Beloved Sheep

Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

DFMS Noonday Prayer via Zoom

November 5, 2020

Phil. 3:3-8a; Psalm 105:1-7; Luke 15:1-10

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?”

Okay, so my first thought on this passage was, really, God? Don’t you understand we are weary. We are anxious. We do not yet know how things will go. There is much to be fearful about and most of us have not had anything that would qualify as a true vacation since 2019. Now you want us to do more? You want us to go off searching for someone. Isn’t 99 enough? I mean on most grading scales that is still at least an A if not an A+. 

But then I took a deep breath. I turned the text over in my mind. I thought, Oh. I think I might have it all backwards . . . What if in this story we are not the shepherd? What if we are the sheep? Things look very different then. 

If I am the one who is lost, then, yes, please God, seek me out. Please forget everything I said about 99 being good enough. 

I feel like I needed this passage this week. I needed to be reminded that I matter that much to God. I needed to be reminded that God is indeed our shepherd. I needed to be reminded that I belong to a flock. 

It would be so easy to get ourselves down any number of roads, possibly very scary roads of what ifs about what could happen tomorrow or next week or next month. We could tie ourselves up in knots and skyrocket our blood pressure. That does not serve us or our communities right now. 

What we need today is to breathe a little more deeply. We need to be present. We need to rest in the truth that we are beloved of God. Really. So beloved that God would seek us out. We are that beloved. 

We need to remember that we are in a flock. We do not travel this journey alone. We are safer together. We are happier together. We can do more because we have each other. 

And then we also need to remember that God is not partisan. We are all one flock. We are one people. One human race. Even those people with whom we might vehemently disagree on issues of policy or on who the best candidate is. They too are beloved of God. 

My friends, this election has put in stark relief the divisions that are present in our nation right now. There is much work ahead of us. We have not yet realized the Beloved Community. God’s Kingdom has not come. But it is coming. It is our daily prayer. And we - all of us together, the whole flock - are part of making that happen. 

I am convinced that it is possible for us to journey together into a different future. It is possible because we are beloved of God. It is possible because we do not journey alone. 

May we hold fast to the love God has for each one of us, and may that love flow through our words and actions into our communities and the world. Today and everyday. Amen.