SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2013 LUKE 15:1-10

It was a solemn day on the hillside. It always was when this tragedy played out, as it did this time every year. The sheep were now fully grown, no helpless lambs for the predators to pick off at will. The year was ageing, leaving the wolves with less easy pickings. The carnivores grew more brazen in their hunting, more obsessed in their staring at the sheep from the margins. A moment’s carelessness by a member of the flock could be fatal at this time of year. The more experienced sheep looked at each other with knowing dread. The human had stopped his work, placed his staff on the ground, eased himself onto a bolder, removed his lunch from his cloak, and mentally switched off. It wasn’t really his fault, the sheep reasoned, after all he had been watching them closely all morning. They could forgive his lapse in vigilance. It was what happened next they could not forgive. The hard-nosed realism of economics demanded the shepherd accept his loss, don’t throw good money after bad, swallow your medicine, and move on. That is what the prudent shepherds did. The one was gone, snatched by a predator. Nothing could now be done. Re-focus your effort at guarding the ninety-nine. But not this shepherd. Leaving the ninety-nine alone – alone, mind you – he picks up his crook, tucks the hem of his cloak into his belt and strides – all intensity and passion - up the hill and out of sight. Do you hear the bleating of the ninety-nine? Can you feel the panic, the distress, the fear of the flock? It was a solemn day on the hillside.

Of course, it didn’t happen. First, it’s a parable, a story made up by Jesus. And second, sheep don’t think like that. But imagine if they did. What would they be saying to each other as they watched... (Read the full sermon here: Legends of the Lost and Found.pdf )