Luke
15:1-10
A
famous evangelist was in town to hold an evangelistic crusade. On the way to
the stadium where the crusade was being held, the evangelist wanted to stop at
the post office and mail a letter. But he got hopelessly lost and finally
decided to ask someone for directions.
He
noticed a little boy walking on the sidewalk, so he pulled over and said,
“Excuse me, son, can you tell me where the post office is?”
The
little boy said, “Sure. Turn around and go back down the street to the first
light, turn left and it’s a block or two on your right.”
“Thank
you very much, young man,” said the evangelist. “By the way,” he added, handing
the boy an announcement for the crusade, “I’d like to invite you to come to a
meeting later today where I’ll tell you how you can find Jesus Christ as your
personal Savior.”
“Fat
chance,” said the little boy. “You can’t even find the post office.”
Fortunately
for us, we don’t have to find God. God
searches and finds us. God is in
persistent pursuit of wayward persons like us; we who have gone astray; the
lost. God doesn’t just wait for people
to return. God goes after them. He seeks them out. He searches and searches and searches until
he finds what is lost.
In
our text this morning, Jesus describes God as a shepherd watching over his
flock. To be a shepherd was hard and
dangerous work. In Judaea, in Jesus’
time, pasture was scarce. The narrow
central plateau was only a few miles wide, and then it plunged down to the wild
cliffs and the terrible devastation of the desert. There were no fences or walls to help keep
the sheep together. When you met a
shepherd, you’d see a sleepless, far-sighted, weather-beaten, armed man,
leaning on his staff and looking out over his scattered sheep, every one of
them a burden on his heart.
The
shepherd was personally responsible for the sheep. When one of them died, they had to bring the
fleece to the owner to show how it died.
They were experts at tracking sheep following footprints in the soil for
miles. There was not a single shepherd
who did not risk his life for his sheep every day.
Like
the shepherd, our God does the same; to risk everything he has. An even more crazy risk is the shepherd
leaving the 99 untended in the wilderness, leaving them vulnerable to attack
and robbery. Either the shepherd is
foolish or the shepherd loves the lost sheep and will risk everything,
including his own life, and that flock, until he finds it.
Jesus
also describes God as a common woman of his time. The woman lights a lamp and gets a broom and
begins her frantic search for her missing coin in what would have been
difficult circumstances. The houses were
very dark, for they were lit by one little circular window not much more than
about eighteen inches across. The floor
was beaten earth covered with dried reeds and rushes; and to look for a coin on
a floor like that was very much like looking for a needle in a haystack. But she will not give up until she finds
it. She will sweep the floor in hope
that she might see the coin shine or hear it “ting” as it moves. All the furniture will be turned upside
down and pushed aside. No crack in the
wall is overlooked. She’ll dig through
the trash if she has to.
The
truth for us to remember is God carefully and meticulously pursues confused and
rebellious creatures like ourselves.
Such pursuit gives value to those being sought. The pursued become treasured and significant
because they are not left lost in the universe, but made objects of divine
concern.
In
the 2003 movie, “Finding Nemo”, a clown fish named Marlin, who lives in the
Great Barrier Reef, loses his son, Nemo, after he ventures into the open sea,
despite his father's constant warnings about many of the ocean's dangers. Nemo is caught by a diver and ends up in the
fish tank of a dentist's office in Sydney, Australia. Marlin decides to go and search for Nemo; to get
him back home safely. As he searches the
ocean, Marlin meets a fish named Dory, a blue tang suffering from short-term
memory loss, who offers to help. The companions travel a great distance,
searching everywhere, asking if anyone has seen Nemo, encountering dangerous
and fascinating sea creatures such as sharks, anglerfish, jellyfish and sea
turtles all in an effort to rescue Nemo from the dentist's office, situated by
Sydney Harbor.[i]
Nemo’s
Dad, Marlin, goes to great lengths, risking everything, even his own life, in
search of his beloved son, Nemo. And he
won’t stop until he finds him. God does
the same. God is a persistent pursuer of
pandemic proportions! We don’t have to
find our way back to the fold. Jesus is teaching us that God is pursuing us.
All we need to do is stop running and let him take us back.
Why?
Why does the all-powerful God of the universe do this? In a world of over seven billion people, who
am I that I would matter to Him? To God
everybody matters. Everybody
counts. Jesus understands that those on
the fringe of the community, the outcast, the abused, the oppressed, are
integral for the whole community to be complete, to be what it ought to
be. So we, the community, the body of
Christ, are called to practice a Christ-like hospitality that searches and seeks
to forgive and restore broken relationships; to open our doors and rejoice with
the outcast, the misused and the voices long silenced.
Sinners
and tax-collectors gather at table with Jesus?
Woo Hoo! Rejoice! Celebrate, for they have returned home and now
sit in the presence of God. The one sheep
wandered away from the rest of the flock, thought to be lost and gone for good,
but it is found safe and sound. Again,
Woo Hoo! Celebration Time! The coin that fell to the floor lost in the
dark house could have been easily forgotten, but it is retrieved. Again, Woo Hoo! Hallelujah!
Hope has come to this place again.
I
recently saw a video about an Army soldier, Staff Sargent Roy Benavidez. He is from El Campo, Texas, and D’Anna went
to grade school with one of his sons.
The video is of Sgt. Benavidez speaking to a group of servicemen and
women about how he earned his Congressional Medal of Honor. It was in honor of his actions west of Loch
Ninh, South Vietnam in May, 1968.
Here’s
the story:
“When word came that a squad
was pinned down by enemy gunfire deep in the jungle, Roy immediately
volunteered to exact their rescue.
During the course of the effort, he subjected himself to constant enemy
fire and suffered numerous injuries, but still led the remaining soldiers to
protect and defend the position even after their first, second and third rescue
helicopters were shot down. The fourth
one did the trick. In fact, he was so
concerned about leaving someone behind, about losing anybody, he loaded three
dead enemy soldiers on the helicopter by mistake. During his speaking engagement, he said, ‘I
didn’t want to leave anyone behind.’”[ii]
In
the household of God, the lost are found.
In the household of God, nobody is left behind, tossed aside, thrown
away. In the household of God, everybody
counts, everybody matters, everybody is equal in the eyes of God. Rich and poor, liberal and conservative,
Republican and Democrat, black and white; male and female: we are all equal in
the eyes of God. If you are one of those
who feels you are so lost you are unredeemable, you can take delight in a God
who patiently searches for everyone. You can run but you can’t hide from God.
What a generous God we serve! This is a message that the world needs to
hear at a time such as this. Now is not
the time to retreat, to cowardly shrink from the challenges that lay before
us. Now is the time to press forward for
the highest quality educational opportunities for the children, youth and
adults of every community, including the global community, where they learn not
just what to think but how to think. Now
is the time to give every person the opportunity to claim or reclaim their
dignity and self-respect by speaking out against the growing economic
inequality within our nation today. Now
is the time for us to take a chance, to take a risk, to sail beyond the sunset;
to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield to the old fears and old slogans
of former years. To take a risk and
search for the lost sheep and sweep the floor for the lost coin, to make the
effort to grow and learn as disciples of Jesus Christ directed by the Spirit of
God.
This
is the Good News. Believe it and live it
because it’s the truth. Trust me! I know
the way to the post office!
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