Thank Goodness I've Found It!

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I’d like you to think back - at least six months ago, it could be longer. Remember yourself going to the cinema. Not just any time you went to the cinema, but a time when you actually got there early enough that even after you had bought your drinks and popcorn you still got to watch a trailer. And in the trailer the director has spliced together scenes from the film in a tanatalising way. And 6 months later you go back to the cinema and you see the actual film and it is totally different from what you expected. The trailer didn’t lie. But because of the way the cuts had been put together, things appeared to be different. It all depends on the perspective you look at things from.

A devout old shepherd lost his favorite Bible while he was out looking for a wayward lamb. Three weeks later, a sheep walked up to him carrying the Bible in its mouth. The shepherd couldn’t believe his eyes. He took the precious book out of the sheep’s mouth, and the sheep said, “I found your bible”. The shepherd raised his eyes heavenward and exclaimed, “It’s a miracle…a talking sheep has found my bible!”

“Not really,” said the sheep. “Your name is written inside the cover.” (1)

Go on - laugh…

I’m glad you laughed because now I am going to what you must never do with a joke - explain it. But the joke works because of the different perspective of how you look at things from. From the perspective of the Shepherd, it’s a miracle. The bible is back and here is a talking sheep. But if you look at it instead from the perspective of the talking sheep… It all depends on the perspective you look at things from.

So we hear today's Gospel Reading from Luke 15:1-10. Let’s hear it first from one perspective….

“The scribes and the pharisees were grumbling and saying “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told THEM this parable…

Lets put our best Scribal robes on and hear the story from their point of view. My friend Fr Alan went on holiday France . He writes the priest “Fr. Pierre, who is 89, was preaching. We have been listening to his homilies now for some 20 years. Like most French sermons I have heard, Catholic or Reformed, they are rather serious and solemn affairs. But on this occasion, Fr. Pierre said something which did provoke laughter from the congregation. He told us how, when he was a boy, he had been at church with his parents and brothers. The gospel that day was the Prodigal Son but when they got home their father said to his sons: “Don't think you will be welcomed back like that if you go off and blow the family fortune on wine, women and song.” (2)

That’s the proper answer isn’t? If someone has treated us badly we want them to get what’s coming to them. And if we have been going to church, working hard for all these years, and some newcomer turns up, surely our views are more important than their views. Surely we are more important than them.

Last night after the fantastic Funday, a group of us spent ages putting the chairs back in church. Why did we spend so long? It doesn’t take that long to move chairs? Well lets give you the rather sad but honest answer. All of us were afraid that if we didn’t get the chairs back in the right place, someone might complain.

Think about it. Yesterday you as a church did an amazing thing. You didn’t just go out after one lost sheep. You didn’t just go out after 99 lost sheep. The fun day you ran reached over 350 people - which means over 270 people from local community who don’t normally go to church. As well as forming friendships and having fun, through the magician and circus artist they heard the gospel message. 270 Lost sheep. Yesterday you as a church did an amazing thing.

And yet at the end of the day, as we put the chairs back, we weren’t thinking about that wonderful news. We were thinking about the one sheep safely in the fold saying “my chairs not in the right place”

Well we can tremble - but Jesus had it a lot worse. “The Pharisees and scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them”.

And Jesus wants to change the way they think. He wants to change the way we think.

Imagine something really precious that you have lost - like this blanky (hold up a child’s comforter blanket). I remember when my children were little. If one of them left their teddy … well there were times when I had to travel to the other side of London to pick the blasted Teddy up because otherwise they would not sleep. Yesterday some poor child left their comforter blanket here at the fun day. I really hope their parents got some sleep last night….