Lost

Luke 15:4 – If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do?  Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it?

This week in our sermon series Into the Mess, we looked at the parables about a lost sheep and a lost coin.  As we dug into the text, we found that this is not a shepherd on the hunt to add another to the fold.  The parable of the coin isn’t about a woman with nine coins hoping to add to her wealth.  Instead, they both are looking for what was already theirs.  In Into the Mess, Debie Thomas writes, “These parables are about us, the insiders. The churchgoers… the bible readers.” 

Let’s take a moment to unpack this.  As followers of Christ, we are the ones getting lost.  Focusing on the sheep parable, sheep tend to wander away for several reasons.  They have great peripheral vision but terrible forward vision, so they have trouble following a path. It makes them prone to falling into ditches or getting stuck in brush.   Sometimes they flee or want space because they feel threatened.  Other times they just get distracted.  The comparison of us to sheep is not such a stretch. 

What we do not find in this story is scolding or judgment for getting lost.  Getting lost is simply offered as a statement of fact.  It’s what sheep do.  In Into the Mess, Debie Thomas says, “Lostness happens within the beloved community.  It’s not that we cross over once and for all from a sinful lostness to a righteous foundness. We get lost over and over again, and God finds us over and over again.  Lostness is not an aberration; it’s part and parcel of the life of faith.” 

How does the idea of being lost as a Christian make you feel?  What does it say about God?