I wonder if it has ever
struck you that when we gather here for worship week on week, we do
so in celebration of a love story.
Perhaps that's stating
the obvious...
We know, don't we, that
God so loved the world...but sometimes we need reminding just what
that means.
It's all too easy to get
caught up measuring our own goodness or lack thereof – and it's
even easier to find ourselves making judgements about the lives of
others – the way they dress, spend their money, discipline their
children...
A prime example this past
week was Michael Gove's criticism of the lifestyles of some who use
foodbanks – and I know that his views are shared by others who are
só intent on making value judgements about other people that they've
almost lost sight of our shared humanity.
That tendency to weigh
others in the balance and find them wanting is not confined to the
Pharisees who accosted Jesus...it's alive and well in our community
and even in our church...but that's NOT what the gospel is about.
The gospel is all
about love.
It's that which means
we're in no position to judge. Even if we managed, as the Pharisees
believed that they did, to obey every letter of the law we would
trip up over our failure to love.
Jesus begins his story,
as he só often does, by asking a question
‘Which
one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not
leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is
lost until he finds it?
It's
a good question...só stop for a minute to think about your answer.
Honestly
If
you had 99 sheep trotting along happily– would you REALLY bother to
go in search of the 1 that couldn't play nicely? The loner, the
trouble maker, the one who didn't fit in?
Would
you risk the safety of the flock – just leave them amid all the
dangers of the wilderness while you went to look for JUST ONE???
It
doesn't seem prudent. It doesn't even seem kind.
All
those good little sheep deserve care and attention. Surely a good
shepherd should not just abandon them...
No,
Jesus, I don't think I'd answer your question in the way that you
hope.
If
I were the shepherd, then the flock would be left incomplete...one
sheep lost forever.
But
thankfully I'm not
the
shepherd.
I'm
one of the sheep. And só are you. Perhaps you feel that you're one
of the majority, grazing calmly with your fellows, travelling
obediently along the path that is set before you...And that
might make
you a little sad, even indignant when the shepherd – and the Church
that exists to join in with His work – insists on making such a
fuss about the
missing sheep. What's so special about that one missing sheep after
all? It's not exactly a prize merino, is it...WHY does it matter.
It
matters, of course, because God loves it with a love that
WILL NOT LET HIM REST until the flock is complete.
That's
the gospel..the good news for all of us.....because, you know,
actually each of us is also that one lost sheep...
Willfull....Confused....Downright
disobedient......We've all chosen to wander away from the Shepherd
from time to time....but HE NEVER EVER LEAVES US ASTRAY
.
He
loves us too much.
I
was once at a toddler group when one of a pair of twins vanished.
One moment their mother
was happily chatting to a friend, the next she had abandoned the
conversation and was scanning every corner of the room for her
missing son. It didn’t matter that her daughter was safely by her
side…she needed to find that small boy so badly he might have been
the only child she had. Her daughter, though, was sensible. As her
mother swooped off to the furthest corners of the room, she was
followed by a small but determined figure, who had no intention of
letting her mother out of her sight.
The whole drama didn’t
last long, and ended in a happy reunion behind a stack of tables.…but
for a brief period maybe those of us involved had an inkling of the
way God feels about each one of us. He loves us so much, that we
might be his only child. He actively seeks us out when we have
wandered away or broken off communications with Him. It’s almost as
if He feels incomplete when one of us is missing. He takes
every risk, right down to sending his own Son, to seek us out and
rescue us.
And that leaves us with
another question...
Are WE in the right
place?
perhaps
we should ask ourselves whether, if the one sheep is with the
shepherd, it might not be the 99 who have gone astray
If Jesus is somewhere out
there on the margins, hunting for missing sheep, shouldn’t we be
out there with him. Surely the most important question for each of us
is not
“Is Jesus with me?”
but “Am I where Jesus is” for we can trust him to lead us into
new pastures, to keep us from harm, and indeed to lay down his life
for us.
That's just the way love
works.
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