When you read the first two chapters of Genesis, you find that after God created something, He always said that it was good. Well, almost always–the exception is Adam. After God created Adam, He said, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18).
When God said that, we learn something about who we are as humans. The words, “It is not good for the man to be alone,” tell us that God did not create us to live alone, isolated from one another. He created us to live in community–not only with Him but also with one another.
God created us to live in a true bond and perfect union with Him, but He didn’t stop there. For if God only wanted man to live in communion with Him, He would’ve never needed to create Eve. Even without Eve, Adam wasn’t fully alone: He had God and the animals. And yet Adam was alone in that he had no other human with which He could bond. And so when God created Eve, we learn that He also created us to live in relationship with one another.
And so God’s decree that man should not be alone reveals His will for us to live, not only in communion with Him, but also with and for others. It reveals His great love for us because He wants us thrive in families and communities. It even reveals His heartfelt wish for us to live as He is, for even though He is one, He is also three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God Himself is a oneness and a plurality. As God is, so are we to be.
When God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone,” He teaches us just how sinful it is to want to isolate yourself, shutting yourself off from others, and going your own way. And when we see that God’s decree not to be alone originates from within His heart, we then understand how it grieves God when someone is lost and isolated.
And that is the problem that Jesus speaks about in Luke 15. We hear Jesus tell us about a sheep that gets lost. Yet, this lone, vulnerable sheep is not just alone–the lost sheep has also separated itself from the flock.
And so the Parable of the Lost Sheep shows us that two wrongs have taken place. First, the sheep is lost. Second, the sheep is separated from the flock. If we fail to see both, we fail to understand Jesus’ parable.
But in the parable, we know that Jesus isn’t really talking about sheep, but people. And so we see that when someone has strayed from the Church (that’s the flock in the parable), the sadness is more than that he is alone. The sadness deepens because he has also separated himself from Christ’s own flock, the Church.
Psalm 68:6 tells us, “God settles the lonely in families.” And the Church is the ultimate family into which God places us, made most real in eternity. But God doesn’t bring us into the Church just to keep us from getting lonely. God settles the lonely in families–His family–because that is how He made us to be. He made us to be in communion with Him and one another. And we can only live that out fully in His Church. So the Parable of the Lost Sheep shows us God’s will for our lives–that we live, not only under the care of our shepherd, but also with one another.
But we also find the parable touches and warms our hearts, for it shows what countless lengths our Lord Jesus will go to seek each of us out. He will not abandon us. He will never give up on us. He will do whatever it takes to seek us out. He will be diligent and relentless. And we know that our Lord is this way because, in the beginning, He said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.”
And so the shepherd in the parable doesn’t simply seek to find the one lost sheep. He wants to find the sheep to return it the flock. The next parable is not just to find the one lost coin; it’s to reunite it in the purse with the other coins.
With these parables, we begin to understand the merciful heart of God. His mercy moves Him to seek those who are lonely, distressed, and separated. He seeks those who have willfully, or unknowingly, cut themselves off from Him and His family, the Church. And God’s mercy compels Him, not just to find them, but also to bring them back into His Church.
So, the lost sheep is not safe until both the sheep and shepherd are back home in the fold. The lost coin is not secured until it is back in the purse where it belongs. And so it is with us.
We recognize that reality in our baptismal liturgy. When someone is baptized, we pray that God would keep the baptized “safe and secure in the holy ark of the Christian Church, being separated from the multitude of unbelievers” (Luther’s Flood Prayer). That should also be your prayer, not only for yourself, but even the person beside you.
We shouldn’t pray only for God to deliver us from sin, death, and the devil. For our salvation doesn’t stop at God rescuing us away from something–our isolation and aloneness. God also saves us for something. He wants us to be part of, and live all our days in, His holy Church. God doesn’t just snatch us from the jaws of death. He also gathers us and unites us in His one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. He doesn’t just save us from the loneliness into which Satan leads us, He also brings us into His family, the Church.
It’s not enough for God in His mercy to find you. For what would God be if He finds you only to stop there? Must He not also have the will and compassion, and even want to bring you into His heavenly home? And that is what we see in the parables that Jesus tells us today. The Shepherd goes searching, not just to seek, but also to save, that is, to return us safely into His fold. The woman searches diligently, not for the thrill of it, but so she might make us complete by gathering us with all the other of God’s faithful. Indeed, our Lord seeks us, so He might bring us back to where we belong–into His holy Church.
But what is this Church into which Jesus brings us? It isn’t simply some personal fellowship where you can “feel” God in your heart. For if that were true, then why would the shepherd have to seek the lost sheep? That lone sheep could have personal fellowship all by his lonesome on some mountaintop. That’s not what it means to be in the Church.
The Church isn’t some feeling or emotion that someone has within him. The Church must exist as a true reality–if the lost sheep is to be united with the rest of the flock! The Church must exist for real–if the shepherd and the flock are to be together. And so we find that to be Church we must have the flock and the shepherd: No flock, no Church; no shepherd, no Church.
Our Lord doesn’t give up His life so He might make us part of something that is only imaginary. The Church is a concrete reality, where the flock gathers and the shepherd leads the sheep. This is simply the Church gathering around Word and Sacrament, where God’s called shepherd preaches the Word and administers the Sacraments.
Our Lord gives His life to search for us–all so He might bring us safely and securely into a real entity: His Body. And you can find this Body of Christ, the Church, where you find people and pastor gathering to receive and hold on to the cornerstone of the Church–Christ Himself. You can find the Church where the deposit of the faith that Jesus passed on to His Apostles is still received, believed, taught, and practiced.
That is the holy ark of Christendom, the flock of Christ, and our Father’s home. It is where the angels gather, with the saints of heaven, with the saints on earth also joining with them in their eternal worship of God. It is where God intends us to be safe from the winds of false doctrine and the false teachings of the world.
For you, right now, that place is here at Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church. For here is where Christ feeds you with His holy Supper. Here is where the truth of God’s Word–and the Truth that is the Word–protects you from the assaults of the devil. Here is where the Lord continues to extend His mercy to you. Here is where He never gives up on you, always wanting you to remain firmly in Him and His Church.
Yet, all-too often we want go our own way, just like the straying sheep. We want to reshape the Church and our Lord in our image. That’s what we want to do in our sinfulness. Yet, God’s seeks us to reshape us in His image within His Church.
Indeed, the Good Shepherd seeks you, so you may be within the fold of His Church. Christ calls you to grow in the fullness of the faith all the days of your life, ever-more strongly trusting in Jesus and serving others as the light of Christ in this world. For, as God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” Amen.
