September 16, 2007 - Pentecost 16, Year C
Saint James Episcopal Church, Saint James, NY

When I was a kid,
my grandparents owned what we in Australia would call
a sheep property;
I guess here in the US, you’d call it a ranch.
Three thousand three hundred acres of paddocks,
huge grassy areas pockmarked by protruding rocks
ideally with a clump of trees for shelter and a dam or creek for water.
There was a rambling old house, a shed for the tractor,
an old tumbledown blacksmith’s forge
and a big shearing shed, impregnated with years of lanolin.
There were rabbits everywhere, and kangaroos,
two horses
and sheep.
Most of what I know about sheep
I learned there.
That they tend to stick together, heading off at a gallop at the slightest intrusion.
that they don’t have a real good idea of the difference between sheep and other furry creatures the same size --- we could send our Old English Sheepdog out to them, and instead of having to herd them, she just have to get the attention of on dumb enough
to think she was one of them,
and the whole lot would come thundering after her,
through the gate,
into the dipping trough,
even into the house if we would have let them.
I say that they stuck together,
but there was always the exception.
First it was Claude, the sheep my grandparents raised from a bottle,
who would run up from the herd whenever she heard the car
ready to greet us,
and her descendants,
best of all Lambie, who would come up for a snack each afternoon,
preferably blue cheese on bread or apricot jam on toast
that my grandfather used to eat alongside a glass of port
late each afternoon.
And if he wasn’t around
she would baa insistently at the kitchen door
and push her heavy body against our legs if we tried to ignore her.
And there were other independent minded sheep too,
ones that stayed well away from the house
and from the flock.
We’d sometimes see them off in the distance when we were out walking,
though they were always long gone by the time we got to the place we’d seen them;
more often we’d find them, or what remained of them
after a fox, I guess, had got them.
Sheep are not, for the most part, particularly good at self preservation,
especially if they get caught alone;
they have no way of defending themselves,
and if it’s close to shearing time,
and they have a heavy fleece of wool
sometimes all it takes is a bit of rain
and an accidental fall
and they can’t get up again,
the water and the fleece trapping them on the ground.
And there’d be no escape for them
unless one of us came along
and hauled them upright again.
And so I have some sympathy with the sheep ---
and the shepherd ---
when Jesus tells his story
of the lost sheep.
It’s hard to lose a sheep;
they can be so helpless, so dependent.
You want to do all you can
to find one if it goes missing.
But you only go hunting
if you’re sure
the rest of the flock are safe.
There’s no point finding one
if you lose another fifteen
while you’re gone.
So if you’re way out in the back paddock
seven miles from home
and you realize that the count is one short
you don’t have much choice.
You have to herd the rest back
and leave the one to fend for itself.
It’s just common sense.

And so everyone knew
the answer to Jesus’ 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?”
Well duh.
None of us. We’re not that stupid.
We’d leave the lost one, and be happy with our ninety nine.
Though we’d be celebrating too, if by some chance we found it,
as long as we didn’t lose any other sheep.

With the coin, its a bit different. We’re a bit more sympathetic --- sweeping the house
doesn't represent any risk to the other nine coins. But inviting the friends and neighbors over
does seem like overkill.
After all, she only found the coin shed lost; it wasn’t like she’d won something. And once you invite everyone over, you have to offer them food and drinks
and by the end of it all
you’ve spent more than the coin you just found again.

And that, Jesus says, is how God feels
about sinners who repent.
Doesn’t matter how many good and righteous people
hang out with God; when one person
who wasn’t interested
decides to turn to God,
it’s time for a celebration!
For those of us who grew up with a picture of God
as some sort of stern taskmaster,
ready to get angry
at the slightest misbehavior,
this is something altogether different.
This is a God
who, to be honest, is kind of crazy. God who looks at someone
who’s running away, trying to make it on their own,
and gets in trouble
God sees them and goes after them and brings them home with great celebration.
God who looks at someone
who has somehow or other
just got lost,
swept into a dust corner or under a rug and been forgotten,
God sees them, and unearths them
and sines them up for everyone to see;
another celebration.
We might not think it’s real flattering to be compared with straying sheep
or lost coins,
but you know, it doesn’t matter. Because this isn’t so much about us
as it is about God.
God is the one who finds us
and celebrates
our presence.

It’s a great story. But you know, it seems to me, that God
is pretty unpredictable.
Or at least Jesus is.
One minute
he’s warning prospective disciples off
telling them stories of builders who begin towers and can’t finish them
and kings who go out to war
without checking the strength of the enemy,
telling them to count the cost
before they take to following him,
and next thing
he’s telling stories about lost sheep and lost coins
and throwing parties
when the lost are found.
And if there’s one thing that I know about sheep
and coins
is that they are not real good
at counting the cost;
not real good
about thinking in general.
So what’s going on? How do we balance
the warnings of last week
with the welcome of this week?

I suspect the answer is
in who Jesus is speaking about
and speaking too.

There are some of us
for whom Christianity
is our heritage.
We take it for granted.
We got baptized; we come to church, more or less.
We have no problems with the creed.
We tend to be
just a little bit complacent.

And to us, Jesus says,
“Watch it!
Don’t make any assumptions.
God wants more of you than lip service. He wants your life.”

And then there are those of us
who aren’t sure that we’ll ever really belong. We feel like we’re outsiders. We’re not really sure what we believe. We have no right to expect God to want us, no right to expect God to forgive us.
And to us, God says “Welcome.
It’s good to see you. I’m so glad you’re here.”
And then turns and in the other breath, says to the rest of us,
“Well come on then, aren’t you going to celebrate? Look who’s here!”

I suspect what’s going on
is that God comes to us
with the words we need to hear. Words that help us
take the next step
of faith.
Sometimes they are words of challenge, sometimes of hope, sometimes
pure grace.
But whether we identify with kings and builders
or sheep and coins,
in the end, it doesn’t matter.
All it takes
is being willing to go along with God,
whether counting the cost
or stepping back from the precipice,
we just need to be willing
to go along for the ride.
God welcomes us all.
God welcomes us all,
and invites us to join in, join in the party,
join in the celebration.
Welcome.

©Raewynne J.Whiteley, 2007