The Reverend John E. McGinn, Rector

Saint John’s Episcopal Church

Sandwich, Massachusetts  02563

 

September 16, 2007                                                                  Pentecost 16

 

Today’s sermon is taken from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 15, verses 1-10.

 

At about ten p.m. last night I got a telephone call.  It is never good late at night to get a telephone call, but I thought, well maybe it was a disgruntled Yankee fan because of the score yesterday, or maybe one of those pesky Jet fans who were saying, “Ah ha! You are cheaters!”  But, in fact, it was my sister-in-law calling from a small restaurant in Ashford, Connecticut, and she was telling me, “Guess who I just saw!”  I said, “I don’t have any idea.”  And she said, “Paul Newman!  Paul Newman was here with some friends including his wife, Joanne Woodward, and they were having supper, and we were all here.  What a great thing to see Paul Newman!” 

 

As most of you know, actor Paul Newman started a food company several years ago, and many products now bear the name “Newman’s Own.”  With profits from this business, Paul Newman helped build a camp for critically ill children.  It is called the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, and it is in Ashford, Connecticut.  The name was taken from his film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. 

 

I read about Paul Newman, and he was sitting at a table one day with a camper who asked him who he was.  The actor reached for a carton of Newman’s Own lemonade and showed the boy his likeness on the container. “This is me,”  Paul Newman said.  And, wide-eyed, the camper looked at the picture on the carton and asked, “Are you lost or something?”

 

Good question.  It is a frightening thing to be lost.  If you have ever been lost, you know what a helpless feeling it is. 

 

H. H. Staton in his book A Guide to the Parables of Jesus tells the story of having been on an ocean liner headed to the Middle East.  Nine-hundred miles out to sea a sail was sighted on the horizon.  And as the line drew closer, the passengers saw the boat;  a small sloop flying a Turkish flag had run off a distress signal.  And through a faulty chronometer or immature navigation, the small vessel had become lost.  For nearly an hour the liner circled the little boat giving it its correct latitude and longitude.  And naturally the passengers on the liner were greatly interested in the crisis.  A boy of about twelve standing on the deck remarked aloud to himself, “It’s a big ocean to be lost in.”

 

He was speaking of a physical ocean, of course.  But there are many who are lost in a spiritual sense, in an emotional sense.  And what many of them discover too, is that it is a big ocean to be lost in.

 

In this morning’s Gospel reading taken from Luke, chapter 15, Jesus speaks to the experience of being lost.  He describes three situations in which precious possessions were lost:  a lost sheep, a lost coin and a lost person. 

 

I am going to focus on the first of these:  the  lost sheep.  Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them.  Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open and go after the lost sheep until he finds him.  And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home.  Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, “Rejoice with me.  I have found my lost sheep.  I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”

 

I want to start this morning really about talking about God as the God of the lost sheep.  That is what Jesus, I think, is saying to us in this Gospel reading.  God notices when one tiny lamb wanders from the flock, and God is willing to get his hands dirty bringing the lamb home.  That’s who God is, and that’s how much God cares.  One little lamb goes astray, and God is willing to leave all the nice lambs who stayed at home and go through the briars and brambles until God finds that one lost lamb. 

 

I think it is a beautiful image that every Christian should cherish.  Whether you’ve been lost or whether you have someone you love who is lost right now, it is a great comfort that God cares about those who have gone astray. 

 

Now the picture of God as a shepherd is an interesting one.  It is at least as old and the 23^rd Psalm:  “The Lord is my shepherd.”  Jesus makes use of the image several times in the Gospels.  I’ve talked before here in my sermons about the image of shepherds in most societies, and it is not a good one.  There’s an old Spanish folk tale about a doctor and a rancher and a shepherd who get into an argument about who is the smartest.  And the doctor is an educated man, a little on the arrogant side.  He claims to be the most knowledgeable.  And the rancher is wealthy and powerful, and he believes that he is smarter.  They look down on the shepherd because he is uneducated, and like many shepherds in his region, smells very strongly of sheep.  The proprietor of the general store challenges the three men to complete a task.  For months she has tried to get rid of a skunk that is camped out in her shed.  Whichever man can get rid of the skunk will be judged the smartest of the three. 

 

The doctor goes first.  After just one minute, sixty seconds, in the shed, he comes running out.  And the rancher goes in next.  He lasts seventy-two seconds before he too comes running out of the shed.  And, finally, the shepherd goes in, and a minute later the skunk comes running out of the shed, and the shepherd is crowned the smartest man of the three. 

 

In Palestine two thousand years ago, shepherds rarely bathed.  In that dry and dusty climate, water was a luxury.  It was used primarily for drinking and for caring for the sheep, and not bathing.  The shepherd spent most of his time around sheep and not other people.  To identify God with a shepherd was hardly a compliment.  A comparable picture of God might be an image of God spending his hours in flop houses where drug addicts finish out their days poking their arms with unsanitary needles.  It might be a picture of God who spends his hours in the garbage heaps of a South American city where children scavenge for food.  It is a picture of God stretched out naked on a cross in the company of only thieves.

 

This is how much God loves us.  The picture screams out.  God is the God of lost sheep.  Let me focus for a moment on the sheep.  Sheep don’t have a very good image either, do they?  As someone has said, “If you were starting your own sports team, and needed mascot, you might consider choosing the lions or the tigers or the eagles or the bears, as they give us a sense of power and independence.  I seriously doubt that anyone would consider their mascot would be a sheep.  Sheep are not known for their agility or their strength or their independence.  That is why sheep require shepherds.  They have a tendency to do dumb things.

 

Do I need to say to you that people do many more dumb things than do sheep?  No sheep has ever been charged with abusing its own lamb.  No sheep has ever been charged with stealing from a neighbor or with murder.  Sheep don’t knowingly abuse their own bodies or minds.  They don’t hate other sheep who are a different color or economic level or religion.  Sheep only have one or two ways they can become lost.  Humans have thousands.  And we seem to be inventing new ones every single day.

 

My guess is that all of us feel lost from time to time.  I know I do.  Some of us have hurts that were inflicted on us early in our lives, and those hurts still cause us pain.  They may even cause us to lash out at others or to act self-destructively.  We may not even know why we are doing some of the dumb things that we do.  It’s like we’re driven, and sometimes we don’t seem to be able to help ourselves.  And that’s why I think we need a shepherd.  That is why we need a God of lost sheep.  That is why we need a God who gets his hands dirty and comes to us where we are.

 

There’s a stunning painting that I have in one of my books of art.  The painting depicts a lamb who has obviously strayed away from its flock, and now struggles to find its way through a tangled thicket.  On the other side of the thicket lie greener pastures and the rest of the flock is already there.  But what is so striking about the picture is a detail one almost misses at first glance.  Amidst the tangled brush to the left of lamb, you can barely make out the figure of a man; his shepherd’s crook ready to reach out, should the striving creature be unable to move anymore.  In his eyes are all the tension that love always feels when a loved one is struggling.  But for now, he waits, and sometimes he waits for you and me. 

 

This is the message of the complete and unconditional love of God.  Is there anyone whom you love completely and unconditionally?  And you know, don’t you?

 

Years ago Caryll Houselander wrote some beautiful and disturbing words in the book The Reed of God.  I want to read those to you:  “If ever you have loved anyone very deeply and lost them through separation or estrangement, or even by death, you will know that there is an instinct to look for them in every crowd.  The human heart is not reasonable.  It will go on seeking for those whom it loves, even when they are dead.  It will miss a beat when someone passes by who bears them the least resemblance - a tilt of the hat, an uneven walk, a note of the voice.”  Some of you know what she is talking about.  That’s what love does.  It is forever seeking the one who is lost.  That is why the good shepherd leaves the ninety-nine to find that one lost lamb that has wandered from the fold.  And this, of course, I believe, is the total message of the cross. 

 

You know, I love the prayer that is taken from John, chapter 1, verse 29:

 

“Oh lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.

Oh lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.

Oh lamb of God that takest way the sins of the world, grant us thy peace.”

 

This is how much God loves us.  God was willing to give his blood, his blood that was shed for us.

 

Now I ask you this morning, are you feeling lost?  Life getting you down,  friends letting you down, family leaving you out, coworkers shutting you out?  There are a thousand ways that we can feel lost.  When we come into St. John’s Church each week, there is only one way, I believe, to be found:   Open yourself to the love of the good shepherd.

 

Amen