I was taking a walk in rural Hidalgo, Mexico when I came across a shepherd with a flock of sheep – not 99 but, perhaps, four or five dozen. What surprised me was that the shepherd was not leading the flock to those green pastures. Instead, he was behind the flock. The sheep were kind of all moving in the same general direction and the shepherd kept pushing the laggards forward and preventing the wayward from wandering off too far. His role was to keep the flock together and moving. If shepherds that Jesus knew in first century Palestine operated in the same way we have to hear the parable of the “lost sheep” with different ears. It wasn’t that the sheep got lost, it was that the shepherd lost it. The shepherd’s role was to keep the flock together and he failed. So of course he has to go looking for the lost sheep since it was his responsibility to make sure that the flock stayed together. In the parable of the lost coin the woman admits that it was her fault. “I have found the coin that I lost.” The coin did not lose itself, the woman lost it. When we look at the parables in this light we have to re-interpret our usual understanding. It wasn’t the sheep that needed to repent, it was the shepherd. The coin did not need to change how it operated, the woman did. Instead of too quickly identifying the shepherd of the parable with Jesus as the Good Shepherd going after the “poor little lambs who have lost their way, baa, baa, baa,” we must re-imagine what lessons Jesus is teaching us in these two passages.
First, both the shepherd and the woman noticed that they were incomplete, that something was missing, that they needed to do something in order to restore wholeness. When we apply that lesson to ourselves, what – or better who — are we missing? Who needs to be here for us to become complete? To answer that question we could look at raw numbers. In 2009 the average Mass attendance at St. James was 278. Ten years later, the average attendance was 179 – a loss of one hundred people coming to Church in the past ten years. While a lot has happened in the past ten years – just look at the vacant lot next door or read the news reports of the latest church scandal – the facts are the one third of the flock of ten years ago are no longer here. The shepherd felt the need to earnestly pursue the 1% of the flock that he lost. The woman felt she needed to thoroughly search her house for the 10% of the coins that she lost. What are we doing about the 33% of the flock that are no longer here? Besides the raw numbers there is the human reality. If your family is anything like mine then there are people that you are close to – brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, friends and neighbors – who do not have a connection to Church, it just doesn’t do anything for them. Then there are the people who have had a bad experience of Church that turned them off to the whole business. But for whatever reason we are incomplete. Wholeness must be restored.
The second lesson: restoring wholeness takes effort, takes work. The shepherd has to “go after the lost one.” He doesn’t expect the sheep to come wandering in on its own. He pursues it. The woman lights a lamp, sweeps the house, searches carefully until she finds the lost coin. She doesn’t imagine the coin will simply turn up some day. She goes looking for it. That suggests for us to be restored to wholeness, to become complete, is going to take effort on our part. We can’t simply do what we have always been doing and expect our number to be restored. Isn’t that a definition of insanity: to do what you have always been doing but expect a different result. Or to put colloquially – if you do what you always did, you will get what you always got. Simply coming to Church and saying my own private prayers will not bring about the wholeness, the unity we long for. Each one of us has a role to play in creating the welcoming and receiving atmosphere that will help to bring people back home. God is counting on each one of us to play our part in hospitality, in outreach, in invitation, in service, in engagement, in whatever way we can let others know what a mighty God we serve.
Finally, the restoring of wholeness requires a celebration. “Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.” “Rejoice with me because I found the coin that I lost.” Notice that the cause for the celebration was the restoration of wholeness, nothing else. As we at St. James welcome those who will fill out our flock we must have that same attitude of celebration simply because we all belong together. We don’t wait to have the celebration until after those who enter have learned their catechism and can recite the creed. We don’t wait to have the celebration until those interested have changed the way they live a virtuous life. No, their very presence, the fact that they belong is sufficient in itself for celebration. There is a gym that advertises itself as a judgement-free zone: a place where you can work out without ever being laughed at for the way you exercise or how you look — you’ll be accepted regardless of how well you perform and what kind of exercise you do. I wonder if we can think of St. James as a judgment free zone. Here, as the song goes, all are welcome in this place. Everyone belongs because everyone is a child of God. We will walk with each other as we strive to understand more fully the Christian life. We will work with each other as we conform our lives more closely in the model of Jesus. But we will do this together because everyone belongs. That is truly the cause for celebration.