Sermon 9/12/04
Who's Who in the Sheepfold - Luke 15:1-10
(view lectionary notes on this text)
Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound) That sav'd a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see. 'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears reliev'd; How precious did that grace appear, The hour I first believ'd! Thro' many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home. The Lord has promis'd good to me, His word my hope secures; He will my shield and portion be, As long as life endures. Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail, And mortal life shall cease; I shall possess, within the veil, A life of joy and peace. The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, The sun forbear to shine; But God, who call'd me here below, Will be forever mine.
This, our last hymn in our summer of hymn studies, is probably the best loved hymn in all the world, and easily took first place in our fall worship survey. Our love for this hymn suggests that if nothing else, we understand our need for God's grace, our lack of deserving of it, and God's abundance in giving of this grace.
Amazing Grace, as we now call this hymn, was written by John Newton somewhere between 1760 and 1770. According to author Al Rogers, Newton was born in London in 1725. As a young man, he joined the service on a man-of-war, but eventually, "finding conditions on board intolerable, he deserted but was soon recaptured and publicly flogged and demoted from midshipman to common seaman."
Eventually, "at his own request he was exchanged into service on a slave ship, which took him to the coast of Sierra Leone. He then became the servant of a slave trader and was brutally abused." He was later rescued, and became captain of his own ship, which "plied the slave trade." Newton had some religious training as a child, but as an adult, he rejected these convictions. However, "on a homeward voyage, while he was attempting to steer the ship through a violent storm, he experienced what he was to refer to later as his "great deliverance." He recorded in his journal that when all seemed lost and the ship would surely sink, he exclaimed, "Lord, have mercy upon us." Later in his cabin he reflected on what he had said and began to believe that God had addressed him through the storm and that grace had begun to work for him.
"For the rest of his life he observed the anniversary of [the storm] as the day of his conversion, a day of humiliation in which he subjected his will to a higher power." His conversion at first did not lead him to abandon the slave trade, but later in his life he came to condemn the slave trade and urged for its cessation. Eventually, Newton sought to become ordained as a clergy person, and though first rejected, he was eventually appointed to a congregation. Newton was extremely successful in drawing crowds to his church, which eventually had to be enlarged. A friendship with poet William Cowper soon had Newton becoming a prolific writer of hymns, including Amazing Grace. (1) The words have been slightly altered from those I read today over the years, and some verses have been added or deleted, but the core of the hymn remains the same.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound! Turning to Luke, our gospel lesson today is one of my favorites, a story of grace the tries and succeeds, at least in my case, in tugging at my heart strings. For the same reason that we love this hymn, we can also love this passage of scripture, because it speaks of the need in all of us to know that God will search for us, seek us out, no matter how many times we screw up, get lost, wander away from God. Amazing grace!
Jesus tells two parables here, in response to the grumblings of the religious folks around him. It seems tax collectors and sinners, those outside of societal norms, were coming to hear Jesus, and were even sharing meals with him! The Pharisees and scribes see this as yet another reason to criticize Jesus, saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them!" Jesus proceeds to tell them two very similar parables, of a lost sheep and of a lost coin. He speaks about the great amount of effort that the owner of the sheep and coin would go to, even though they might possess many other sheep and coins - none of the others can replace the one that is lost - the lost sheep, the lost coin - they are of enough value to cause the owner to search and search, and to celebrate and rejoice when the lost is found. This, Jesus says, is how God seeks out those sinners who are lost but are found by God, those sinners who repent, or, literally, have a changing of their mind to a new direction - God's direction.
Jesus uses one of his favorite tactics in the teaching of this lesson. He says, "who would not do it this way? Who would not react like this?" "Which one of you would not," he begins. He sets us up to feel that if we don't react like he has indicated, that we're not acting as a normal person would respond. In actuality, however, Jesus is setting up very subversive, bold new ways of behaving and living through his teachings. In this situation, Jesus says: who wouldn't go out and have a search party for a lost sheep? Who would let the poor sheep wander lost and alone? Who wouldn't rejoice at this sheep being found, and call up friends and family to let them in on the good news? Well, the answer is: we wouldn't, his audience wouldn't have, shepherds probably wouldn't have! What shepherd would have left the 99 sheep open to attack just to seek out one stray? Jesus challenges us to set a new norm. The old norm is to reject people when they stray or when they behave differently than the rest of the fold. The new norm is to seek out those who are lost and alone, and to welcome them back with open arms.
Thank God, we say, for this story. Thank God, that God feels this way about us, that God will seek us out. By the time we reach adulthood, most of us have not had a straight and simple faith journey. We take what I like to call "the scenic route" on our path with God - sometimes rejecting God outright, more often probably ignoring God or forgetting God, or placing God pretty low on our priority lists. And indeed, we always find God waiting when we get back, ready to try again to so instill us with God's love that we stop looking for fulfillment in other places. But as usual, we see ourselves as the lost victim at the center of all these stories - it always us that God is seeking after.
In actuality, by Jesus directing his story at the Pharisees and scribes, he is talking to people who already consider themselves faithful, who already see themselves at the center of the fold. These are not the lost sheep - it is the very people the scribes and Pharisees look down on that are the lost ones Jesus seeks after. Likewise, with us, our presence here today, for most of us, signifies that we are more like part of the 99 sheep than like the lost one. So, the question for us must shift - the question asked of us is not how do we find our way back to God when we've been lost, but how we welcome others into the fold whom God leads into our midst.
Scholar Sarah Dylan Breuer wrote her own version of this parable, this one from the perspective of the ninety-nine, speculating how the rest of us sheep might react to the situation Jesus describes. She writes: (2) "Once there was a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them went astray. The shepherd's colleagues figured this was probably due to some carelessness on the shepherd's part -- after all, when the shepherd had been a farmer, he had repeatedly been seen tossing seed in the middle of paved parking lots and pigeon hangouts without much thought as to whether anything would actually grow there, so he had acquired a reputation for being a little loopy.
The ninety-nine sheep, wanting to be helpful, immediately sprang into action ... or discussion, anyway. One loudly announced that the Historic Flock had never included more than ninety-nine sheep, and therefore that the stray was probably a goat, or perhaps a marmoset, and should not be bothered with. If a wolf got it, that's what it deserved for straying from the flock, or for being a marmoset, or whatever its problem was.
Factions gathered in response to that announcement, some suggesting that perhaps a message could be sent to the stray that if she were to stop being a marmoset and instead become a sheep, or at least learn to bleat like one, or perhaps if she stopped making...what noise is it that marmosets make? (cries immediately went up for a subcommittee to study that issue) she could rejoin the flock. A website and glossy magazine ads were put in place to further this effort, as were a series of dialogues, in which each member of a panel of three sheep would present its view of what species the strays were, followed by discussion and concluding with a very nice and moving liturgy.
Another faction formed to try to win over the first group. They poured their resources into a public relations campaign in the flock to celebrate the contributions of all sheep, even the ones reputed to be marmosets or goats. Since their raison d'etre was to convince the Historic Flockers, though, it was very important not to engage in any precipitous action that might offend them. So when rumors arose that the stray sheep was being attacked by wolves and a voice in the flock suggested that perhaps something outght to be done, another of the ninety-nine sheep produced a marvelous-looking PowerPoint presentation documenting the decline in wolf attacks by well over 30% over the last fifteen years. "And there used to be 78 strays per year," she noted, "that we've got it down to one is most impressive!" The faction responded with a loud cheer and rumbled off to a celebratory ball and fundraiser to cover the cost of a digital camera to supply graphics for future presentations.
All of this "pro-stray" rhetoric greatly annoyed the planners of the campaign to convince the stray to return to sheephood, and the sheep who didn't want the stray back in the flock at all were furious, threatening to leave the flock. Much hubbub ensued, and hours later, if you could somehow manage to listen beyond all of the loud bleating and blaring loudspeakers and committee deliberations and rousing choruses of "Bringing In the Sheep" and a new hymn, "Goading Out the Goats," you might have heard a few sheep quietly noting the shepherd's absence and wondering where the shepherd had gone, as one silhouetted figure made its way toward the horizon and the stray ... and some wolf howls echoed in the distance." Breuer concludes with three questions for us: "Where is the shepherd? Where are the ninety-nine? If one sheep is with the shepherd and ninety-nine aren't, who's really the stray?"
I hope you can recognize some of church and religious life in Breuer's humorous but poignant take on this parable. The real question Jesus wants to push on is not a question of why or how we stray from God, but of how we respond when others find themselves outside of the sheepfold. This month is Open House month in the United Methodist Church, and in two weeks, we will celebrate our own Open House here at St. Paul's, as we invite people to come to worship with us. Our slogan as a denomination is "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors." But before we claim this motto, we have to ask ourselves, are we really open? Have we opened our hearts and our minds? Have we opened our doors? Are we really looking for some lost sheep to make a home right in our midst? Are we ready to receive those who might not look like us, or think like us, or live as we live? This is the challenge that Jesus issues to us - it is God's way, Jesus says, to rejoice over the lost who are found - can we make it our way as well?
We love Amazing Grace because it rings true to us - we know that God's grace - God's acceptance of us and love of us is indeed the most amazing thing we can experience in a world where no one wants to give without receiving in return. Amazing grace - how sweet the sound. Let us open our hearts and open our minds as we prepare to open the doors to our homes, our church, and our lives. Rejoice - the one who was lost has been found. The one who was alone is at home in God's arms, and at home in this community of faith. Amazing grace. Amen.
(1) Rogers, Al. Away Here in Texas, July-August 1996 issue. http://www.texasfasola.org/biographies/johnnewton.html
(2) "The Parable of the Ninety-Nine", http://www.sarahlaughed.net/lectionary-blog.html