Lost + Found

“Lost + Found”

March 30, 2025 - Cobleskill United Methodist Church

Pastor Anna Blinn Cole

Luke 15:1-7

Fourth Sunday of Lent 

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’

So he told them this parable: ‘Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.

Last night I was casually standing around the kitchen talking about my sermon for the next day, you know, like you do. I told Garrett, “Yea, it’s about being lost and found.  I was thinking about telling a story about a time when I was lost.  And he said, “You mean the only story you ever tell about being lost?”

And it’s true.  I really only have one story that comes right to the front of my mind when it comes to being lost.  But I think our brains do that with experiences that are scary enough to leave an imprint.  There’s nothing really worse than feeling like you’re lost.  And you remember that feeling.  I’ll tell you only the cliff notes version of my story.  Garrett and I were youngsters and on a long-distance hike trying to walk from Maine to Georgia.  For about 1600 miles we stayed together, and then you can guess where this story is going.  After walking together from Maine to somewhere in southern Virginia, we got separated.  He was ahead of me and went to get water off trail and I, not realizing it, walked right on past.  And I walked and I walked and I walked and the sun started to go down and I couldn’t imagine why I hadn’t caught up to him yet.  Lots of yelling out into the woods.  Wondering if I should keep going ahead or start going back.  Realizing I didn’t have much water or shelter.  Suddenly after weeks and weeks and weeks of feeling secure, I suddenly began to question everything.  Why was I even out here?  How could this have happened?  We eventually did find each other that evening.  But the lostness created a lasting impression.  Being lost is a terrible experience.  It makes you doubt yourself and it makes you doubt what you know to be true. 

If any of you have ever had the experience of being lost or losing something or someone really important to you, you know this, too.  Losing and—if we’re fortunate enough—finding again are life-changing moments.  Jesus knew this, too.  

He tells a set of three parables about losing and finding.  The first is about a sheep, which we heard today.  The second is about a coin and the third is about a son.  A lot of times we look at all three at once, sometimes just the last one, called the Prodigal Son.  But today we’re going to take just the first one.  The lost sheep.   

Conventional interpretation of this passage focuses on the lostness.  The sacrifice the shepherd makes on behalf of the sheep.  The lengths God will go to find us when we’ve gotten separated- no matter the reason.  And that is, I believe, very much part of what Jesus is trying to convey here.  God will always be the one counting and recounting to see who is not here.  God will always go searching.  And God will celebrate finding what has been lost. 

But what about the other 99 sheep?  We don’t focus much on them.  Let’s recall, though, the very beginning of the scripture lesson.  Who is Jesus talking to when he tells this parable?  The context is that the religious elites are complaining to Jesus that he spends too much time with people on the outs, named in Jesus’ time as the tax collector and sinners.  Jesus then tells THEM this parable.  A hypothetical story about one sheep that is on the outs and how the shepherd drops everything to prioritize finding it.  Jesus wasn’t actually preaching this parable to people who were lost; the tax collectors and the ones labeled as sinners.  Jesus was preaching this parable to the people who complained about the ones who were lost.  The religious elites in his society.  The people who were supposed to have it all together.  You know, the ones who sit in a place of privilege and then like to complain about the people on the bottom, the free-loaders, the riff raff; the ones who don’t deserve to be here.  It’s those privileged elite people Jesus is talking to when he tells them a story about how going to the margins in order to accompany those who are on the outside looking in is the very thing that will be celebrated by God. 

When we focus on the other 99 sheep, we actually might notice something we would miss if we’re only focused on the sheep that’s gotten separated.  When the shepherd goes looking for the one, why don’t the others follow?  For sheep, safety is with the shepherd.  But when the shepherd went out toward the edges of the pasture, the 99 chose not to follow.  Maybe they were worried about rocky cliffs and sharp thorns at the edges of the pasture.  Maybe they thought it was a slippery slope… if they went to the outskirts, maybe they’d get lost, too?  Maybe they wanted to follow the shepherd but looked around and thought, everybody is staying, maybe I should stay, too.  What do they call that… herd mentality?   

Yet in their unwillingness to also go the edges of the pasture with the shepherd to look for one that was lost, the 99 find themselves without a compass.  They find themselves alone in the wilderness without their shepherd.  

Maybe it’s not the one who got separated that’s really the most lost. Maybe it’s the ones who were too concerned with staying put and sticking to the herd mentality than following their true guide wherever he went.  Is it possible that this herd mentality, this refusal to follow the compassionate shepherd to the edges where the least and last are IS itself what Jesus was trying to describe as the meaning of lost?  

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On Friday I walked around wearing a shirt about the Pope.  Probably not the pope you’re thinking about.  The shirt said “Jesus is my Savior.  Pope is my coach.” Mark Pope has coached the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team this year and he’s been a strong, yet gentle leader for the program in a time when everything had to be rebuilt from the ground up.  I wore that shirt because Kentucky basketball makes me feel like I’m home. 

But, that said, I wouldn’t have minded too much if someone saw me wearing that shirt and thought I meant the other pope.  The Pope that lives in Italy.  Turns out he’s been a pretty good coach lately, too.  

A few weeks ago, he wrote a letter to the American Catholic Bishops specifically aimed at identifying who it was that had drifted or been pushed out to the edges of our “pastures” and who it was that was refusing to do anything about.  The Pope was writing to coach the Christians of America.  We are in a crisis, the Pope wrote to say.  We have lost our way.  He wrote a letter to us like Jesus told a parable to us.  Sometimes you can be lost and not even know it.  

The crisis that he wrote about is that our country is increasingly seeing our immigrants as its lost sheep and we, the so-called Christian ones, are increasingly sticking to the herd and staying put.  It’s not even worth chasing after them because they don’t belong here. “They’re sinners, Jesus, and you shouldn’t care either.”  

The Pope spoke up and offered a stern pep-talk for remembering who is our true guide and Good Shepherd in times like this.  

“Jesus Christ, loving everyone with a universal love, educates us in the permanent recognition of the dignity of every human being, without exception.”

The Pope goes on to say:

“Christians know very well that it is only by affirming the infinite dignity of all that our own identity as persons and as communities reaches its maturity. Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups…. The human person is a subject with dignity who, through the constitutive relationship with all, especially with the poorest, can gradually mature in identity and vocation.” 

If I may be so bold as to summarize what I think the Pope is saying:  If we’re not actively looking for the lost and the least, it’s possible we may be lost ourselves.  

It’s comfortable to stick with the herd.  To love the ones that are right around us.  To turn our nose up to the ones who stand at the edges.  To manufacture ways they have wronged us because we don’t want them here.  

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The Lord is our Shepherd we shall not want.  And sometimes the Good Shepherd is leading us where we refuse to go.  Sometimes the Good Shepherd is seeking people we’d rather not seek.  It’s comfortable with the herd.  The edges of the pasture can be unpleasant and require courage.  We stay behind because we think that is where we are found.  Yet we refuse to follow God to the edges and could not be more lost.  

Most people probably wouldn’t call the sidewalk in front of Radez Elementary the thorny edges of a pasture.  Yet when we think about children losing their place in the priorities of the school administration, the sidewalk may as well be where they are.  

It can be tempting to stay in the herd.  To say our school bank accounts need to be bigger and our taxes are too high anyway.  It can be tempting to say our schools don’t need librarians or art or social-emotional learning.  The children will be fine.  Meanwhile the children drift away.  The children get separated from the herd because the herd is no longer prioritizing their wellbeing.   

But yesterday, in the cold and damp March weather, some people left the herd and went looking for the children.  They followed the Good Shepherd to the edges of the pasture, or in this case, the sidewalks in front of the school.  They held signs and chanted chants. They said our children matter more than school bank accounts.  With their actions they said we don’t have to follow the status quo when we know the status quo is wrong.   

Over and over again God will have more joy in finding the one that has been pushed out than for all of the good people who sought their own righteousness by staying in the herd.  

We know what it’s like to be separated from what you know and love.  We’ve been lost before.  It’s a scary and lonely place.  And because we know that is a scary place, we must find the courage to leave our comfort zone in order to advocate for those who are still in that scary place.  We call this empathy, and despite what some so-called religious folks might now say, it’s not actually a sin.  Can you let someone else’s pain move you when you are yet comfortable?  The immigrants who face mass deportation or the children whose education is getting cut.   Or are you more lost than they are?  

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Anna