Luke 15:1-7

“More Joy in Heaven”

It’s 2005. I’m at a family reunion somewhere in rural Georgia. I’m not quite old enough to have my own cell phone. As the family gathered to play board games and share memories, one of my cousins and I decided it would be a fun idea to go for a walk in the woods. Being children, it didn’t necessarily occur to us to tell anyone that this was our plan. What had seemed like an ordinary walk to us had given our parents quite a scare. When we returned to the family gathering we were greeted with reprimands. Where were you? Why didn’t you tell anyone where you were going? Don’t you know there are snakes in this forest?

On another occasion, when I was older and should have known much better, I went for a short hike with a friend sometime around January. It was a hike I had taken many times before, but this time we had started later in the day, sometime around 2:30. As my friend and I walked up the hill, we passed a man who told us that the sun would be setting soon so we better pay attention to the time. We kept walking. A little while later it became clear that we were lost. We tried to turn around and come back the way we had come from, but it was too late. The sun was already setting. It was getting harder to see now, and we had no idea how we were going to get home. This time we were old enough to have her own cell phones, and my friend decided to call for help. About 20 minutes later we heard sirens. We saw flashing red and blue lights somewhere in the distance. The phone rang. Someone on the other line told my friend that they wouldn’t be able to come up and retrieve us. We walked down the hill through thorn bushes and sludge in the direction of the light until we made it back to the parking lot.

Have you ever been lost?

The thing about being lost is that it doesn’t happen all at once. We can go on for quite a while without realizing we don’t know where we are.

As I was thinking about this flock of a hundred sheep, it occurred to me that our congregation is a similar size. A hundred sheep. A hundred living souls. A hundred people, wrestling with the mystery that the Lord is our Shepherd.

I wonder how many times this parable has taken place in each of our lives. How many times God has lifted us and held us up on His shoulders and brought us back to greener pastures. Because I don’t think this parable is meant to divide the flock into 99 and 1. The reality is that each one of us is the one, wandering from God, trying to make sense of this life, trying to be self-sufficient but getting lost along the way. And when we experience that thing called grace, the shepherd finds us once again. A second chance. An invitation to new life.

God sees each and every one of us like that one little lost sheep and invites us to see each other with the same eyes. What a wonderful thing for the 99 when they realize why the shepherd has gone away. When she returns with the lamb upon her shoulders. That’s how much God loves us.

The heavens rejoice! God’s heart is aglow with love for the lost sheep who has been rescued. Heaven rejoices over each child of God. But the greatest joy is in salvation, the restoration of the thing once believed lost. God longs for the outcasts, the sinners, the broken, and the despairing to be restored to the community, to eat at one table in the kingdom of God. Like the adage, nobody’s free til everybody’s free, Jesus is telling us that our salvation is tied up in the well being of every member of the body of Christ.

Whenever I find something I have lost, especially if it’s been lost for a while, I remember this parable and feel a wonderful kind of joy. God’s grace can be found everywhere. A missing pen found in a coat pocket becomes a reminder of God’s tender love and mercy. I once was lost, but now I’m found.

The traditional words of the commendation prayer in Christian funerals describes the believer as a “sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming”. We are not perfect, but we know the one who cares for us. You are God’s own beloved child. Jesus Christ came to redeem you. By the Spirit’s power, may you know God’s love for you, today and always. Amen.