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I’d like you to think back - at least six months ago, it could be longer. Remember yourself going to the cinema. Not just any time you went to the cinema, but a time when you actually got there early enough that even after you had bought your drinks and popcorn you still got to watch a trailer. And in the trailer the director has spliced together scenes from the film in a tanatalising way. And 6 months later you go back to the cinema and you see the actual film and it is totally different from what you expected. The trailer didn’t lie. But because of the way the cuts had been put together, things appeared to be different. It all depends on the perspective you look at things from.
A devout old shepherd lost his favorite Bible while he was out looking for a wayward lamb. Three weeks later, a sheep walked up to him carrying the Bible in its mouth. The shepherd couldn’t believe his eyes. He took the precious book out of the sheep’s mouth, and the sheep said, “I found your bible”. The shepherd raised his eyes heavenward and exclaimed, “It’s a miracle…a talking sheep has found my bible!”
“Not really,” said the sheep. “Your name is written inside the cover.” (1)
Go on - laugh…
I’m glad you laughed because now I am going to what you must never do with a joke - explain it. But the joke works because of the different perspective of how you look at things from. From the perspective of the Shepherd, it’s a miracle. The bible is back and here is a talking sheep. But if you look at it instead from the perspective of the talking sheep… It all depends on the perspective you look at things from.
So we hear today's Gospel Reading from Luke 15:1-10. Let’s hear it first from one perspective….
“The scribes and the pharisees were grumbling and saying “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told THEM this parable…
Lets put our best Scribal robes on and hear the story from their point of view. My friend Fr Alan went on holiday France . He writes the priest “Fr. Pierre, who is 89, was preaching. We have been listening to his homilies now for some 20 years. Like most French sermons I have heard, Catholic or Reformed, they are rather serious and solemn affairs. But on this occasion, Fr. Pierre said something which did provoke laughter from the congregation. He told us how, when he was a boy, he had been at church with his parents and brothers. The gospel that day was the Prodigal Son but when they got home their father said to his sons: “Don't think you will be welcomed back like that if you go off and blow the family fortune on wine, women and song.” (2)
That’s the proper answer isn’t? If someone has treated us badly we want them to get what’s coming to them. And if we have been going to church, working hard for all these years, and some newcomer turns up, surely our views are more important than their views. Surely we are more important than them.
Last night after the fantastic Funday, a group of us spent ages putting the chairs back in church. Why did we spend so long? It doesn’t take that long to move chairs? Well lets give you the rather sad but honest answer. All of us were afraid that if we didn’t get the chairs back in the right place, someone might complain.
Think about it. Yesterday you as a church did an amazing thing. You didn’t just go out after one lost sheep. You didn’t just go out after 99 lost sheep. The fun day you ran reached over 350 people - which means over 270 people from local community who don’t normally go to church. As well as forming friendships and having fun, through the magician and circus artist they heard the gospel message. 270 Lost sheep. Yesterday you as a church did an amazing thing.
And yet at the end of the day, as we put the chairs back, we weren’t thinking about that wonderful news. We were thinking about the one sheep safely in the fold saying “my chairs not in the right place”
Well we can tremble - but Jesus had it a lot worse. “The Pharisees and scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them”.
And Jesus wants to change the way they think. He wants to change the way we think.
Imagine something really precious that you have lost - like this blanky (hold up a child’s comforter blanket). I remember when my children were little. If one of them left their teddy … well there were times when I had to travel to the other side of London to pick the blasted Teddy up because otherwise they would not sleep. Yesterday some poor child left their comforter blanket here at the fun day. I really hope their parents got some sleep last night….
Think of something really precious to you - your wedding ring. Your car keys. Your passport. Your child’s comfort blanket. Imagine what it would be like to find that after you had lost it.
You got that feeling in your head? That’s how we are meant to feel when one of our brothers or sisters out their in the local community finds God. Drop your plans for today and celebrate. Cancel the lunch you were having with your family. Make time for this new Christian. Because something wonderful has happened. What was lost has been found. “Rejoice with me for I have found my sheep… coin… PERSON … that was lost.” “Just so I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents”
“Not really” says the talking sheep. “Your name was written inside the cover”. So lets change our camera angle. Watch the trailer again having watched the film and this time see it from a different perspective.
“Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to LISTEN to him… So he told THEM this parable
How does this story sound if you are the person ostracised by society? The tax collector who took the well paid job from the Romans only to find he has sold his soul, wealthy but cut off by everyone for being a collaborator. Now just feeling lost. Or the sex worker- like she had a choice about job she went into. People don’t become prostitutes for fun. But other people whose lives have gone smoothly are all too quick to blame them for the “choices” they have made.
Think of those terrifying lyrics from Les Mis
“Come on, Captain, you can wear your shoes
Don't it make a change to have a girl who can't refuse?
Easy money, lying on a bed
Just as well they never see the hate that's in your head
Don't they know they're making love to one already dead?” (3)
Imagine the sense of lostness.
And it is into this that Jesus sits down at dinner with his sheep. And he tells stories about things that are lost. Do you feel like a sheep, munching away on grass. You thought you were doing the right thing and suddenly you have fallen down a ravine. That terrible sense of lost desperation. But don’t worry. Someone’s coming. Someone’s going to lift you out of it.
Or do you feel like a coin. A pointless bit metal fallen down the back of the sofa now no use to anyone , just covered in dust and dirt. Until her hand comes down the sofa and finds you. Her wedding coin, worth thousands. So precious. The joy on her face as she is so pleased that you are found.
Now the question is - have you experienced being found. Because all of us at some stage in our lives have been lost. You don’t have to have been a sell out or sex worker. You were on the wrong track. Perhaps you feel you still are. Your life feels a mess. Whether you feel like your own mistakes have left you wandering down a ravine, or you feel like life has happened to you and you are abandoned down the back of a sofa - there is one coming to find you.
Some words from an American Priest Fr Mike Marsh
“The starting point for Jesus is…. searching not blaming, finding not punishing, rejoicing not condemning. The first question for Jesus is not one of sin, who’s in and who’s out, or who gets a dinner invitation. For Jesus, everyone is already in. Everyone is invited. The first question and primary concern is one of presence. Have we shown up or are we lost and missing?
Notice the parables Jesus offers. They’re not about being wrong. They are about being lost. A sheep is lost. A coin is lost. There is nothing about culpability, blame, or finding fault. That doesn’t seem to be Jesus’ concern. His concern is for the one that is lost, missing, absent. Jesus doesn’t explain how the lost one become lost. He doesn’t blame or judge. That’s not the issue. The issue for Jesus is recovering and reclaiming the lost.
No doubt we can be lost in the darkness of evil. We can and have throughout human history done terrible things to one another. But here’s the deal. We can also be really good and really lost at the same time. Think about it. We can be good, hard working, and successful in our career and still feel lost, without a true sense of direction or meaning. We can be holding it all together and still be lost in the depths of grief or despair” (4)
And the story does not end with lostness but with being found. “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep … my coin … my child that was lost.” “Just so I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels!”
A devout old shepherd lost his favorite Bible while he was out looking for a wayward lamb. Three weeks later, a sheep walked up to him carrying the Bible in its mouth. The shepherd couldn’t believe his eyes. He took the precious book out of the sheep’s mouth, and the sheep said, “I found your bible”. The shepherd raised his eyes heavenward and exclaimed, “It’s a miracle…a talking sheep has found my bible!”
“Not really,” said the sheep. “Your name is written inside the cover.”
What camera angle are you going to see today’s Gospel reading from. Are you hearing the story as someone who needs to learn to be a better shepherd or as a sheep who needs help? As farm worker and churchgoer who needs to be reminded how precious it is when someone comes to faith? Or as the person in a mess who needs to be reminded how precious you are to the God who has not given up on you?
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(1) Sermon by Fr Peter Martinez -https://www.stpaultheapostlecc.com/blog/Homilies-2016/Homily-for-the-24th-Sunday-of-Ordinary-Time
(2) Fr Alan Moses sermon at All Saints Margaret Street September 2016 https://www.allsaintsmargaretstreet.org.uk/worship/sermons/367
(3) Lyrics from “lovely Ladies” Les Miserables
(4) Fr Mike Marsh Episcopal priest from texas https://interruptingthesilence.com/2013/09/23/when-we-are-good-and-lost-a-sermon-on-luke-151-10/
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