Lost and Found

 

Sheep are extremely silly animals.
They are always looking for innovative ways to get dead!

Whether it is becoming stuck on cliffs,

or in snowdrifts,

or brambles

or barbed wire,

or even hanging themselves on the fence,

or eating the wrong thing,

whatever,

a sheep will do its utmost to frustrate the shepherd’s attempts at keeping it alive!

And in the story that Jesus told in our Gospel reading,

the sheep has wandered off somewhere and got lost.

This is a very familiar story;
the Good Shepherd abandons all the rest of the sheep to go and find the lost one.
Because, we are told, there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over the ninety-nine who never went astray.

And the woman who drops her valuable coin somewhere and who turns the house upside-down looking for it –
been there, done that, haven’t you?
The most recent thing we lost was a dozen eggs,

which sounds odd but I had bought two dozen in Belgium last week because they were on a BOGOF, or Buy One Get One Free offer,

but when we had unpacked and I came to look in the fridge, there was only one dozen there.
We had to go down to Sussex again that day, so we went to the motor home and turned it upside-down, looking in every cupboard, just in case they had been left there, but no joy,

and it wasn’t until we got back to London that I saw them sitting innocently on the corner of a chest where they had no business to be!
So we were delighted.
Sometimes I really think there is a black hole in the flat that swallows things and then spits them out again randomly,

usually when you are looking for something else!
Anyway, the woman in Jesus’ story did eventually find her coin,

perhaps when she was looking for something else, and called her neighbours –

who had, perhaps, been helping her look for it –

to share her joy.

These are the first two of the three stories Jesus told about finding things –

the third, of course, is the story that we know as the Prodigal Son, about the young man who insists on having his legacy now, without waiting for his father’s death, and heads off to make his fortune,

only to come crawling back when it all goes horribly wrong.
But we’ll leave that one for now, as it wasn’t part of today’s reading.

There is a subtle difference between the lost coin and the lost sheep.
You see, the coin couldn’t help getting lost.
It was probably attached to a headband that the woman normally wore, which was the custom in that time and place, apparently.
It probably formed part of her dowry –

a tenth of it, in fact, we are told, as she had ten coins.
And one having fallen off would be incredibly obvious, a great gap in the middle of her headband.
But it was nothing to do with the coin.
A coin is an inanimate object.
It couldn’t choose to twist off the headband and go exploring.
And when it had fallen off, it couldn’t attract attention to itself.

But the sheep wandered off of its own volition.
I don’t suppose it meant to go so far from the flock;
sheep do like being together, they are herd animals.
Which makes sense, since they are prey animals, and there is safety in numbers.

So a sheep that has got lost will bleat very loudly to try to attract attention.

But sometimes it’s difficult to come back.
Like the coin, we are dumb, we are stuck.
We have wandered away from God, and perhaps we don’t even want to come back.
Perhaps we don’t even realise we need to!


“Do these evildoers know nothing?” asks God in our first reading.
“They devour my people as though eating bread!”

“Fools,” we are told, “have said in their heart there is no God.”
They may or may not pay lip-service to Christianity, or other religions,

but they certainly don’t behave that way.
People who want to deny women the right to their own bodies.
People who want to deny women even the right to an education.

People who want to send refugees back where they came from,

or on to other countries who don’t want them, either.

People who want to give tax breaks to the rich,

while increasing the burden on the poor.

People who are quite happy to see others having to use food banks,

or not knowing how to feed or clothe their children.

People who are quite happy to allow energy prices to increase by far more than in other European countries,

even though we actually imported far less gas from Russia than many.

And so it goes on.
“They devour my people as though eating bread!”

But we know, too, that we’re not blameless.

We can’t sit here thinking “Thank God I’m not like that!”

because that would put us in the same pew as that Pharisee who thanked God because he felt he was righteous.

We do like to think of ourselves as better than others.
We know God doesn’t hate gays, or immigrants, or Muslims, or whoever the current hate group is right now.
Does that make us any better than those who think God does hate certain groups of people?
I don’t think so!
I’d like to think so, but, alas, I can’t.

You see, I’m human, too.
Just as you are.
Just as those who would deny others basic human rights are.
Just as those who deny God are.
We are all human, and we all need God.

Of course, there are many millions of people who don’t believe in God,

but who nevertheless lead honest, decent, upright lives, giving to charity,

being active against the worst excesses of our society, and so on –

please, don’t think there aren’t.

And God loves them every bit as much as God loves you and me,

and, of course, longs and longs for them to turn to him.

Because, like you and like me, they are human, and humans screw things up!

No matter how good and upright a person is,

whether or not they are God-fearing, they –

we –

screw things up.

Big-time.

The Bible calls it sin, and one of the definitions is missing the target.

Missing the good things that God has for us because,

like the lost sheep, we wander off after something that looks better.

So where am I going with this?
The thing is, we don’t like admitting we’ve made a nonsense.
We don’t like saying we’re up the creek without a paddle.
Or maybe we aren’t even aware that we’re lost!

Like the coin, we have no idea that we aren’t where we’re meant to be,

but are perfectly happy in the dust and dirt of a dark corner, or the cracks between the floorboards.

But then, coming back is not, according to these stories, our idea.
It is God who does the seeking.
Like the woman in the story turning her house upside-down to find the coin, God searches and searches and calls to us to come back to him.
The Good Shepherd pulls on his coat and wellies, grabs his staff, and goes out into the wind and rain to rescue the lost sheep.

We may feel that we ought not to expect God to come and rescue us if we’ve got into a mess through our own silly fault.
But then, how else would we get into a mess?
Yes, there are times when it feels as though God has abandoned us and, as far as we are aware, we have done nothing to deserve it.
We all go through those times of darkness, they appear to be a necessary part of the Christian journey.
And, like the coin, all we can do is wait quietly until we are found.
If you were at the circuit service last Sunday, you will have heard K read a story about a man who planted trees and then deliberately neglected them, requiring them to grow their own roots to get water, and in the end his trees were a lot stronger, and grew better, than those which were looked after more conventionally.
Maybe these times of darkness, where we feel God is neglecting us, are necessary to help us grow into the person we are meant to be.

But a great deal of the time we have got ourselves into a mess.

We may not have meant to –

or we may have done it deliberately.

And there we are, totally lost.
Caught in the brambles, unable or unwilling to move from our position.
All we can do is call out to God, just as the sheep will bleat when it hears someone coming.

Or maybe, even, we don’t really want to be found.
Maybe we are quite comfortable as we are, or maybe we aren’t, but can’t quite see how God could possibly forgive us and welcome us back.
But that’s the whole point, in a way.
If we have our act together, if we know we are “doing it right”, then we aren’t, just as the Pharisee in that other story Jesus told wasn’t.
He was convinced he was better than most people, and especially better than that tax-collector over there.
But he wasn’t.
And we aren’t.
You know what?
We’re no better and no worse than anybody else, and like anybody else, like everybody else, we need to allow the Good Shepherd to rescue us.

There will be no condemnation.
No blame.
No telling-off.
Not from the Good Shepherd.
We might have to put things right with other people –

that’s normal.
But as far as the Good Shepherd is concerned, there is just an enormous smile and, “There you are at last!
Come on, let’s go back to the others!”
Amen.