Our scripture reading, I think, is from Luke 15, verses 1 through 10. But I do need a pulpit Bible. That's Luke 15, first 10 verses. Listen now to the word of God. Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to him to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, this man receives sinners and eats with them. And so he spoke this parable to them, saying, what man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep, which was lost. I say to you that likewise, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just persons who need no repentance. Or what woman, having 10 silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the peace which I lost. Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner. who repents, thus ends the reading of God's holy and inspired word. I'm sure some of you attended college or university, perhaps even a few of you have pledged a fraternity or a sorority. Now, if you don't know what those are, they can be defined as groups of students formally organized around a common purpose, interest, or even pleasure. Think of beer kegs and bed sheets turned into togas at wild house parties. But setting aside this cliche for a moment, let's ask why students want to belong to a fraternity or a sorority in the first place. What would motivate them to pledge? Well, they don't want to be left out, excluded from not only parties, but also friendships that may give them lasting memories and networking opportunities that may serve them both personally and professionally for the rest of their lives. The stakes are indeed high, and that's why pledges are willing to undergo humiliation and even torture as the price of admission into these coveted societies. In Luke 14, which I want to set as the background for our text this evening, the Pharisees and the experts of the law invited Jesus to a kind of house party, although I think we should probably imagine it more as a formal dinner than as a bacchanal. Perhaps they imagined him as a kind of pledge. By all means, he was certainly qualified for membership in their fraternity. He knew Torah, at least as well as they did, and taught as one who had authority. At this dinner, all the bigwigs were present, no doubt, to test him. Maybe you can recall a time in your career when you were searching for a job and you were invited to a networking event where the most important people were going to be. And your spouse or your parent gave you a pep talk encouraging you to put your best foot forward because These people, in a very real sense, had the power to make or break you. And your job then was to make as positive and as hopefully a lasting impression on them so that they'd be well disposed to give you a chance by making a phone call or introducing you to the right people. We have to see that the Pharisees comprised the elites of Jesus' day to be seen with them, to associate with them at their dinner parties, at their conferences, at their awards banquets, could launch a career. Hypothetically, the path was open to Jesus. It could have rewarded him both personally and professionally, ensuring him a long and distinguished career as a Torah lecturer and scholar. But the one thing is that Jesus failed their test. If you read Luke 14, you see that he criticized the people at the party for choosing the best seats. He turned to the host of the dinner party and criticized him too for his guest list. Absent from that guest list were the poor, the blind, the lame, and the crippled. We can imagine that host of that party turning to Jesus and saying, that's it, you're done, and then showing him the door. And never again in Luke's gospel will Jesus be the guest of a Pharisee or of any other religious authority. The next dinner party, if we can call it a dinner party, that Jesus is at appears to us in our text today. Only this time, he is hosting one for tax collectors and sinners who have gathered around him. Now, in doing so, he proves himself to be the host that the Pharisees failed to be, for he is not ashamed to have outcasts as his dinner companions, to have those whom the Pharisees regarded as unclean. And true to form, they are judging him for doing so. This is business as usual for the Pharisees if we are attentive to his encounters with them. But Jesus seizes this occasion to hold up to them a mirror in which they can see themselves. And he does this by telling them three parables, really. But we have time tonight only to consider the first two of those three. Which man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?" Now, consider that the Pharisees are the self-appointed religious leaders of the community. They interpret and apply God's law for the people. And so Jesus here can be seen to be confronting them with an image associated with the leadership of God's people, the image of a shepherd. By invoking this image, Jesus presumably appeals to their sense of obligation and caregiving associated with the leadership of Israel, while at the same time, maybe subtly implying his own identity as the true shepherd. who seeks and saves the lost. Now, curiously, the image poses a special problem for the Pharisees. Granted, they accepted Moses as a shepherd. A Jewish Midrash on Exodus even records a story of Moses searching for lost sheep and then being told by God that he will lead Israel. Later, we see that Ezekiel referred to kings as shepherds in denouncing them, prophesying the coming of the Lord himself as shepherd. In Ezekiel 34, 11 and 12, we read, I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so I will look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness." And of course, this tradition begins with whom? With David, the shepherd boy. With David, the shepherd became a template for understanding the role of the king of all Israel. He chose his servant David and took him from the sheepfolds. From tending the sheep, he brought him to be the shepherd of his people, Jacob, of Israel, his inheritance. With upright heart, he tended them and guided them with skillful hands." Psalm 78, verses 70 through 72. Now, the problem that I mentioned earlier is that the shepherd is not a profession that the Pharisees respected. Indeed, to the Pharisee, the shepherd could be considered unclean, since by that term, of course, the Pharisees mean either an immoral person who did not keep the law or a person engaged in one of the proscribed trades, among which we learn was herding sheep. The great 20th century New Testament scholar Joachim Ermias notes that shepherds appear twice on the rabbinic list of proscribed trades. He writes, mostly they were regarded as dishonest and thieving. They led their herds onto other people's lands and pilfered the produce of those lands. But still, it's rather ironic, isn't it, that shepherding is not a profession that the Pharisees respected. It's difficult to know how exactly the Pharisees revered the shepherd of the Old Testament, yet at the same time despised the shepherd who herded the neighbor's sheep. But if we believe the scholars, that seems to have been the case. What man of you having 100 sheep If he loses one of them, does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one lost until he finds it." Anyone who believed that shepherds are unclean would be immediately offended by these words of Jesus. But parables are meant to upset and provoke, and this is in keeping with what Jesus intends. he means for them to set people to argue and question and to think and to hopefully change. So let's say that the Pharisees succeeded in overcoming their initial aversion and consented, at least for the moment, to identify with the man having 100 sheep. Would I leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost? The sane reply to that question is, no one would do that. They knew enough about shepherding that they knew no shepherd would be so stupid as to do that. You've got your 99 sheep, and if you leave them, they'll all go wandering off. If you leave them in the wilderness, you leave them vulnerable to predators. Why would you do that? Besides, 100 sheep or 99 sheep represent considerable wealth. To abandon 99 sheep just for the sake of one, that's bad business. It's a formula for financial ruin. The second of these three parables may have been less offensive to the Pharisees, but no less absurd to their sensibilities, and to ours, to anyone. A woman has 10 coins, loses one, and lights a lamp to find the one. Which of you, Jesus doesn't ask the question because they're men, but no doubt the reply would be the same. None of us would do that. Why spare all that effort for one insignificant coin? So on paper, none of these actions add up. We've already mentioned what the shepherds did lose, and what about the woman? To throw a party for all her friends and neighbors so that she can share her joy over her fine, the party is going to cost more than what the one coin was worth. She would have come out ahead if she had just chalked up her loss and held on tight to the nine coins that she still had. I mentioned these two parables are a prelude to the grand parable, perhaps the greatest of all the parables, according to the opinion of many, that follows the one we know as the parable of the prodigal son, which really sums up and develops the themes present in these two. Together, they will tell us that Jesus is teaching us something far more significant. greater than who is invited at the table and who is not. Or, to put it in other words, table fellowship opens up to view the kind of God that Jesus announces, embodies, and represents in himself. By means of them, he's painting a portrait of the love of God. He's teaching them about the extravagant and the prodigal love of God that does not count the cost when it goes out in search of that lost one, a love that stops at nothing until that one is found. When one loves, one does not calculate, as the old saying goes. Now, in reflecting on this image, the shepherd and the sheep, Naturally, we will ask ourselves, who among us do we consider to be lost sheep? You know, when we first hear the word sheep, we may think of black sheep. You probably have all heard the phrase, he's the black sheep of the family, or she's the black sheep of the family. And there are only a few of those, and we can be grateful that there are not more. A woman in my congregation recently applied this term to herself. And when I told her that I could not possibly imagine that she could ever have been a black sheep and asked her what made her think she in fact was one, she replied that she struck out on her own path when she was young. She didn't heed the advice of her mother and father. She wanted to become her own person. And when she went on to describe the decisions that she made to realize that ambition, I clarified for her that that was not what I meant when I used the words black sheep. Black sheep, in the strict sense, are those motivated by anger, and hatred and resentment and revenge. They're on an active mission to seek and destroy others as well as themselves. To be sure, they too are lost, but as sheep, they too are not beyond the reach of the good shepherd who goes out in search of them too. And we know many mothers of black sheep who never cease praying for them. But when we speak of lost sheep, we don't have them in mind. We're thinking rather of the sort that Jesus associated with in our Gospels, the left out, the rejected, the outcast, the one that was turned away at the fraternity. They may have friends, but not the right friends. They may have access to social media, but not to social networks that can benefit them personally and professionally. They try to make a go of it, but they have no resources, or if they do, they misuse them. They have neither financial nor social capital. And out of their frustration, they make misguided and sinful choices. And with each of these choices, they dig a deeper and deeper hole for themselves. And finally, they're stuck and trapped and lost and hopeless. Ryan Burkhardt, professor of counseling at Colorado Christian University, has pointed out that among all the developed nations in the world, the United States is the only one where the average life expectancy rate has been steadily declining. Now, why is that? He goes on to say it's because of the rise of deaths of despair, DODs as they are known. It's a term that researchers use to refer to all deaths committed that are caused by suicide, drug overdose, and alcohol. And deaths of despair, if you've been reading websites and news sources, have become a growing problem among us, especially in the last 10 or 12 years. And this has certainly become evident in the town where my own church is, as I've come to realize, especially in recent months. So these people, these people that we can classify as deaths of despair. They were lost sheep, or if they become a candidate, they are lost sheep. They're among us today. The world of sheep and sheep herding is far removed from us. One of the challenges in preaching about sheep is that you don't have too many sheep herders in your congregation. So it's hard to relate exactly to the image. There's an author named Kenneth E. Bailey. He's a professor of New Testament. I think he taught in the Middle East, at any rate, He spent 20 years among the Bedouin tribes in the Middle East so that he could understand the world of the Bible. He, in fact, in his commentary on Luke, reconstructs the scene in these first few verses for us, these first few verses in Luke 15. The shepherd returns to the pen to discover that one is missing, and it's getting late. He doesn't have very much time to gather friends to retrace the steps he took throughout the day. He ventures out anyway, in spite of the fading light. He's committed to finding his lost sheep, dead or alive, regardless of how long it takes. And Bailey continues, when it realizes that it's lost, the sheep runs erratically, disoriented and terrified. It languishes in the heat and exhausts itself in its failed attempts to find the herd, but it never ceases to bleat. If and when the shepherd comes near and the sheep hears him, it will bleat as loudly as it can in spite of how weakened and exhausted it has become. And when he searches, the shepherd has his ear trained to listen for the sheep's response to his call because that response can guide him to the terrified animal. And the saving moment comes when the animal first hears and responds to the shepherd's call because that leads to the successful outcome of the search. Now, it's interesting that according to Bailey, the sheep accepts being found. It doesn't struggle again and run away from its savior. It allows itself to be picked up and carried on the shoulders of the shepherd. And so for Bailey and for those who read him and can imagine what this is like, it's a vivid picture of who Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, is to those who are lost. He goes in search of them, and when he finds them, he embraces them and restores them, just as the shepherd does the lost sheep. And there's great joy. Finding the lost brings heaven great joy, as Jesus says as he applies the parable. We've been asking, who are the lost sheep among us? But in the last analysis, we really can't exclude any one of us, right? All we like sheep have gone astray, each one of us to his own way, according to Isaiah 53.6. Jesus does speak of 99 just persons who need no repentance. But it seems to me that he intends it ironically. After all, who is he talking to? He's talking to these Pharisees, the most self-righteous bunch there is. The fact of the matter is that in the synoptic Gospels, the universal need for all to repent is affirmed. For Jesus, all are lost sheep who need a shepherd to guide them, and all must repent. Remember, the hearer of the parable does not know if the 99 are home or not. The angels cannot rejoice over the 99 righteous until they are home too. The parable does not end with the finding of the sheep. After the sheep is found, it must be restored. It is the restoration with its implied burden that brings joy to the shepherd. And more than one commentator sees joy as the main point of at least these two parables. He writes, one of them writes, the dynamic theme is the invitation to share in the joy over the conversion of sinners. And this joy is always expressed in and shared with a community. In high church traditions, bishops or priests will sometimes wear over their vestments something that is called a pectoral cross. It hangs prominently over the center of their chest for all to see. And there's one that I've seen that depicts a shepherd with a sheep across its shoulders with the rest of the flock following behind. The Holy Spirit in the form of a dove is above the whole scene. Now we don't presume to interpret the scene for those traditions that make use of the pectoral cross, but perhaps the significance of this particular one For us lies in the fact that the 99 are closely following after the shepherd who has rescued the lost sheep. So they too are with him. They too have been restored. And they too should be eager to share in the shepherd's joy over the restoration of the one that he bears on his shoulders. Though we haven't considered the third and the greatest of these three parables that naturally belong together, we know it well enough to remember the reaction of the older brother when his younger brother was restored. His father says to him, it was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again and was lost and is found. We're called the people of his pasture, the flock under his care in the Psalms. So let it be obvious among us that God's concern is always for the lost sheep. Let it be seen among us that the shepherd who guides us actively goes out to seek after the lost. And let us be ready to receive that one when he brings him back into the fold. And when, by the work of his spirit, God restores them to us, let us see this as an occasion of great joy and welcome them with open arms. Amen. Let's receive the Lord's parting benediction. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you his peace. Amen.