A Shepherd Loses a Sheep

Reading Luke 15:4-10. 

I'm going to do something that you might phrase as a little bit meta this evening. And I'm doing it for two reasons. First, because it's something I've already done with the morning service. And second, because of the way I'm going to deal with the parable that we just read.

In my approach to my faith and therefore also to my preaching I have a deep since that God remains a mystery that I do not fully comprehend. I cannot domesticate the words of the Scriptures into messages that are perfectly sound. This is reflected in the title of the blog where I publish my sermons which is called “A Different Heresy”. On the blog I explain that I believe I preach a different heresy every week trusting that God can do something with it. I pray the Holy Spirit will be at work.

Alongside my imperfection as a preacher is your imperfection as a listener and you too have a task in this process. As a listener to a sermon, I believe that my task and therefore yours is to listen for what the Word of God, by which I mean to say Jesus, is saying through the sermon. There will be things that you will always disagree or agree with, but your task is to move beyond your opinions to listen for the prompting of what God might say.

The miracle of preaching occurs when despite the inadequacy of the preaching or the biases of the listener the Holy Spirit interrupts our banal lives with a revelation. When Peter declares Jesus to be the Messiah, he is told it is because flesh and blood has not revealed this to him but my Father in heaven. In the same way I believe it is the work of the Holy Spirit which helps us to hear God speaking to any of us. We step beyond our rational desire to be in control of what is a logical outcome and message and into the mystery of God's presence.

Having said all this this brings me to speak about the parable that we heard tonight. Traditionally this parable is called the parable of the lost sheep but even the naming of the parable is problematic. The name leads us to a focus which may or may not be that helpful. I'm going to present three different interpretations of the parable that I have grappled with through my faith journey, and I am going to invite you to listen for where the Word of God might be challenging you with tonight.

The first interpretation of the parable is represented by what I would say is a Sunday school understanding of the parable. A great example of this interpretation is found in this book Cecil the Lost Sheep. At the heart of this interpretation is a suggestion that somehow the sheep is a sinner who gets itself lost. Despite the effort of the shepherd to find the sheep as a young person the implication that was presented to me was that I needed to repent. In this case the focus was on my repentance as a sheep not the search of the shepherd for the sheep.

This is a traditional interpretation, one that you may have heard before, but it is problematic because the focus is on the work of the sheep to save itself through its repentance. This idea seems to be implied by the words at the end of the parable that turn it into an allegory.

As a person who has grappled with this passage for a long time now, I do not hear this interpretation as good news. For me it certainly does not reflect the idea of a gracious God who comes to us. The sheep must repent to be found. The sheep saves itself.

This brings me to speak about the second way of thinking about this parable. One of the things that always troubled me about the first interpretation was that the sheep does not find itself. The sheep is found. Despite the inference of the first interpretation and Jesus’ embellishment at the end of the parable the sheep does not sin, it gets lost, and it does not find its own way back.

So, if we shift our focus away from the sheep and back on to the shepherd what stands out in this case is the perseverance of the shepherd and the commitment of the shepherd to find the one lost sheep. Possibly even searching for that one at risk of the rest of the ninety-nine.

By focusing on the shepherd and interpreting the shepherd to be Jesus a focus is shifted away from the action of the sheep in saving itself to the action of the shepherd in being the saviour. In this case the parable begins to send sound again like good news.

The extravagant celebration at the end of the story points towards a God who delights in relationship with us. To me this is a more hopeful reading of the parable, but it still ignores some of the problems inherent in the text. 

The scholar Amy Jill Levine provides a helpful summary which relates to the first two interpretations but highlights a key issue. She says,

“Traditional interpretations see the sheep as the believer who is strayed from the fold; the one in search is Jesus or one of his representatives, who makes every effort to save this lost sheep from destruction; and the friends who join in the feasting at the end are the church. This is an encouraging message; it is certainly good news. What has got lost, however, is any provocation, any challenge.” (Short Stories by Jesus p.37)

Levine’s analysis of Jesus’ parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin involves her critique of the way in which both Luke and Matthew have Jesus’ recontextualizing the parable to support the broader telling of the two gospels.  

Levine points out how the allegory fails to match the parable. “There was no repenting in the story; there was no sin; the sheep did not ‘come to itself’ and find its way home. It was the owner who lost the sheep, and if this losing was sinful, he's not seen repenting.”

To listen to Levine's voice of interpretation requires us to consider the possibility that both Luke and Matthew may have embellished Jesus’ words. It is important for us to remember that the gospels were written 30 to 60 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The stories were handed down orally before the gospel writers chose to record them. Each of the four gospels is unique in its telling and has different emphases. The correlation between the parables and their suggested allegorical meaning do not fit neatly and when considered closely the allegorical meaning would not have made sense when Jesus told the parable.

Suggesting that this might be the case does not undermine the notion that we listen for God’s Word speaking to us through the scriptures. Rather, it challenges us to read the more closely and listen more carefully. One of the concerns that Levine highlights in her close analysis of these parables is to move beyond antisemitic sentiments or interpretation. Here is what she says about this parable.

“The parable presents a main figure - the owner, not the sheep - He realises he has lost something of value to him. He notices the single missing sheep among the ninety-nine in the wilderness. For him, the missing sheep, whether it is one of a hundred or a million, makes the flock incomplete. He engages in an exaggerated search, and when he is found the sheep, he engages in an equally exaggerated sense of rejoicing, first by himself and then with his friends and neighbours. If this fellow can experience such joy in finding one of hundred sheep, what joy do we experience when we find what we have lost? More, if he can realise that one of his hundred has gone missing, do we know what or who we have lost? When was the last time we took stock, or counted up who was present rather than simply counted on their presence? Will we take responsibility for the losing, and what effort will we make to find it – or him or her – again?” 44

The focus of the parable should be on the shepherd, in this case, or on the woman in the case of the lost coin.  If this is the case, then the provocation of the parable is to ask the question of the listener, ‘what have you lost?’ And, moreover, ‘what are you prepared to do to find what you have lost?’  Listening to the parable in this way I have begun to wonder about what I am missing in my relationship with God. And ‘what am I missing in my relationship with the people that I know?’ I am also wondering how much I am prepared to put into looking for what is missing.

I'm going to be honest at this point and say I have not landed on what I think this parable is about. I am feeling nudged in different directions. We know that the disciples struggled to understand Jesus’ parables. And if you go hunting around you will find other interpretations of this parable as well. I wonder howe many millions of sermons have been prepared on this parable, each with its own angle! 

Considering the journey that I've been on with this parable my tendency is to suggest that any focus on the sheep having to repent or find itself speaks of a works theology that I believe undermines unconditional grace. Focusing on the shepherd being Jesus has a level of ease and comfort with it that I do find appealing. Yet, it still leaves me with some unresolved issues in the text. The third interpretation by Levine does resolve some of those issues but I am left with questions about what Jesus was really trying to say to his audience. Levine’s interpretation has left me with the question what I might be missing in my relationship with God and others and what would I be prepared to do about that issue. Is this what God might be asking of me now?

I began this sermon by being a bit meta and saying that as a preacher I don't consider myself as having all the answers. Rather I seek to diligently and faithfully pose questions and postulate ideas that might help us listen for what Jesus is saying to us. In the case of both the lost sheep and the lost coin they finish with a happy ending. There is a celebration. A celebration which is disproportionate to what had been lost and found. 

Wrapping up, I believe there is something to be said about living in the context of the celebration of God's joy and delight in finding us and our joy and delight in finding God.

I'm going to invite you to a few moments of silence to consider what you might be hearing in what has been said. You may decide that you particularly feel attracted to one of the three different interpretations. You may have heard at distinct phrase or idea that you're going to think about a bit more. Or you may be just sitting with the mystery of a parable that you once thought you had nailed but now have more questions about.