Pentecost 15, Proper 19, 2004:

When his day came old Joe found himself at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter greeted him warmly and allowed him to enter. They were walking together down a huge hallway that seemed miles long. It was full of shelves, which held boxes that resembled clocks with hands. Each box had a name on it and there were millions of them.

Old Joe asked St. Peter, "What are all these boxes with names on them?"

"Each one of these boxes tells us when a person sins," St. Peter said. "Every time those hands move, well, it means that that person has committed a sin."

Joe started looking around and, sure enough, he found his friend Henry’s name. Henry’s clock was ticking slowly. Over about two shelves Joe found Jim’s clock. Jim’s was moving even slower. Then Joe thought about his friend that went by the name Dirty Sam. Dirty Sam was known in their small town by nearly everyone for his drinking, cursing, card playing, and chasing women. Joe looked and looked and couldn’t find Dirty Sam’s clock anywhere. So he asked St. Peter, "Where is Dirty Sam’s clock? Surely he’s around here somewhere?"

St. Peter said, "Well, it’s been a little warm up here lately, so we moved his clock into the main office and we’re using it for a fan."

I’ve shared with you before that I lived most of my elementary school years with my grandmother and grandfather on the farm. It was part of my lot in life to be a "gopher’ for Granddaddy A.T. He would say that I had younger legs and that brawn was just as important to successful farming as brains. Ha! So, I would be the one to run back to the tool shed to fetch the socket wrenches with which to fix the tractor, truck, or bailer. In the winter, especially during lambing season, I would be the one to go off into the far corners of the pastures to look for the missing ewes, when Bob, the sheepdog failed to gather all of them.

I wish I could tell you that I did this chore with cheer and gleefulness, but that would be less than truthful. I would very often grumble about "dumb sheep" that didn’t have sense enough to know a good thing when they saw it. Good food, fresh water, and a warm barn with fresh straw were awaiting them. No, one or two would be absentmindedly grazing in what we called the laurel thicket. Once in a while one would have poked its head through the fence, trying to reach that tasty morsel of tempting grass on the other side, and become stuck in a wire trap. Soft bleating would give away the location and I pry open the strands of wire and the dumb sheep would go back to grazing as if nothing had happened.

Eventually, all the sheep would be corralled for the night and I would sit down to Granny Harris’s delicious supper. It was not until later, when I had sheep of my own, that I would come to understand the difference between simply doing an expected chore and the responsibilities of ownership.

Sometimes, perhaps very often in these troubling days, we long for the simply, straightforward lessons about life. We live in a highly complex, complicated; pluralistic world and some of the lessons learned in earlier times appear to have been lost. That may well be true of our spiritual lives, as well. I would suggest to you that the more complex and complicated our lives become the more we need to recapture those universal, uncomplicated lessons that served us well in an earlier time. That’s not to advocate a simplistic approach to life, but to give a solid grounding to the process by which we make our decisions.

Very often, when people with complicated problems and uncertain directions came to him, Jesus would simplify things through the use of the simple teaching device called a parable. The profound, deep, and eternal truths about God and God’s love for creation and creature were expressed through the story of everyday experiences that all who heard them could understand.

The parables about a lost sheep and a lost coin express in simple terms the truth about God’s relationship to people. Here we have Jesus the Christ using a favorite method of painting a picture of God and God’s love. Love is the key word in the parables. What about God’s love for the sheep? Notice, of primary importance, that God’s love is individual. The 99 were not enough. One sheep was out there. Perhaps that one was injured, lost, lonely, hungry, ashamed, and the shepherd would not rest until that one was brought home. Not until that one felt the warmth of love and genuine care was the shepherd’s job done for the day. If it were up to me, I probably would have been satisfied that 99 were in the barn. That lost one had made a decision and would just have to fend for itself. God is not like that! God will not rest until the lost one, the last one is gathered in. It is a moment of profound relief when one learns that they are not God. God is God. And in order to find that one lost sheep God sent the Good Shepherd. One of the things that the Godly Play curriculum does so well is to teach each child that God loves each one of them individually and will do anything to bring them into that loving embrace.

God’s love is patient. Sheep, from my limited experience, are very often absentminded. They don’t really stop to think before sampling the green grass just outside their own boundary or they do not watch where they are headed. Then the danger becomes apparent. Sure, they have no one to blame but themselves.

The sheep that are not lost are tempted to display little patience for the foolish ones. Words like, "Well, it’s their own fault, they brought it on themselves," are expressed. Or, "You made your bed, now lie in it." Usually, those who feel fairly safe and secure give those value judgements.

Notice that God is not like that. The sheep may well be absentminded, maybe even a little foolish, but the Good Shepherd will lay down his life to save it. We may be, and very often are, foolish, but God loves even the foolish ones who doesn’t know how they got into the fix they are in and can’t find their way home. God, through Jesus the Christ, the Good Shepherd searches and woos and loves until the lost one is found and brought home.

Finally, God’s love calls for rejoicing by all. There is nothing but joy here. No recriminations, no "I told you so." There are no resentments, no grudges, and not looking down the nose. Oh, yes, in the strictly human side of things the lost one, the sinful one, the one who went astray is accepted back into the fold only after the moral lecture and a clear message that they will never be trusted again. Human sheep may forgive, but forgetting is another matter.

God’s forgiveness is absolute. The only thing required of the wayward sheep is a genuine confession. The absolution is guaranteed and the slate is not simply wiped clean; we are given a whole new slate upon which nothing has ever been written. That is what gladdens the heart of God and that brings a rejoicing love.

God’s love is individual, patient, and rejoicing. When we understand how very simple that is we are made ready for service to others. We identify with the lost one. The wanderer is made wiser, the weak are made stronger, and the sinner understands and accepts forgiveness. And, next to power of prayer, there is nothing so life-changing as the power of sins forgiven.

We all know someone who doesn’t believe a word of this. It is that one God in Christ, the Good Shepherd, calls us to find and bring home. The hands on our clocks speed up every time we fail to reach out with the reconciling message of the Good Shepherd who has given all that all may find the safety and security of the sheepfold. I pray we will engage in our work as we begin this fall with renewed commitment to find the lost and to demonstrate that God’s love is individual, patient and a cause of rejoicing. Amen.