Going After
Luke 15:1-10

September 16, 2007


If you’ve been to San Francisco - this is not a song - there is that downtown central park. One block west at Post and Mason is the First Congregational Church, a church not unlike ours, where I served as a seminary student. Very soon after I arrived the senior minister was tickled pink that his alma mater of Yale University had agreed to send the famed singing club, the Whippenpoofs, to the church for a little concert during our coffee hour time. I am afraid that I had never heard of this group, and that song sounded inane.

“We’re poor little lambs who have lost our way, Baa, baa, baa. We’re little black sheep who have gone astray. Baa, baa, baa.” Well, they did sing a great version of “Oklahoma” in honour of our Okie-born senior minister.

That line about black sheep catches you by surprise. This simple song is the theme music of the recent spy movie directed by Robert De Niro, “The Good Shepherd.” The movie is centered about a grim, but competent CIA agent Edward Wilson, played by Matt Damon, during the heyday of the Cold War espionage era. Wilson is the “good shepherd” in a world without rules, without trust in one’s fellow human beings. Black sheep, lost sheep are fuzzy distinctions for such a nether world, if we are to believe John LeCarré, Robert Ludlum and the other writers about Cold War espionage. Of course, spies are not much different than you or me and when under duress do amazing and disgraceful things.

Tax-collectors and sinners were gathering around Jesus and the Pharisees and scribes were murmuring that Jesus receives sinners - is open and affirming, to use the modern buzz phrase - and eats with them. Eating with someone meant you were willing to share that other person’s status. If you are powerful and rich and sit next to a homeless person in the diner, you are sharing his poverty; and he is sharing some of your wealth. Why do you think all those politicians make a point of eating at those unfancy coffee shops - with a camera usually not far behind - and talk with and listen to the locals? Both benefit from mixing it up with someone who is not “one of them.” The Pharisees figured that by doing this the rabbi from Nazareth was no longer holy or worthy to be a rabbi. He can’t tell us what to do now after he has eaten this way. It’s always about food.

That rings up a parable in Jesus’ mind and words. He quickly reels off three, the third of which, the Prodigal Son, will not be rehearsed in this cycle of the Lectionary. The Prodigal Son came home on the fourth Sunday of Lent, March 18, which I am certain you all remember! That leaves us more time for sheep.

Jesus begins the parable in a familiar rhetorical way, “Which one of you, if such and such is the case does not get up and do the following?” It’s a lost sheep, one out of a hundred, and don’t we all leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the lost one until he finds it? No, we don’t. You’re an idiot if you do. That parabolic shepherd should have been disciplined by the shepherding union for abandoning his other ninety-nine unprotected out in the wilderness, a place that was not our modern natural idyllic environments, but the most likely place for lions and tigers and bears to come and rip the poor little lambs to shreds. Kind of ruins the lilt of the parable! What kind of foolish idiosyncratic move was that?

Jesus, of course, does not say or imply this at all. This is the normal routine. The good shepherd goes after the lost sheep in order to find it.

Then there is that woman who has lost one of her ten silver coins and impulsively goes after it, lighting lamps and sweeping, diligently seeking until she finds it. Fortunately, the other nine coins were able to take care of themselves pretty well, for her house was not the wilderness. We don’t view this woman as idiosyncratic, just really thorough.

I know I said the Prodigal Son has been dealt with, but one can’t ignore it today since it is the last episode of Jesus’ trilogy. The foolish prodigal son is the lost sheep, a black one to be sure, but when he limps home, his father goes out after him even when he is still a good bit of distance away. The father’s sheep was lost, but now is found. The shepherd finally finds his wayward lamb and hoists it upon his shoulder, and the woman is ecstatic upon locating the lost coin. What do all three do? They rejoice insanely and ask their friends to come and help them to celebrate.

The shepherd calls together his friends and neighbours to celebrate finding a lost sheep. There must have been more than a few eyes rolling that night at the party. One sheep, so what? And did you hear what he did with the rest of his huge flock?

The woman likewise calls together her friends and neighbours, exactly parallel to the shepherd. Who throws a party over a nickel? And isn’t the whole thing ludicrous that she recovers her nickel and spends a dollar to celebrate? Where are the economics here, who is the loser?

Just to keep the trilogy connected, the prodigal father calls his servants together and orders up a party, fatted calf with all the trimmings. The elder son, remember, was outraged and made it clear that he had been betrayed for all the hard work he had consistently done, with no harlots entertained. All three were deliriously, inexplicably, insensibly happy and everyone else thought that the shepherd, the woman and the father were simply delirious and lacking any good sense. Easy to figure that all out, except that the shepherd, the woman, and the father sound like God, that annoying, persistent God.

God’s economy was not economic. Each of the three lost money, each lacked common sense. But they had a joy we don’t want to understand or laugh along with. Therefore, you and I have to start at the end, where we are overjoyed - that’s the word - over-joyed - that someone, something, some event has been lost, but now again is found. Who cares whether it adds up, a person, even a sheep or a coin adds up to being worth it.

Jesus doesn’t really tell us about how the friends and neighbours respond to this odd and eccentric joy in their parties, but we hear the older son’s anger loud and clear in the prodigal son and father and quietly whisper to ourselves, Amen!

Sometimes we feel left out. The sinners get all the attention and rewards, not those who keep the institutions going for the sinner to be saved in. Don’t worry, there is plenty of sinfulness to go around and share. It is obvious that the older son was a prodigal too, a sinner with emphasis by his jealousy and non-forgiving nature.

We are poor little lambs who have lost our way ... We’re little black sheep who have gone astray. Lighten up and being joyful beyond good sense. God is going after you too right now and when God finds you, it won’t make any sense, but there will be great joy.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan