By: The Reverend Marjorie Bevans
The 14th Sunday after Pentecost 2025
Texts: Exodus 32:7-14; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10
One morning I was walking in the woods in a West Virginia state park when from out of nowhere came a miniature horse running down the path straight at me. His head was high, his little mane flowing, and he was whinnying hysterically. He then wheeled and trotted away toward a fence.
As I got closer to the fence I could see a field with other mini’s in it. They were all running around whinnying, rearing and tossing their cut little heads. They were clearly upset that the one horse had somehow gotten separated from them. He was trying to find a way back into the field.
I share this little story with you because, like horses, we too are a part of a herd or family, and when one of us is separated it creates great anxiety for others.
One afternoon I visited an older parishioner whose son, wife, and 3 grandchildren had moved in with her. She said they were always so busy, coming and going, that sometimes she wasn’t sure who was even in the house. Yet, she was proud of their activities and accomplishments. As she was listing all their accomplishments, she came to a place of resignation, with a deep sigh. One of her older grandchildren had become estranged from the family because of drug addiction. The one lost sheep. I could see the pain in her eyes. She was wearied with worry over him. I had not been aware that her son had another son, because the family never mentioned him.
For most healthy families, much of the time we are all doing fairly well. Some members of a family have challenges—large and small, but we gather around and support them, let them know we love them. We are willing to forgive. The practice of forgiveness, not perfection, is what holds us together.
We all go through seasons of ups and downs—achievements and disappointments, new love and break-ups. However, it’s not unusual at all for an extended family to be worried about that one black sheep, the one who seems to make all the wrong choices. This is the one who got caught up with the wrong people, who walked away from all the good opportunities provided to them, who created a great burden and enormous expense for every one who loves them, or embarrassed them, who ruined family gatherings and burned bridges. Yet, no one in the family has ever stopped loving them completely, and everyone worries and waits and hopes.
Perhaps that’s the way God is with us. Perhaps we are the one who got caught up with the wrong people, who walked away from all the good opportunities given to us, who created a great burden and enormous expense for everyone else, or embarrassed them, who ruined family gatherings and burned bridges.
Just consider Moses, he had a number of black sheep sons and daughters. As soon as Moses was out of sight, his sons and daughters built an idol to replace God. They replaced God with a golden calf and worshipped it. Perhaps God knew what was going on down the mountain in Moses’ absence and this is the reason for the Second Commandment, thou shall not worship idols. Moses came down the mountain with a responsibility to address the transgression.
When we were baptized and we became sons and daughters of God, our development as Christians was left in the hands of our parents. Hopefully, we were not as bad as Moses’ children. It was their responsibility, and that of our godparents, to raise us up to know and love Jesus Christ, and to follow him, partly from their own example—the way they practiced their faith, but also by talking to us, letting us hear the story of God’s love from their very own lips, in their own words. I love hearing stories from parishioners about their parents or grandparents teaching them the Christian faith, but many people did not have this. Someone else, maybe even God himself, stepped in for some of us.
Jesus told this parable for today to tax collectors and sinners, but also to the Pharisees and scribes. So he intended this lesson for everyone—those who knew they were in trouble and those who thought they were right with God. Most of us would hear this lesson and probably think, “Oh, that’s nice, Jesus would go after the one, and leave the 99 righteous behind.” It’s a bit like me saving a kitten from the barn and giving it to my mom for mother’s day. That’s nice.
But who knows for sure whether or not we are the one who is lost, the one who is unaware of the spiritual peril we are in? The lone sheep straying from the herd, who is about to stumble off a cliff?
In Paul’s Letter to Timothy, he admits that at one point in his life he had been like a Pharisee, confident that he was righteous because he was following the letter of the law of Moses. But, then Christ spoke to him when he was on his way to Damascus to persecute the Christians there. Though Paul was stricken blind, he could see with his heart that he had been wrong. He admits to Timothy that he had acted ignorantly in unbelief, as a blasphemer, a persecutor, a man of violence. God had mercy on him, and the grace of God made him a better man.
By virtue of being a human created in the image of God each of us has a pre-existing relationship with God, whether or not we are aware of it. The Lord claimed in Psalm 139, “Before I formed you, I knew you in the womb.”
Life is better for us and those we love, when we turn to God and accept from him what he is offering us—his love, which we experience as grace, truth, forgiveness, and patience. When we turn to accept these things from God, we too, like Paul, are transformed. We become more deeply connected to one another.
Perhaps we are not as far away from God as Paul had been, or as lost from God as that one black sheep in the family, perhaps we have not made and worshipped a golden calf, but many if not most of us here today could grow closer to God, spiritually. As we grow older we see the benefit of tending to our physical and mental health, and maybe too it is time for us to be more intentional in tending to our relationship with God. When was the last time anyone asked you about your relationship with God? That was the question in the case of Moses and his children, and Paul and the apostles. If you would draw closer to God in your heart and mind, you would know to not worship idols or persecute the followers of Jesus.
The bottom line is that God loves each of us so deeply that he would send his own Son to save even that one soul in danger of being lost. He has given us hope and forgiveness. These are the ways back into the arms of our loving God, the way back into peace with those we love. Amen.
