I want to set some context this morning. In the preceding chapter, Jesus has been healing on the Sabbath and telling a parable about a banquet at which the expected type of guests refuse to come, so the banquet thrower tells his servants to find the poor, the lame, the disabled, those living in back alleys and on the streets and bring them to dinner. Imagine – a table filled with who we see too readily labeled as “those” people.
No wonder the tax collectors and sinners were 
coming near Jesus for he has made it apparent that truly all are welcome in his orbit. Even the grumbling Pharisees and scribes keep coming around to hear him and I suppose wonder what he is going to do next. But here they grumble that the “undesirable” are accepted and welcomed.
Now tax collectors were indeed not welcome many places because they cheated and exploited people. And, who knows what the sinners were up to. I imagine you could label them lost or maybe we might think of them as not transformed through knowing a God who loves them as demonstrated through Jesus’ welcoming of them. Can knowing and truly believing in your heart of hearts that God loves you transform you, cause you to turn back to God?
So that is the scene that we come into this morning. The unwelcome tax collectors and sinners are coming near and there is grumbling. Then Jesus tells a parable about a sheep owner who realizes after counting his 100 sheep that there are only 99. One has gotten lost! I think it is important to understand that we are talking about a sheep owner, not the shepherd assigned to watch over them. Would you, as a business person, go after the lost one and not give up until that one is found? Or would you cut your losses and say – oh well – that one is not worth my time and trouble finding.
But this sheep owner doesn’t quit until he finds that sheep. And, then he slings him around his shoulders telling all to rejoice with him that the sheep has been found. Jesus then goes on to say that there will be much joy over the one who has been transformed by the love of God (hence the repentance) than the ones who already know they are loved and have returned to God.
I find it comforting to know that God hasn’t given up on me yet. That God will always find me if I lose my way or begin to think that I am not loved. Have you had that experience of feeling lost, of feeling unloved, of feeling unworthy or perhaps of being made to feel that way by someone in your orbit? How did the tax collectors and sinners feel as the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled about their presence? Did they want to turn around and leave rather than come near?
Who are we in this scene out of Jesus’ life? Are we the Pharisees and scribes who grumble about the presence of someone we or others have labeled undesirable or unwelcome? Are we the ones who bear those labels trying to come close so that we can hear Jesus’ words and stories?
We live in a world that too often labels people as undesirable and tells them they are not welcome – that tells them to get lost and makes no attempt to find them. Or disappears them so that even their lawyers can’t find them. Are we the sheep owner that says – nope not on my watch! I am going to go after that lost sheep and I will not quit until I find them. Then I will bring them home and celebrate with joy that they have been found.
How are people supposed to know the love of God for them if we aren’t showing it, demonstrating it, speaking it? How are people supposed to know their worth to our God unless we help them see it? Do we own God? Or are we the messengers sent out by the banquet thrower to invite people in? Are we the sheep owner’s shepherds who tend the flock and search for those who need a message of hope, of mercy, of love?
And are we that for each other? Just the other day, I encountered someone who had given up, was feeling there was no hope. All I did was tell them they weren’t alone and that I was there to support them; then I was thanked for the pep talk.
At some point I think we all feel lost and if we can acknowledge that, then can we be more empathetic to those we encounter that are lost?
This is a hard parable because it can become too easy to label people, to deride the lost, to think that we are never lost. It can become too easy to not welcome those we have labeled undesirable or to search with the intent of converting rather than being a witness to the love of God. Too easy to create an us and them dynamic. Too easy to make it about us rather than God.
But as Rev. Sarah Speed writes in A Sanctified Art: But maybe God was not talking about us. Maybe God was talking about her own reckless love. Maybe God was talking about her own willingness to turn the world upside down for me.
Maybe.