LOST SHEEP

I wasn’t paying attention. I tend to be that way. Things distract me.

Late morning I was somewhere in the middle of the pack - but as we moved into the heat of the afternoon, I found myself at the tail end of the flock.

Yes, that’s me. This wasn’t the first time I was the last sheep.

To be honest,  I still don’t know how all this happened - how I got lost.

When I looked up from some delicious grass I was chomping on, I saw everyone had disappeared. It was then I saw a path that I thought the others had taken. The further I went down it, the more I realized I guess they didn’t. They must have moved in some other direction - gone some other way.

I found myself on my own - literally in the middle of nowhere.

I turned back - and got even more lost. Now what?

I decided to climb to the top of a ridge. Maybe from up there I’d spot my shepherd and the rest of the sheep. Half way up I got caught - in some brambles and some thickets.

“Oooh!” I said, “These thorns hurt - even getting into and under my skin.”

I could feel blood oozing out of my side - even where I was thick skinned and thick wooled.

If I turned right, “Oooh! Ouch!”  If I turned to my left, “Oooh! Ouch!”

I started screaming, “Baa! Baa! Baa!”

But soon I got tired and I got scared.

Sheep are called stupid. Well I was stupid for lagging behind and getting lost - once again.

But I’m not that stupid to keep baaing - just in case wolves would be prowling around in the hills in the early evening - looking around for a supper like me.

The sun went down!

Now I was really in the dark - very scared - frightened - and all alone.

Back in the sheep pen - the shepherd stood at the gate of the pen - counting his sheep. “96, 97, 98, 99,”

“Ooops,” the shepherd said, “I must have miscounted.”

He tried two more times. Each time he came up with 99. One was missing.

He called together the other shepherds who also had their sheep in this big pen in the desert  and told them he had lost one of his sheep and he was going to go out and look for him - and find him.

They said, “You’re crazy! Wait till morning! Wait till tomorrow and go back the way you came today.”

He said, “Are you crazy! The poor fellow is going to panic in the dark night. I have to go find him.”

He asked a friendlier shepherd to guard his sheep for the meanwhile. He made a torch and he went in search of his lost sheep.

There was an almost full moon  that night - but clouds were coming and going - past the moon - sometimes blocking out the light.

All the while the shepherd kept calling out the missing sheep’s name.

All the while there was silence and the noises of the night.

At times he said to himself, “This is crazy!”

But nope, he wouldn’t give up. He had to find his lost sheep.

He came to a fork in the road - and wondered if his lost sheep had taken the wrong turn, the wrong path here, the wrong way here.

He took the smaller path and keep calling the sheep’s name.

Surprise, he heard a faint “Baa!” - and then a louder one - “Baaah!”

With torch in hand he scampered up the hill and found his lost sleep.

It was difficult to see, but he saw that his lost sheep was pretty cut up - probably from when he was trying to get out of these brambles and these thorns.

The shepherd cut himself as he tried to free his sheep. He too started to bleed.

Finally, his lost sheep was free and the shepherd hugged him and put him up around his shoulders and brought him back to his pen and his friends.

He woke all the sheep as he returned shouting. They were thinking as they saw the 100th sheep on the shepherd's shoulders, “Not him again!”

He also woke all the other shepherds - calling to them, “Celebrate with me! My lost sheep is found.”

He had some bread and some wine - and he shared all he had with his fellow shepherds. And there was music and dancing in that small community in the hills that midnight or maybe it was two in the morning - whenever it was.

Two days later Jesus was in the carpenter shop - and a customer - a shepherd - was telling Joseph about what happened two nights before - how this dumb shepherd left his 99 sheep and went in search for his lost sheep in the night - and he found him - and threw a party for him.

For years Jesus turned that story around in his mind - wondering how he would tell it some day. He cut it and carved it - taking some parts out and then gluing some parts back together again. He didn’t know whether to have the lost sheep have a cut foot - and that’s why he lagged behind - and get people not to judge others. No he left the story sort of as is - because he would hear so many people complaining about others who messed up - and they could never see how they were messed up themselves at times.

“Come to think about it,” Jesus said to himself, “that Lost Sheep story is just like the story I heard about the woman who lost one of her 10 coins - and she too threw a party when she found it.”

And then Jesus thought, “What would have happened if that woman and that shepherd didn’t go searching - and the coin or the sheep turned up anyway. Then what?”

Jesus thought about this, and thought about that, and said, “Okay, that’s where that story I heard about the two brothers and their father can come in. One brother messed up. One brother wouldn’t forgive his brother’s mess up. And one day the father who waited and watched and watched and waited, and waited, for his son to come home. Sure enough he did and his father was so overjoyed - that he threw a big party for his Lost Son who was back home once again. And his older brother - wouldn’t - couldn’t celebrate - couldn’t come into the house - couldn’t come to communion. Oooh!”


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Top picture: Doron Art