Sunday, April 21, 2024
/Easter 4
Acts 4:5-12; Psalm 23; 1 John 3:16-24; John 10:11-18
The Rev. Clint Brown
If there’s one thing we can know for sure about a sheep, it’s that it can and will get lost. In all the famous parables that Jesus tells about sheep, this idea goes uncontested. It’s just a given. The notion that one sheep will wander off from ninety-nine others does not strike us in the least as absurd or unreasonable. (We might, in fact, wonder that it’s only one sheep and not more!). Of course, what we are meant to understand is that we are the sheep, and so it is worth bearing in mind all the many different ways in which we can wander off and be lost. Certainly, there is the theological sense – of wandering off the true path and losing our way; sin can make us do that. But there are other ways. You can feel lost in company or feel left out or out of place on your first day of school. You can feel lost in a crowd or lost in busyness. You can even get lost in your thoughts. My favorite is getting lost in wonder. But not all “lostness” is created equal. Some “lostness” is of a more tragic type. The reality of being lost in an addiction or compulsion, for instance, is especially tragic…when, for a length of time, you have lost your very self: your identity – your confidence – your certainty. Perhaps, and this is the most tragic of all, there may be someone sitting here today who has lost their hope or, worse, their faith. So I want all of you to hear very clearly what I am about to say next. The good news about lostness is this: that to be found, you must first be lost. To be found you must first be lost.
Friends, I can say with absolute confidence that none of us sitting here today are in a position to say that we have got all of life figured out. No matter how full of confidence you may be about your present circumstances – or lack thereof – we are all, in a very real sense, still “lost.” “For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:23). Being in possession of only some of the facts (and, of those, we are only partially able to put them all together) – this is our true condition. So here’s to figuring it out. Here’s to cultivating a posture of humility toward all that we think we know. Here’s to being lost; to being on the way; to clearing a path through the underbrush; to stepping in mudholes; to taking the road less traveled; to questing, seeking, asking, doubting, messing up, wandering off, feeling completely out of our depth, taking a risk, and doing it over and over again.
I tell you, the supreme irony of any of Jesus’ parables is the identity of the truly lost. At first, one thinks it’s the sheep, but it turns out that the truly lost are the Pharisees and scribes. They are the ones who do not see the point, who are actually blind to the truth. Which one of you, Jesus asks – meaning the Pharisees and scribes – which one of you would take the risk to leave the safety of the sheepfold and venture out to rescue the one lost sheep and exchange the known for the unknown? Which one of you, Pharisees and scribes, would have the vision to see that the point of living is not absolute certainty and security but, rather, absolute confidence in God? In this telling, the heroic character in the story is not the ninety-nine righteous who dared nothing, did nothing, risked nothing, but, rather, that lone, intrepid sheep. The one who endured the outrage of the naysayers. The one that asked the hard, penetrating questions. The one that messed up – bad – maybe ten times, maybe a hundred times, who knows? but who, in the end, came to his senses. The sheep who risked their faith in their search for truth.
I recall a conversation I once had with a person I was meeting for the first time, and in the process of introducing myself I mentioned that I was an Episcopalian. “Oh,” this person said, “y’all are the ones who let everybody in”…and I thought, Why yes! Exactly! That’s exactly what we do. And that’s exactly what I think this whole enterprise of church and faith and Christianity is all about. I think Jesus is calling us all – all the wanderers, and especially the doubters – anyone who seeks him authentically. He lets everybody in, and I hope we Episcopalians can always wear such a badge proudly and be best known for doing the same.
Jesus is the Good Shepherd – that is our theme today – and the Good Shepherd is for all of us – lost and found and everything in between. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for you. The Good Shepherd loves you. The Good Shepherd respects you enough to wait for your responding love in return. Because we are all prodigal sons. The prodigal lives in each of us. We are all wandering sheep, but this is not our fault, it’s just our nature. And the good news is that that’s okay, because we cannot be found, unless, first, we’re lost.
If you’re here today, it’s because you’re a seeker. I, too, am a seeker. But this lostness that compels our seeking is not, finally, the point. A state of lostness is not meant to be where we stay. It is not our destiny; it is merely our means. The extraordinarily good news for us both today is that the God that we seek has already come near. He can be found. Jesus Christ is his name, and he is seeking after you. Which means that the only way you can be lost is if you want to be. Amen.