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
