Preacher: Rev. Stephen M. Fearing

What kind of shepherd abandons 99 sheep to search for just one? A foolish one by earthly standards—but this paradoxical wisdom sits at the heart of God's extraordinary love for each of us.

Through the lens of Luke's parable of the lost sheep, we journey to Skagit County, Washington, where a community called Tierra Nueva ("New Earth") embodies this radical search-and-rescue mission. There, a man once known only by his street name "Neeners" transformed from someone lost in cycles of incarceration and gang violence to a shepherd helping others find their way home.

The divine comedy in this parable isn't meant to simply amuse us but to overturn our carefully constructed categories of who belongs and who doesn't. As Frederick Buechner notes, these stories reveal "the outlandishness of God, who does impossible things with impossible people." When we look closely at all three "lost" parables in Luke 15, we discover something profound: being lost comes in many forms, and not all lostness results from moral failure.

Like sheep that naturally wander or coins that can't lose themselves, humans experience lostness for countless reasons—addiction, poverty, trauma, circumstances beyond control. What matters isn't assigning blame but celebrating recovery. The theological truth shines bright: "None of us is truly found until all of us are found."

Perhaps our greatest spiritual growth happens precisely when we feel most adrift. And perhaps faith at its core isn't about congratulating ourselves for being among the "righteous 99" but simply looking at our neighbor and saying, "If you're lost, so am I." Listen now to discover how God's upside-down kingdom replaces our cutthroat calculus with unimaginable celebration.

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