Luke 15:1-10
1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gather around to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
8 “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Are You Worth It?
Are you worth it? That’s the question that our Gospel reading for today poses: Are you worth it? Jesus tells a pair of parables about two people who lost something – a shepherd who lost 1 of his 100 sheep, and a woman who lost 1 of her 10 coins. In both cases, both the shepherd and the woman had to ask themselves, “Is it worth it? Do I spend the time and energy chasing after, searching for, this one sheep, this one coin?” What Jesus says might surprise you:
“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?”[1]
Jesus makes it personal. He wants us to imagine ourselves in the shepherd’s shoes. “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them.” But then Jesus asks the question in such a way that he makes the answer seem obvious: “Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?” To Jesus, it is obvious that the shepherd would. But would you?
If you were in that situation – if you had 100 sheep and 1 went missing – would you leave the 99 in the open country to go chasing after 1? I don’t know that I would. A 99% success rate is pretty good. In most areas of our lives, we are comfortable with a margin of error. There are certain losses that, while unfortunate, are nevertheless acceptable.
Most students wouldn’t cry if they got 1 question out of 100 wrong on a test. My favourite football team plays its first game today; I would be elated if they only lost 1 of their 17 games this season. 1 loss, much less 1%, is usually not a big deal.
But it is to God.
Jesus thought that the choice was obvious. Of course, he would leave the 99 to go chasing after the 1! That’s how important every single one of his sheep is to him. They don’t have numbered tags hanging from their ears to help him identify them; he knows them all by name. He doesn’t reduce their value to him to a dollar amount; he loves them just for who they are. When our Good Shepherd looks out at his flock, he doesn’t see a sea of sheep. He sees each one of you, and he cares about each one of you, so much so that he notices when you’re gone. And not only that, he leaps into action to bring you home.
To Jesus, the choice was obvious. Of course, he would leave the 99 to go chasing after the 1! The fact that we would even have to think about it tells you all you need to know about us, doesn’t it?
Remember why Jesus is telling these parables:
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”[2]
When the Pharisees and the teachers of the law saw Jesus associating with tax collectors and sinners, they were disgusted. To the Pharisees, these people were a basket of deplorables; they were the undesirables in society, people you would cross the street to avoid. You definitely wouldn’t share a meal with them. The Pharisees took one look at their behaviour and wrote them off as lost causes, not worth their time or energy.
Is there someone you feel that way about – that they’re a lost cause, not worth your time or energy? Is there a whole segment of society you write off because of their behaviour? Are there people you actively avoid like the plague, when in reality you are in the perfect position to offer them help and healing? Do you know someone caught in sin whom you are more interested in seeing punished than saved?
Well, then, maybe you are the sheep who has strayed away from the flock, because that attitude is not at all like your shepherd’s. To Jesus, the choice was obvious. Of course, he would leave the 99 to go chasing after the 1! We rarely feel the same way.
Even when we do end up doing the right thing, isn’t it often with the wrong attitude, i.e. with silent judgment in our hearts or a disappointed shake of our heads, with resentment or bitterness at the time or energy it cost us, with skepticism and cynicism that assumes that they’ll just get stuck and need help all over again?
Again, if that’s the way your heart feels, like mine sometimes does, then, maybe you are the sheep who has strayed away from the flock, because that attitude is not at all like your shepherd’s.
“Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’”[3]
The shepherd didn’t scold his sheep. The shepherd didn’t grumble under his breath the whole way home. He joyfully hefted that seventy-pound straying sheep on his shoulders and walked all the way home with a smile on his face planning the celebration he’d throw with his friends: “Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.”
That’s the attitude that our shepherd has toward every sheep that strays. That’s the attitude that Jesus has toward you. And, while what Jesus says next is a stern rebuke of our own self-righteous pride and stone-cold hearts, there’s more than a glimmer of hope in these words too:
“I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”[4]
Shame on us for our severe lack of sincere love for the lost. Our God in heaven has so much more joy over the recovery of a single repentant sinner from that basket of deplorables – the undesirables of society – he has so much more joy over the repentance and recovery of a single sinner than 99 of us who may be doing all the right things outwardly, but whose hearts are inwardly self-righteous and stone-cold.
Another way to say the same thing is that our God has no joy when we feel we have no need to be sorry about anything. If you feel that you have no need to repent, then God has no need of you. As I said before, that makes you the lost sheep whose heart has wandered far from the attitude of your shepherd. These words are a stern rebuke of our self-righteousness.
But they are also a promise of grace and love and full and free forgiveness. If you are the lost sheep, then that means that Jesus is willing to leave the 99 to go chasing after you. Then that means that Jesus thinks that you are worth it.
Your God went to great lengths to save you. He spared no expense, and no cost was too high. When it comes to saving his sheep, a good shepherd would even endanger his own life. And that’s what the Good Shepherd did for you. While you were still a sinful, self-righteous, straying sheep, God sent his Son for you – to seek you and to save you, to bring you home and to rejoice over you.
Jesus told these parables on his final, fatal trip to Jerusalem. When he got there, he would be arrested, put in prison and sentenced to death. But it’s not as if Jesus was defeated by his enemies. He went there of his own volition, willingly making himself vulnerable, even to the point of death, for you.
And he did it lovingly, not begrudgingly – not like a shepherd who trudges home, lugging a seventy-pound sheep over his shoulder while muttering under his breath. No, Jesus sought you and saved you because he loves you. Jesus extended his arms on a cross and died so that he could scoop you up in those same arms and carry you home in his nail-scarred hands. When Jesus died, he forgave all your sin and promised you a future with him forever at home in heaven.
But even now you have a home here – and I don’t necessarily mean these four walls or this street address. I mean the fellowship of believers, i.e. the great flock of our Good Shepherd, where we hear his voice as he speaks to us in his Word, gathering us by his grace and calling us by name. Your Good Shepherd loves you and he misses you when you stray. He eagerly desires your recovery and your return; he wants you to repent. And when you do, he does not hold it over your head or shame you into obedience. He rejoices over you and so do all the angels in heaven.
I didn’t plan it this way. Luke 15 is the assigned text for this Sunday. But it’s the perfect text for Back to Church Sunday. It’s the reminder of why we come – because our Good Shepherd loved us enough to seek and save us, and, because he did, we have a home here and one waiting for us in heaven, where we will live in his joy forever, because he thinks you’re worth it. Amen.
[1] Luke 15:4
[2] Luke 15:1,2
[3] Luke 15:4-6
[4] Luke 15:7