The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
September 12, 2010
Vol. 13 no. 36
What kind of sheep have you lost? If anyone here has lost an actual sheep, we would be very interested to hear about it, especially if you eventually were able to find it and bring it back to safety. Of course, not all sheep stories end well, if you know what I mean.
Sheepness has emerged as the Christian metaphor. Sure, that symbol of the fish, an acronym for Jesus Christ, has become popular recently, but few ministers or priests refer to their congregational members as “fish.” I’ve been to enough Agribitions to know that there are different kinds of sheep, but generally those distinctions haven’t made it into our vocabulary. But think of the possibilities if Christians were Fish: trout, salmon, walleye, perch, catfish, minnows, sharks?
We are poor little sheep who have lost our way. But not sad little whiffinpoofs, for our real story is that we have been found. Not all of us have fount that out. Certainly not the Pharisees who were disgusted that Jesus associated and ate with people who had lost God’s love, or so they assumed. Too much of our religious faith is based upon our worldly merit, that you are only rewarded when you have earned the reward, that you are loved only when you have achieved something significant and important.
In other words, the Church is made up of multiples of 99 who have stayed put, are comfortable and well-fed and baa only in tune at the right time. Jesus insists it’s the other way around, that our calling is first to seek out the lost sheep, sweeping the whole house to find the lost coin. What the Pharisees still don’t comprehend is that they, we, all of us are lost sheep, not always in an obvious way. Someone has cared enough to find you, and it’s something to shout about.
Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan