The Parable of the Shepherd Who Lost a Sheep

What does a good shepherd do when they notice that the flock is incomplete?

Jesus tells a parable in Luke 15 that we often call the Parable of the Lost Sheep.

Amy Jill Levine, however, suggests this is a bad title and proposes an alternative: The Parable of the Shepherd Who Lost a Sheep.

You likely recall that Jesus begins this parable by stating that a shepherd had one hundred sheep. Now, to our ears this doesn’t register as particularly noteworthy. Cool, a guy has a hundred sheep, right on… and then what?

But Levine points out that the crowd listening to Jesus would have heard this, looked at one another, and been like, “Holy moly, a hundred sheep? That’s so many sheep!! Who is this rich guy he’s talking about?!”

In other words, this isn’t a parable where Jesus is trying to relate the shepherd to the people listening. No, this shepherd is someone with means. Someone with the capacity to not only own a hundred sheep, but also enough land to sustain them.

He goes on,

“Which one among you, having a hundred sheep and losing one…”

Hmmm… losing one?

Put a hundred of anything on a table, close your eyes, have someone take away just one, and see if you notice. Odds are unlikely. Point being, you’d have to be paying real close attention to notice that one is missing.

Such noticing, such mindfulness, such attentiveness is hard work. It requires real intention to notice when the whole is incomplete.

“Which person having a hundred sheep and losing one will not then leave the ninety-nine”

I’m sure you’re like me and you’re accustomed to hearing this parable taught as though the lost sheep represents a sinner who has wandered and gone astray. But consider this from the sheep’s perspective. They’re just, you know, doing their sheep thing. Surely a wandering sheep is not a result of malice or nefarious intent, or even a desire to get or be lost.

Nor, by the way, does the sheep demonstrate any semblance of repentance. There’s no moment where the sheep feels bad for having wandered. (Yeah yeah, I know, Luke adds in a little statement at the end where he likens this to a “sinner who repents,” but this almost certainly wasn’t Jesus’ original words or intent with this parable.)

Instead, this is about a shepherd who has one hundred sheep, watches over them so diligently that he notices when one is missing, and then chooses to leave the other ninety nine alone in the wilderness in order to go find and recover the one who wandered.

What a dangerous and risky thing to do, leave the ninety nine. Presumably this shepherd is in charge of keeping all of them safe, and yet they’re risking the well being of ninety nine of them because without that one the flock is incomplete.

In what ways might we look around at our world today and take note of how our flock is incomplete? Are we paying enough attention to notice who is missing?

We can get so caught up in our own little worlds, in our own silos of information and tribal mentality, that I wonder if we’ve stopped noticing just how many sheep are no longer in our flock.

Also, consider what it might feel like to be one of the ninety nine, who are left exposed, while the shepherd goes to retrieve the missing sheep. There’s definitely a felt sense of loss. Of no longer being protected or watched over or cared for.

I think about the ninety-nine left behind when I see the fear induced backlash from people in our society who are used to be the most important thing in the room suddenly have to confront the fact that some sheep have gotten lost.

When anti-LGBTQ people whine about “Oh yeah, well where’s the STRAIGHT parade?” I can hear their fear.

When neo-Nazi white supremacists whine about having to share a world with people who look different than they do, I can hear their fear.

When populist nationalists want a country with borders so fierce that no one can ever enter (and if they are, then they are an “illegal”), I can hear their fear.

“It’s not about US anymore,” the ninety-nine cry.

What they fail to realize is that they are part of a larger flock. And that flock (aka, the human race, aka, the Family of God) routinely has members of it that are missing. And “missing” in this case can sometimes be by design: maybe the ninety-nine all got together and devised a plan to ensure the one got lost?

If the Shepherd is a good shepherd, doing their job well, then they will leave the ninety-nine to find the missing sheep and ensure it is brought back to safety and belonging.

You might even say that it’s not the sheep that is lost, it’s the sense of Wholeness, of Completeness that is lost.

There’s an old Jewish parable (older than Jesus’s in Luke 15) about Moses. Moses is in charge of a bunch of sheep and one lamb wanders off. When he notices the lamb wandering off, Moses follows it behind a rock to a pool.

He then says to the lamb, “Oh, I didn't realize that you were thirsty. And now you must be so tired.”

The parable says Moses then picked up the lamb after it had quenched its thirst and took it back to the flock.

I think this is what it looks like to leave the ninety-nine.

The shepherd is in charge of noticing, and then

doing what it takes to ensure that the entire flock is taken care and is made whole.