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Luke 15:1-7 · The Parable of the Lost Sheep
Which Ones Were Lost?
Luke 15:1-7, Luke 15:8-10
Sermon
by Merle G. Franke
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The first time I set eyes on that grand old church building was in the cool of a January evening. Since it was in a southern state, there was no chilling cold to make me hurry back into my host's car, so the two of us casually made our way around the empty building. He was a synod president, and I was a churchwide senior staff person on an official visit to his synod.

The beautiful old building was locked tighter than a drum. There were quite obviously no meetings taking place in it that evening, which my host regretted because he was eager to show me the inside of the church. "No problem," I said. I had gotten into enough locked churches before with my trusty pocket knife, and with a few twists of the blade on a kitchen door latch we were inside the building. The fast-fading twilight was just enough to fire up the beautiful stained glass windows of the sanctuary and give us a picture of the worship area. Actually the sanctuary, both inside and outside, appeared to be much older than its 22 years, as indicated on the cornerstone. But new or old, the interior gave an immediate feeling that this would be an inviting setting to worship. The silent invitation of the sanctuary and chancel would appeal to one's need for private meditation or to a stirring Sunday morning celebration.

As we left the church and began the short trip to my motel, my host casually noted (at least he thought it was casual), "The pastor of this congregation will be retiring in a year or two."

"So?" I responded, trying to sound neutral, although I suspected what he was digging around for.

"Would you have any interest in having your name submitted to this congregation when the time comes that they are looking for a new pastor?" Might as well put it right on the line, he must have reasoned.

I gave the response I had given to others when that type of question had been asked of me. "I don't know. I know nothing about the congregation, and I don't know where I'll be or what my learning might be whenever this congregation's present pastor retires." In retrospect I have to admit that wasn't entirely straight. In those brief moments just walking around in that half-darkened church I had the strange feeling that this might be the place where I would be serving some day. Weird. Sure I was in some strange way interested. But in those days it wasn't polite to say so. So I gave my standard response. I was polite.

Three years later I was back in that church, this time conducting Sunday morning worship. Following the worship service I met with the church council to talk about housing and other matters. A few months prior the congregation had issued me a call to become their pastor. After scurrying around town and fortunately finding a good rental house near the church, I was able to be alone in the sanctuary in the cool of that Sunday evening. And I recalled being there three years earlier. Somehow I felt at home. This was my place to be. I knew I would be enjoying my ministry in this place and among these people.

A few months later our family moved to our new southern location. I began my ministry there with a flurry of activity -- meeting members, attending meetings, getting programs propped up. Yes, I was enjoying my ministry there, and it was indeed good to return to parish services. A bonus factor was the beautiful old-looking church building with its worship-inviting sanctuary.

But I was bothered by the church doors being locked, locked 24 hours of every day except Sunday for a few hours in the morning. It was like a museum. A beautiful museum no doubt, but people could see it only on Sunday morning. Since it was located near the university, there was some pedestrian and considerable auto traffic past the church. "What if some of those passersby want to see the inside of the church?" I had asked myself. "Or what if some troubled student or other person wants a quiet place just to sit and meditate?"

So prior to my first formal meeting with the church council I put together a logically reasoned proposal. It was to leave the church doors open from dawn to darkness seven days a week. Not just unlocked, but standing open. I explained to the council that I wanted people to be able to walk in and sit in this beautiful sanctuary, to pray if they wanted, or just to meditate and be quiet, away from the hurry and hustle of the streets.

They had been without a pastor for nearly 10 months, and were so glad to get someone on board full-time that I guess I could have asked for Ä and gotten Ä anything just then. The council thought it was a good idea and unanimously passed the proposal. Interior doors were to be secured in such a way that people coming in could not pass from the sanctuary to other parts of the building, in case some might have had intents other than praying. That satisfied any uneasiness council members might have had. So starting the next morning the exterior doors were opened from dawn to darkness every day. And all were happy.

But not ever after. For this was also the period in our history that the hippie movement was in full swing. And the church building, located near the university, was also in the pathway of numerous hippies. Some were just wandering about, with guitars slung over their shoulders, maybe a bottle of cheap wine with them. Others were on their way to one of the parks across the street or a few blocks away probably looking for a secluded spot where they might smoke a joint.

It wasn't long before hippies discovered that the sanctuary of the church, with its open doors silently inviting people to come in, was a cool place to be. And so they came in. Not often, but every week one would notice one or more hippies going in and out of the sanctuary. From time to time when I went into the sanctuary for one reason or another I would spot a few of the flower children sitting on the chancel steps. They might be strumming a guitar and humming a tune. Or they might try to hide the bottle of Apple Ripple they had brought in with them. But they did no harm. Ever. They found the sanctuary to be just that Ä a sanctuary from the busy and commercial world about them. Would that the busy men and women who were not hippies would have taken a few moments each day or each week to step into the sanctuary for that same reason! I often stopped to chat with them and eventually got to know several of them by name.

But you see, the hippies weren't like the rest of us. They dressed in weird, non-conventional ways, they lived in groups in ramshackle rental houses. And some people thought they needed to bathe more frequently. I don't know, I don't recall smelling any of them. But there is no doubt that the hippies were not well received by the general populace. They protested a variety of things that went on in society. They gathered in their hippie hangouts all over town. They smoked pot. And in general they were a sore embarrassment to the straight "decent" folks. Hence when some of them frequented our open church sanctuary, some of our people were upset. The upset folks were only a small minority, but they made much noise about it. More than one person came to my office to complain about it.

"But they're not doing any harm to the building nor to people," I reasoned. But my reasoning often fell on deaf ears.

"Tell them if they clean up and wear decent clothes they will be welcome in our church." That line was often used by the vocal few who objected to the hippies' presence.

Again I protested, "But do we now have dress codes for people to come into our church?" Again my protest fell on deaf ears.

It was a standoff. I kept referring to the fact that the church council had, a few years earlier, adopted the policy of open doors with no restrictions on who could or could not enter the building, and I intended to defend that policy. Of course. I was the one who proposed it. And as the months passed, we saw signs that some people were indeed often using the building for prayer and quiet time. As evidence of this, we collected the thank you notes that people had written and left in the pews, notes that expressed appreciation that the church sanctuary was open when some person was in need of a place to think or pray.

And then there was the rose on the altar. One week I noticed a solitary rose lying on the altar, placed there by an anonymous person. The rose was accompanied by a note which promised that a fresh rose would be placed on the altar each week until the conclusion of the war in Viet Nam. And for many months thereafter we became accustomed to finding a fresh rose on the altar each week although we never did discover its thoughtful and sensitive donor.

But the subtle benefits many of us saw in having the church doors open were missed by the few who opposed the policy. From time to time when some members of our altar committee would go during the week to prepare the altar for Sunday worship, they would be upset by the sight of a few hippies sitting on the chancel steps. Were any of our people ever in danger or threatened? No, they simply didn't feel comfortable with hippies in their midst. And they wanted something done about it. Maybe call a congregational meeting. But instead we held an open forum to discuss the whole matter. After a long evening little was resolved except to reaffirm the policy of leaving the doors open for anyone who wanted to enter.

As time passed and I became acquainted with more of the hippies, I was told at times they were in need of pastoral services, such as when one of them died from an overdose of drugs. Would I conduct a memorial service for the person, they asked? Yes, I would. And did on several occasions. In addition I performed the wedding for several hippie couples, on those infrequent occasions when two of them decided to formalize a relationship that had been in progress for quite some time. And from time to time I dropped in on some of the hippie hangouts just to shoot the breeze.

Such contacts would not have gone unnoticed, particularly by the few in our midst who were most critical of such associations. Those few asked me to meet with them to discuss their concerns. What were their concerns? Mostly the people I associated with from time to time. "You can't save everybody, pastor," one of them observed. "Some people are going to be damned no matter what you do, so take care of those of us who have not strayed from the fold."

"But didn't Jesus say that we must seek those who have strayed from the fold?" I asked, somewhat innocently. "Didn't Jesus imply that it was okay to leave the 90 and nine who were safe and go into the wilderness to search for the lost? I think that's the church's main task."

I was sad. Not because these few people had raised such vociferous objections to the whole hippie question, but sad because I wasn't getting through to them. I was sad because those few folks apparently wanted their church to be untainted by unwelcome people. And they wanted their pastor likewise to be untainted. I was tempted to appease them by assuring them, "You people are among the 99 who are saved. You're not the lost ones who need to be found."

But as I reflected on it later, I wondered which ones were the lost? I didn't want to make a judgment on it, but I wondered just who were the lost? Were the lost sheep those harmless hippies who gathered in their groups and smoked pot and sang their songs about the lostness of the establishment? Were they really lost?

Were they lost because they protested many of the tightly held values of the vast majority Ä the people they called the establishment? Were they lost because they protested the war in Viet Nam? Or because they protested killing fellow human beings, no matter who those human beings were or what country they belonged to? The irony in all this was that most of the hippies took seriously what we had taught them when they were children in Sunday school. We had told them that it was wrong to hurt people, and particularly that it was wrong to kill other people. And they took us seriously! They believed what we had taught them in Sunday school! So now, when they were adults, or in some cases almost adults, they said it was wrong to kill people. And we criticized them for saying so, particularly because our country was officially killing thousands of Asians Ä and in the process sacrificing thousands of our people. The hippies said it was all wrong.

And when they sat in our beautiful stained glass church on week days and sang their sad songs, some of our people were upset. "The tax collectors and sinners were coming near ..." Luke tells us in his gospel. And he continued, "And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, 'This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.' "

Perhaps the saddest part of the story is that there is often no clear definition of who is lost. Really lost. The scribes and Pharisees in Jesus' day definitely didn't think they were lost. No way. They had upheld all the traditions and laws of their fathers and of Moses. And in the late 1960s those who despised the hippies, or were upset at their invasion of our sacred place, didn't think they were lost. They had been faithful church members all their lives. They didn't protest against the establishment. They didn't smoke pot, and they wore decent clothes. And they bathed regularly. How could they be lost?

And in a sense they were right. But I often wondered, "Which ones were lost? Really lost?"

C.S.S. Publishing Company, IN OTHER WORDS ..., by Merle G. Franke