That is the frame for all that follows in chapter fifteen, the story of a shepherd and his sheep, of a widow and her coins, of a man and his two sons.
It is important to remember the situation which prompted Jesus to tell these stories and to ask - "whom do we identify with in this situation - as well as in the stories that Jesus tells".
We do that kind of thing when reading a novel or watching a movie. We tend to identify with someone in it. So, which group or character do you identify with in today's gospel reading?
With Jesus - the good guy - who tries to straighten out the religious people? Who calls into question all they believe? Who reaches out and loves everyone, especially the most unloved?
With the Pharisees - the ones who rightly saw the dangers of too close an association with the wrong people (for what parent has not worried about your child falling in with the "wrong crowd"?), but so convinced that they and they alone were only in the right?
With the tax collectors and sinners - those traitors - the tax collectors who were working for the Romans and robbing their own people? With the sinners, the people of the land who never attended synagogue and seemed to lack even basic morality?
With the shepherd who lost a sheep or the poor widow who lost a coin?
With the 99 sheep who were OK - or the one who was lost?
With the coins snug in the widow's purse - or the one that was lost between the cracks in the floor?
Interesting isn't it? And I am sure all of you have an answer - that all of you do identify more with one than another.
And yet it can be a bit of problem.
Sometimes the things or persons we identify with can blind us to the fact that we are also like someone else in the story. Maybe someone we don't like so well. Maybe we are equally blinded to the fact that we are more like someone who is really likeable in the story..
Our way of identification can blind us to who we are, or who we could be, to where we are at, and to where we could be at.
Ralph Milton tells of the teacher who, for reasons of her own, asked the students one day, "If all the bad children were painted red and all the good children were painted green, which colour would you be?"
Think about it.
What colour would you be?
Red or Green?
It is a tough question isn't it when you pose only two options..One very wise child answered the teacher: "Striped"
The reason I am going on about this point is simple. It seems to me that in the frame of the story - everyone but Jesus is striped. And that in the world today - it is the same.
We are a curious combination of the lost and the found. We are striped. We are - in some sense - not completely complete.
It is hard language, this language of lost and found, especially for people in the middle, as most of us are most of the time. It seems too absolute.
Rarely are we completely lost. And rarely are we completely found. There is always a part of us that needs to be dragged and cajoled into the light, and there is always a part of us that is already there.
Some more - some less. But always something.
The wonderful thing is - that God wants us to enter fully into the light. The wonderful thing is that God wants to bless us all richly to keep us safe, to make us strong, to help us be like a Shepherd who really cares for his sheep like a poor widow who really values all her coins.
The wonderful thing is that the lost part of us is as valuable to God as the found part, that God does not want any one of us or any part of one of us - to be ignored, neglected, or lost.
God wants to bless us - all of us and God rejoices when one of us - or a part of us - is found.
Clearly Jesus wants us understand something important about God here:
- that God values and seeks out everyone, even the most unlikely persons,
- that God calls and wants to embrace everyone, even those whom others
would not,
- that God rejoices when those who have lost their way are found,
- and that God celebrates when he can once again sustain and nourish those
who for one reason or another have wandered away from him.
Jesus wants us to identify with both the shepherd and the poor widow in their sorrow and their joy, and to understand that each of us is valued - no matter what our colour our how many stripes we have.....
All of us are valued.
The 99 and the 1.
The coins in the purse - and the one under the floor.
The son at home - and the son who wanders.
Without all we are incomplete. Without all God the heart of God is incomplete. So when we are found - there is much joy, the joy of the widow who finds her precious coin, the joy of the shepherd who finds his precious sheep.
Rejoice in your value.
Let the shepherd gather you in.
Rejoice in your worth.
Let the widow find you.
And be like the shepherd.
Be like the widow.
Seek, look, find - those of every stripe. And rejoice when they come in and their pain and their sorrow is relieved .
Rejoice.
Erma Bombeck, in one of her books, describes a visit to a church one Sunday. She writes:
"...I was intent on a small child who was turning around smiling at everyone. He wasn't gurgling, spitting, humming, kicking, tearing the hymnals, or rummaging through his mother's handbag. He was just smiling. Finally, his mother jerked him about and in a stage whisper that could be heard in a little theatre said, "Stop grinning! You're in a church!" With that, she gave him a belt on his hind-side and as the tears rolled down his cheeks added, "that's better," and returned to her prayers."
Indeed, there are the lost - and there are the found and there are parts of us that are in the light, and parts in the dark.
As you are searched for, as you are looked for, as you are valued and as you are found - rejoice!
And search for, look for, and find and rejoice over others.
Erma Bombeck adds
"I so much wanted to grab this child with the tear-stained face close to me and tell him about my God. The happy God. The smiling God, the God who had to have a sense of humour to have created the likes of us."
God loves you.
God looks for you.
God wants to ease your pains.
God wants to make you whole.
Allow him.
Listen for his voice.
Follow him when he calls to you.
Do as he asks.
You will discover wonderful parts to you that you never knew were there, there will be less and less stripes and more good solid colour, you will be made whole.
And allow him to use you to seek, look, find, and rejoice over others. And this place and you will become known as place and a people of healing and wholeness, a place and a people of joy.
A special place and a special people because in it, in you, God is known.
Blessed be to God, day by day. Amen
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