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United Church of Paducah
4600 Buckner Lane
Paducah, KY 42001
(270) 442-3722
Worship Times
Sunday Service: 10:00a
Refreshments &
Fellowship: 11:15a
Christian Education
For All Ages:
11:20a - Noon
Nursery Services Provided Handicap Accessible
All Are Welcome!
A Congregation Of The
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From September 16, 2007
God's High Priority
Luke 15: 1-7
Before we think together about today's
well-known parable, I'd like to invite you to do something.
Take a look around the sanctuary. Stand up, if you'd like.
Step out into the aisles, even. Look around and take a good
look at who's here.
And now notice who's not. Who's not here today? OK, now you
can take your seat!
A short drive from Paducah, on a bluff overlooking the Ohio
River is San Damiano Retreat Center. Besides its commanding
view of the river and the surrounding countryside, what
impresses visitors is the 38 foot statue of Jesus the Good
Shepherd whose great arms are cradling a little lamb.
With the 200 foot bluff so close, it's easy to imagine that
the lamb's rescue was recent and not a little bit harrowing.
Maybe the little lamb lost her footing and slipped down onto
a ledge half-way down the escarpment. Perhaps in retrieving
her, Jesus grabbed onto to a low-lying tree limb while he
drew her back up to safety with his free hand.
As Jesus holds this lamb close now, the expression on his
down-turned face makes it abundantly clear: she is
profoundly precious. Today there will be no reprimand or
punishment, only overflowing gratitude and joy. The one who
was lost has been found.
Today's parable is one artists in every age have been unable
to resist.
And yet as I think about the many ways it has been rendered,
it occurs to me that the sheep--from tiny newborns all the
way to hefty adults--the sheep all seem the same. They're
each fine specimens of sheepiness, the kind you'd expect to
see in a Dick and Jane reader or an Old MacDonald album
cover.
Where are all the unlovely sheep? The ones who, when they
went missing, weren't missed? The ones who, before they ran
off in the wrong direction, always hung out on the perimeter
of the flock, never behaving as sheep ought to behave? Where
are the sheep whose absence, when the others took notice,
caused a not an outcry but a collective sigh of relief?
Where are the black and blue sheep, I want to know, the ones
whose brawls have taken their toll? Where are the sheep with
wool so badly matted, so riddled with twigs and burrs and
who-knows-what-else, that when it's time to shear and spin
this wool will be useless? Where are the sheep with ragged,
open wounds from close calls with wolves, creatures who will
surely need to be bandaged and rebandaged once Jesus carries
them home?
Any time a sheep goes missing, Jesus insists, the shepherd's
heart is broken until it's brought home again. But aren't
these, the unloveliest ones, aren't these the ones the
shepherd most aches to find and who often are the hardest to
track down and bring to safety?
Not far from the statue of the Good Shepherd at San Damiano,
I met a woman Jesus rejoiced to find. She was lost, for a
long time, and now she's learning to relax into the arms of
her shepherd like the little lamb in the sculpture nearby.
Again and again as we talked, this forty-something mother
expressed her gratitude for Jesus' rescue from the breach of
drugs and bad relationships and horrible mistakes, a
wandering too close to the edge that very nearly did her in.
Jesus had found her, reached out to her there on the brink,
and gently carried her back and into a sheepfold she hadn't
belonged to before--a church down the road. She gladly
hitch-hiked until her new flock found out. Now they take
turns picking her up and bringing her home on Sunday
mornings; they do it all again on Wednesday nights so she
can attend services then, too.
This dear lamb whom Jesus now clutches to his bosom and
won't let go of, this lamb doesn't look fluffy and sweet
like the ones in the paintings do. Or at least she doesn't
think so, no matter what Jesus says when it's just the two
of them together.
As we talked, Jesus' precious find danced her hand in front
of her mouth. At first I thought this was simply a mindless
habit or a bit of shyness. But as our conversation
continued, I realized she had no upper teeth. Only later,
after we had spoken at length, did she trust me enough to
confide that her dentist had pulled them all recently.
Why? Was it because of drugs? Domestic abuse? Poverty? She
did not explain and I did not ask.
The woman's decision to confide about her dental work came
as a gift. Neither of us had expected it; I was a stranger
who might easily have been perceived as a Pharisee sort,
someone who had managed to get it together spiritually,
someone who might hold judgment about where she had been
rather than share in her joy for having been found.
The woman's willingness to trust me with her story was
unexpected, a gift. But then came a second confidence and a
second gift: by some miracle, she had found enough money to
pay for dentures. Jesus had seen to that, she was sure.
Jesus is always doing things like that. And for people who
haven't a clue that they are God's treasure, not God's
trash. They are God's high priority and having them trust
this is part of God's package deal.
Earlier I asked you to take note of who isn't here today. As
you looked around, you probably looked for familiar faces,
noting the empty spaces where pew mates usually perch.
Perhaps you also brought to mind those who are rarely here
in body but who are always here in spirit: our shut-ins and
those dear friends who have moved away but who continue to
think of us as family--and we, them.
We easily recognize our own, but what about Christ's own?
Who is not here but who needs to be, deserves to be? Who is
not here who is walking through shadowed valleys or dangling
over a ravine wondering how they will survive? Who hasn't
simply wandered away but has been pushed out, sent off? Who
is living on the edge, eking out an existence there who
would give anything to feast on the green pastures we find
here week after beautiful week? Who is not here to complete
the circle Christ intends?
There are lots of ways to come at today's scripture. We
could focus on the Pharisees and scribes, who have no idea
they are as lost as any of the sinners they begrudge Jesus
for making a priority.
We could also spend time considering the scandal of the
image Jesus holds up of God as a shepherd, a most unholy
sort of comparison in an age when shepherds were thought to
be no better than shiftless, thieving, trespassing
hirelings, despised by rabbis. What sort of God is this?
This God with whom Jesus is so intimate and so passionate in
sharing? This conversation we can save for another day.
Instead, I find myself wondering about us, the ones who find
ourselves here, the ones whom the shepherd leaves behind in
order to go searching. We are the ninety-nine, I do believe.
The ones who are not quite complete, not exactly a whole
flock but close.
There is an empty place in our circle, a place for someone
who may not even know they belong.
How will they know, I ask? How will they know they belong?
By driving by and observing the open parking spaces we have
so gladly left them? How will they know we are their flock?
By our broad grins and open arms once they step inside? By
the ample seating we have in our sanctuary? Some have. Some
do. Some will. But not all.
Why didn't the Pharisees and scribes see what Jesus saw? Why
didn't they recognize that their flock was not whole, not
right until and unless everyone had found their place? Why
did their hearts not break open, too, like Jesus' did? What
kept them from seeing that their religiosity and rules were
not God's high priority? That God's high priority was in
seeking and finding anyone who was lost?
They weren't bad men, evil men, mean men. But they were
misguided. Partly because they kept their focus inward. They
kept their focus inward.
They preoccupied themselves with managing and maintaining
their religious institutions. In their preoccupation with
ritual purity, they forgot that the God they had found in
strict obedience to the law was the God who had really found
them first. A God who had gathered them together not for
their sake, but for God's.
We are a church graced with a rare gift: we know how to love
as Jesus loved, which is unconditionally. We are not afraid
of sin or sinners. Neither are we fearful of the doubtful
and the needful and the lost.
Indeed, we know we are called together in large measure to
be a community of radical hospitality, a community aching to
receive with joy the one Christ has gone out in search of,
the one who, having been found, gives us a sense of
completeness.
Look around the sanctuary. Who is not here? What can we do,
we who happily graze week after week in this place of
plenty?
Dare we do more than wait for Jesus to deliver the lost to
our doorstep? Dare we become spiritual detectives, looking
for and following Christ's footprints, the ones that lead
out and away, toward the edges, toward the precipices?
Dare we go out into those settings and situations where
Christ is already fast at work? Out where we can rejoice
with Christ for finding the lost who belong here with us?
Does our shepherd want company while he searches? Jesus
doesn't say so in his parable, but he makes it clear
elsewhere in scripture that he wants us to partner with him.
That this is how we show our love for him.
I have to think our shepherd would be more than grateful if
we would go with him. Out into the world to reach out, with
him, toward those who have no idea they're lost or missed or
even belong. Amen.
© Rev. Karen Winkel
United Church of Paducah (UCC) (As a
benediction, the congregation gathered into a circle. After
offering a blessing, I invited them to turn and face
outward, imagining the many beyond our walls who have need
of what we have been given to share. By baptism and the
Spirit at work in us, we are called to go forth!) |
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie
Allen
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