost or duration of the search and no matter the place or state in which we might be found. He said, “God continues to try and find us.” And like the woman and the sheep owner, “God never gives up. God looks for what is best in us, not for what is worst.” Some people throw this parable around to talk about sin, and sinners needing to repent. But a sheep needing to repent for just being a sheep is sort of where the allegory breaks down. And maybe that was part of what Rogers liked about it. Rogers disagreed with the self-righteous religious leaders who built up walls between any person and God, set limits on God’s love, or suggested that people needed to do anything to be worthy of God’s love. Once he was walking between his morning swim and the studio when a person, trying to convert his co-workers and get them to repent, recognized Fred. He pulled him in saying, “Tell these people there is only one way to God.” Fred Rogers responded, “God loves you just the way you are.” Rogers lamented the gatekeeping theology and the harshness of religious leaders of his day and probably ours. “God the Great Appreciator cannot help but find us good, valuable and lovable…When we hear a word that we are not lovable, we are not hearing the word of God.”

In this scripture, Jesus is calling the religious leaders of his day to dive into a theology of a radically loving God who draws us closer to love. It is a conversation around repentance but not how we think of repentance. Sheep are not in trouble for being sheep. The shepherd doesn’t shame them for being lost and the other sheep don’t hold up signs that say “sinner repent.” Metanoia…the Greek word for repentance. And it is not repentance or transformation or turning around towards God that is born out of fear of God’s punishment and wrath. This is born out of God’s great love. We are so loved, we can grow. We are so valuable, we can heal our broken spaces and honor the wounds in the world. God, the Good Shepherd searches for us in love and abundance no matter the risk. God finds us beautiful and beloved and then She makes a feast, filling our cups to overflow and asks us to help set the table and throw the doors of welcome open wide. May we have the courage.