Ninety-nine out of a hundred (the sheep in the story) – not bad!
If it was an exam in any classroom in Scotland you would get an A.
For some exams, 100% would be an impossibility – it would suggest perfection. Think of Art, English or History.
One girl I heard of did get 99% in an exam. The examiner had written in the margin “Could do better!”
Of course that is literally true. But in reality he was making a joke based on how good she was. Only a crazy person would give a student a row for getting 99%.
99% is more than acceptable….most of the time….
Let me tell you about the School trip.
Mr Brown was the teacher in charge. Every time they went somewhere the kids had to be counted before they moved off to their next destination. Laboriously Mr Brown had to count again and again to ensure that all of them were there. And it all went well – right up to the end. As they stood at the bus station ready for the return journey there was one person missing. Just one.
Eventually they get back from the trip to the school where the parents were waiting. And Mr Brown makes an announcement.
“It’s been a great trip. The children have learned a lot and enjoyed themselves and 98% are now home. We lost just one child – Tommy Black.”
Then he goes over to Tommy’s parents.
“I am sorry I lost your son, Mr and Mrs Black.”
“Don’t worry” says Mrs Black. “You did your best. And you did very well. Nearly every single child came back safely. We are still young. Maybe we can both have another child.”
Can you imagine anything more ridiculous!!!?
There are some situations where nothing less than 100% will do.
Jesus tells this story about the shepherd who counts his sheep as usual at the end of the night. He has 100 sheep (which in those days would be quite a big flock). But this time one is missing. Just one. He’s only got 99 in the fold.
Well 99 out of 100 isn’t too bad. Maybe he can get the other one in the morning. After all, it’s only a sheep.
But no – he’s got to go and find it now. Nothing less than 100% is good enough for him.
And Jesus says the point of this story is simple.
This is what God’s love is like towards people.
God wants to gather us all in and nothing less than 100% will do.
In the countries of the north and west, countries with Christian heritages, we see these days more atheists than in other parts of the world.
There are different reasons for this. But one reason is that Christians and the church have sometimes preached a message that has presented God in a very unfavourable light.
And it has seemed to many thoughtful people that the God of Christianity is a God that is neither attractive, fair, nor worthy of worship.
What am I talking about?
The message that seems sometimes to come from Christianity is that God demands higher standards from us than God is going to accept himself (or herself).
God calls on us to love one another and show mercy and forgiveness, but God doesn’t do that.
God gets rid of anyone who doesn’t accept God.
God’s enemies get punished in hell for all eternity.
Preachers tell us that God’s love is great – but apparently it only lasts for a limited time. When we die God’s patience runs out - along with God’s love!
Most ordinary folk would usually be prepared to give a person a break, overlook some mistakes, and even on their worst days could not imagine torturing people who do not like them, or worship them, or believe in them.
The God that has been portrayed by some in the church is some kind of petty monster – easily offended.
And it appears as if we are supposed to be more loving and forgiving than God!
I read an interview a couple of years back with Richard Curtis who has made hit films like Four Weddings and A Funeral and directed TV series like Blackadder and The Vicar of Dibley.
As a human being he is a very caring man and he spends half of his working life working for charity and trying to make a difference to our world for good – especially involving himself in issues surrounding the poorest people in the developing world. He actually gives away half his income.
In the interview Curtis explained why he can’t believe in God.
“I stopped believing before university. This is going to sound facile. But I thought if God is worth worshipping then he must be at least as intelligent and knowledgeable as my own dad. And yet dad would always forgive me for the mistakes I made. There is no way in which he would look at all the pressures and temptations on a person and then still say that he should be punished. So I thought, well, either God doesn’t exist or he is thoroughly nasty, in which case I am not interested in worshipping him.”
Do you see what Curtis has done? He looks at his dad and how his dad would forgive him when did something wrong, but in his mind God won’t do that. The God he has pictured in his imagination is a God that is waiting to punish – a vindictive God. Even his own human father is kinder and more loving than this God.
What Richard Curtis has done is to reject a false picture of God. He is quite right to do that.
Who wants to believe in a God like that?
Not Richard Curtis.
Not me either, by the way.
But what if God is not like that after all?
What if people have heard the wrong message?
Today we have this story that helps us understand the wonderful truth about God.
God loves us all.
And God will never give up on us. Never.
And like the Shepherd, God will never be happy until every person is in the fold.
We don’t know the details about what happens after death.
We don’t know too much – but there are some things we can know.
First is that death is not the end. After death – albeit differently, life still continues.
Secondly, God is there with us after death just as God is with us before death.
Thirdly, God’s love is not going to change because we have come to the end of our earthly life.
And fourthly, God wants every person to be safe – to be in the fold.
Now clearly many people live and die without making any response to God. Some people even deliberately choose to reject God.
But that isn’t the end of Gods involvement. God will continue to reach out to us until God finally breaks through, because God is not going to be defeated in God’s plans for the universe.
Things will not be complete till we are brought into God’s circle of care.
The flock of sheep is not complete until all the sheep are safely in.
The flock is not whole until all the animals are accounted for.
In the same way, God’s creation is not complete until we are all accounted for. God will not rest until we are all brought into the fellowship of God’s love.
The Bible tells us that God wants all people to respond to this love. And ultimately I believe if that’s what God wants, God will find a way to get it.
God will pursue us, pursue us all until we see God for ourselves and accept the love offered to us, if not in this life, then in the life to come.
The message of the story Jesus is telling us today is good news for everyone everywhere.
But, one more thing… It is also good news for us personally.
Sometimes people look at the shepherd tale and they say: Why should the flock of sheep be left alone by the shepherd because of one stupid sheep?
99 sheep have behaved well.
Why not just stick with them? They deserve it.
“Where is the rejoicing in heaven when good, ordinary folk hang in there for God when others go wandering away or drop off?”
Sounds good till you think about this…
Where do we actually find these 99 righteous persons?
Who is a righteous person? Who is good?
Who sticks with God all the time?
There isn’t any one who does that.
One day a teacher asked her class to consider a strange question. “Imagine if all the bad people were painted red, and all the good people were painted green. What colour would you be? Think about it for a bit before you answer. What colour would you be?”
It’s quite a hard question to answer when you pose only two options.
The class was quiet for a while and then one very wise child answered the teacher: “Striped!”
That’s the truth about us all. We are a real mixture of good and bad.
Every single one of us.
We may live better lives than all kinds of people, but we never stick with God all the time. There are always times when we wander off and get lost, and its then that God needs to come looking for us to bring us back.
We all make mistakes.
We all foul up.
We all do and say and think things that are wrong.
We all fail to be loving to those around us - at least some of the time.
We all make choices that lead us away from God and we end up not as close to God as we should be.
In other words, to a greater or lesser extent, we all get lost.
And we are all relying on God to look out for us,
to look after us,
and to welcome us back into the fold where we belong.
In Luke Chapter 15 Jesus tells us three stories back to back – we heard the first two today - the third story is the best known of them all.
He talks about a shepherd who loses one sheep and goes out of his way to find and rescue that sheep.
He talks about a woman who loses a coin and turns her home upside down till she finds it and then has a party to celebrate.
And then he tells about a father who comes running out of his house to welcome back his wayward errant son, and who is so happy he also calls for an immediate party.
And these people in the stories represent God – the God who never ever gives up loving us and searching for us – the God who will never be happy until we are safe and sound where we should be.
God is the shepherd searching high and low for the lost sheep.
God is the woman determined to find her lost coin.
God is the father with outstretched arms and tear-stained cheeks waiting to embrace his long lost child.
This is the good news.
It’s the good news for you and me.
And it’s the good news for everyone everywhere!