The eCrozier

Living through the uncertainty of Hurricane Dorian earlier this month reminded me of a story I heard in 2005 right after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. It was a TV news story about a member of a Coast Guard Search and Rescue team. On camera, he spoke of how his team would go out, find as many survivors as they could, and then airlift them back to their base. There they’d refuel and go back out again and again for days on end. When the interviewer asked him how he was able to do what he did day after day with no rest or sleep, he was surprised she’d even ask such a question. After all, there were people to rescue. They needed him to do his job. He never thought for a minute about being tired or in danger himself. The only thing that mattered was his persistent, unrelenting effort to rescue people in danger.

The reason this story remains fixed in my memory is that I realized this coast guard officer was modeling the very nature of God in the work of Jesus on the cross. Our Gospel lesson last Sunday, the Parable of the Persistent Shepherd (more widely known as the Parable of the Lost Sheep), points vividly to Jesus’s work. We should know that Jesus’s parables aren’t morality tales, they’re rather verbal pictures of who God is. So, in this parable, God is the persistent shepherd who won’t stop looking until he finds us. Jesus asks his listeners: “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?” His listeners would’ve answered: “None of us would do that, because it’s foolish. You’d risk losing the 99.” And they’re right. Based on simple economic cost-benefit analysis, this isn’t smart, risk-reward behavior. In searching for the one lost sheep the shepherd risks losing the 99. Prudence would suggest he should write off this one lost sheep as a “sunk cost” and be content with the 99 sheep that he has.

But that’s not God’s nature. God’s foolhardy enough to leave the 99 and go after the one. One lost sheep is one too many for God. God won’t stop searching until his Good Shepherd Jesus brings his lost sheep safely to him. We worship a God who’ll never give up on any of us, even the least lovable among us. Such a truth about God should lead God’s people to behave similarly, since no part of creation is left out of God’s search and rescue mission. Yet, we hear a voice in our culture today that doesn’t sound like Jesus. That voice demands we treat some other people, especially those who are different than we are, as if they aren’t worthy of God’s search and rescue mission. It’s tempting to stand with that particular flock and heed that voice. But that’s the voice of a liar. As disciples of Jesus, we’re in a different flock and we follow the voice of the one and only Good Shepherd.

Think about it: There was nothing special about that one lost sheep other than that it was lost. It didn’t deserve to be found, rescued, and returned to safety any more than the other 99 sheep. You and I aren’t any more deserving than any other lost sheep out there. But maybe that truth won’t sink into our souls until we realize just how lost we ourselves are without Jesus rescuing us? Such an epiphany will then change the way we think about the many lost sheep who need rescue and asylum in this world.

+Scott