“Surely goodness and mercy.”

Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 19, Year C (September 11, 2022).

View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day: Proper 19C (Track 2)

Preached at Christ Episcopal Church, Jordan, New York

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All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. 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 persons who need no repentance. (Luke 15:1-7)

Edited Transcript

May only truth be spoken here, and only truth be heard: In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I invite you to be seated.

This week, my son Max started kindergarten, which is kind of a big deal. And so this he's been learning a lot of new concepts. This morning we were eating breakfast and he said to me, mama, what is lost and found? And I said, Oh, it is funny that you should ask!

This parable that Jesus tells about lost and found: all of us know what it means to be able to go to the lost and found and get back what you lost and how much you rejoice in your heart. And you might even tell all your friends I got my glasses back, or whatever the case may be.

This parable has inspired so many hymns. And our hymnal, of course is full of songs that are inspired by this scripture or that, but I think it's worth paying attention to—when that idea of Lost and Found causes people to sing over and over again. I thought we could do a little bit of that.

On Good Shepherd Sunday we'll often sing The King of Love my Shepherd Is; page 645 in your hymnal. And when we sing this, think about that parable verse three:

[Sung] "Perverse and foolish oft I strayed, but yet in love he sought me, and on his shoulder gently laid, and home rejoicing brought me."

Then take a look at 671. Y'all know this one too. We'll do verse one:

[Sung] "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now I'm found, was blind but now I see."

And page 686, Come Thou Fount of Ev'ry Blessing: let's do verse two:

[Sung] "Here I find my greatest treasure, hither by thy help I've come. And I hope by thy good pleasure safely to arrive at home. Jesus sought me when a stranger, wand'ring from the fold of God. He to rescue me from danger interposed his precious blood."

Song after song: I once was lost, but now I'm found.

There are two things that I want to take away from this parable and from these songs of the heart of our Church and our own hearts. The reason we love these songs so much is that they speak to what it is to be a human being in a relationship with God. It's why we sing them over and over, and why we love them.

In the church, there's always this tension between us trying to get it right... and what God does. And of course, part of what we do when we come to church is we're trying to get it right. We know that "faith without works is dead." We try to do the work; we try to do the right thing.

But the essence of the Good News, the Gospel that's found in this parable of the sheep—the one lost sheep who wandered off and the other 99 were all doing the right work. They were being the sheep they were supposed to be... but one is always going to wander around and wander away. And of course Jesus tells parable after parable about that one who wanders away... maybe most famously the Prodigal Son. But the essence of the Good News, the Gospel, is not on the 99 who got it right that time, that day. It's always on the Shepherd, who goes looking for the one who wandered away.

And I don't know any better kind of definition of what it means to find yourself in a state of sin, than being that lost, all-by-themself sheep, alone in the wilderness, not knowing how to find your way back: separated and out of relationship.

But what this parable tells us is that even when I feel like I'm out on my own, that God is coming after me. No matter how isolated or alone I feel, no matter how small or unimportant the wilderness makes me feel, or how regretful I am that I wandered out there in the first place. The relationship isn't broken. Because that Shepherd is coming, and won't stop until I'm found. That Shepherd, unlike our sort of practicality, where we'd say, Oh, it's just one. Let's take care of the 99. We still got 99. The Shepherd doesn't forget one. No matter how small or how screwy.

That's the tension between our own work and the grace of God. Because our own work might not get us there, but the grace of God is always chasing us.

Psalm 23, which "The King of Love my Shepherd Is," is a paraphrase of Psalm 23, that has that parable of the lost sheep inserted into it. Psalm 23 says, "Surely goodness, and mercy will follow me all the days of my life." And I think about that little sheep running around. But goodness and mercy are chasing her in the wilderness and will not let her go.

If I was going to get a tattoo, which I never did, because I always think I'll change my mind later... It's not too late! It isn't! God's call is always present, right, Cherie? ...I would probably get the words of Saint Paul when he says Nothing can separate us. He says, For I am convinced that nothing in this world neither angels nor powers, nor principalities, nor life, nor death, nor nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God revealed to us in Christ Jesus.

We're gonna find ourselves lost... the other trick of this parable is that everyone gets to be the one in 99 from time to time, right. So when we find ourselves there, remember: Nothing can separate me from the love of God. And surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. Amen.