September 14th ~ What Brings Us Back... When We Are Lost Sheep?

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Exodus 32:7-14

Psalm 51:1-10

1 Timothy 1:12-17

Luke 15:1-10  

Sermon by Pastor Joel

I was travelling to a visit in Perth on Wednesday when I learned that Charlie Kirk had died from a gunshot while speaking at a university in Utah. Mr. Kirk, as most of you will know, was a right-wing conservative activist and close ally of Donald Trump. He also identified loudly as a devout Christian, although his version of Christianity was decidedly not mine. For instance, Mr. Kirk once said that he thought empathy was a “new-age, made-up term” by which, based on his political views, he most certainly meant we were showing too much of it. Although the ancient, old-school gospel he purported to follow – including our reading this morning – has empathy woven through nearly every word.

That all said, one of the emotions I felt first when I heard the news was exactly that: empathy. Not some fluffy new-age kind. But the real and deep hurt you feel for a wife now left without a husband, and two children without a father. For the university students who witnessed first-hand such terrible violence – again – in their country. For Americans who are living in a time where political leaders are murdered and rhetoric is hateful. And for all us, watching helplessly as it happens.

But many things can be true at once. We can grieve for Mr. Kirk’s death and for his family, but also loathe the judging, nasty version of the world he stood for. We can condemn the violence that silenced his voice, while feeling repulsed that he so often cited Jesus to make his case, using the gospel as a tool to criticize and divide. We can feel anger remembering that assassinations of Democratic leader and Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband earlier this year did not prompt a similar outpouring of outrage from the President of the United States. And we can feel outrage that Charlie Kirk will receive the highest civilian honour in his country, despite his having so dishonourably used his prominent podium to once suggest that accomplished Black female leaders such as Michelle Obama did not, quote, “have the brain-processing power to be taken seriously.” Despite his calling Dr. Martin Luther King Jr an “awful” person. Despite creating a watchlist of Black and queer professors and activists, and by doing so encouraged death threats and harassment designed to silence their voices while his freedom of speech remains sacrosanct.

We can feel all these things, and still understand that no one should die this way. These are not simple times. Our response to them need not—and should not—be simple.

By his own words, we might assume that Charlie Kirk would likely not have supported the message in our gospel reading this morning. We are reminded of the shepherd who, despite having 99 safe sheep, still goes out into the wilderness to find and care for the single one that has been lost. Charlie Kirk, by comparison, once argued that gun deaths in America were an acceptable price for free and unfettered gun law. Unfortunate, he said, but acceptable. He didn’t say how many were acceptable. Were five dead people okay? Or ten? Or the more than 500 young students killed in school shootings over the last two decades in the US.

I raise these questions and details this morning, because we must stand guard against this kind of thinking seeping into our country, our own families, the social media that our children digest. Mr. Kirk’s message got attention because it was appealing. It said: “I am one of the righteous sheep; why don’t I deserve more than that other one?”

Yet we are reminded, in our gospel, that every sheep has value, no matter what they look like, where they came from, who they love, whether they were born lucky or not, whether they have privilege or not, whether they have succeeded by the world’s measure, or stumbled. One sheep that is lost and returns to the flock is worthy of celebration, the gospel says, even beyond all the righteous ones who remained. This entire thinking runs contrary to the way our world is heading – in our world, the comfortable sheep often matter most. And perhaps, if you are honest, when you read this, you thought, even just a little: shouldn’t the righteous ones at least be celebrated more than the sheep that messed up?

But this parable is actually a riddle. And the answer to this riddle is not, in fact, that there is one flock of perfect sheep and a few miscreant sheep who go missing and need help getting back. The answer is that we are all miscreant sheep who wander away from the shepherd, over and over again, and need help returning. We all mess up. And we all count.

The parable is actually a lesson in self-compassion and forgiveness. If we can accept that we are imperfect followers of the gospel, that we wander repeatedly away from it, and yet are forgiven and still highly valued, then Jesus is also telling us to forgive ourselves. To turn our compassion – indeed, our empathy – inward, and accept that we are flawed, careless, selfish, foolish. We are all those things because we are human. And yet Jesus, the shepherd, will search for us no matter what – so that returned to the flock we may, in turn, search for others.

This is the part so often missing from right-wing Christian rhetoric, and the message we need both to resist and to fight against. There is a reason that the gospel spends so much time reminding us that we are flawed and yet forgiven. Self-compassion is arguably the most important step to becoming that shepherd who sees the value of every single sheep. If our flaws make us human, then everyone who is flawed is also human. If we stop judging ourselves so harshly, we stop judging others. Empathy for our own mistakes inspires empathy for others.

What might also be overlooked in our short parable is how that lost sheep journeys back to the flock. The shepherd goes looking and finds the lost one. But what brings the sheep back? The shepherd is the presence of God and the justice and kindness of the gospel; are we not called to be that presence for others? If so, what brings the sheep back is not judgement and condemnation, but support and community. We know this. Because when we are that lost sheep what brings us back? Not hate. But love.

What can we do in times like these, we sometimes ask helplessly? We can do so very much. We can feel true empathy for the pain that others feel – the kind of empathy that puts us in someone else’s shoes and helps us support them on their path. We can practice compassion – for ourselves first and then extend it to others. We can value the lost sheep, knowing that we are often lost. In the midst of chaos, when the world seems consumed with a fog of hate, we can light the way and go searching for those who need us. Amen