“Touch Changes”   Luke 15

Sheep.  I don’t really know much about sheep, do you?

• Domesticated over 10,000 years ago, which means we humans have shared our world closely with sheep.
• In America our sheep are mostly kept in pastures, fenced in.
• In many places in the world sheep still graze in the wild, guided and guarded by shepherds.
• Shepherds have to be close to the sheep.  Can’t give them a map and a list of instructions.
• A shepherd has to be close to the sheep.  Has to be in touching distance.  In Jesus’ time, practically lived with them.

Jesus the Good Shepherd.

• That’s Good, not bad or indifferent.

• Who loves and cares for the sheep.  Doesn’t treat them cruelly, but lives with them patiently, wisely, gently, but with strength when its needed.
• Who cares for the lost one in particular, that one who has wandered off and gotten lost.
• Jesus says he is like the Good Shepherd who, discovering a missing sheep goes and looks for it.
• How many of you are thinking of the famous painting:  Jesus carrying the sheep, or reach perilously off a cliff to lift a lost lamb. 1878 Bernard Plockhorst
• A shepherd must be hands on with the sheep.

 

Touch is important.

• Our banner: These banners were made by the young folks of our church.
• How about this one?
• Humans have used touch as a means of communicating—love and care
  • It’s a natural thing for there to be touch between people who love and care for each other.
  • Liam taking my hand
• Even our pets know it’s important.

But touch is problematic today.

• Because of Covid—we don’t want to get too close.
  • I think of all the people who have had to be sick and even to die without the touch of a loved one’s hand.
  • How much pain has been created or increased simply because we couldn’t be in contact with our loved ones?
  • Touch has become problematic.
• Because of sexual abuse
  • Here in the time of Me Too
  • Where we have stopped hiding from the fact that some people have used touch that was supposed to be loving to actually hurt others.
  • Now I find that I am suspect.  I dare not touch others.
  • The mere fact that I am male has made people look at me with anger and suspicion.
  • Walking past the playground
  • But I understand—too many people have used touch the wrong way.
  • It is I only dared pat students on the shoulders, even though some needed hugs.
  • But that’s how it is these days, with physical touch.

We also touch with our words and actions

• I am sure any one of you can talk of someone who touched their life with words, or actions.  Someone want to testify?
• This is our task—to touch people so they can be changes.
• To help lost sheep we have to be close enough to touch.
• If not with our hands then certainly with our words and our prayers.
• But we have to get close enough to touch.

There is a Christian doctrine about this: Incarnation

• We tend to think of God as up there somewhere.
• The man upstairs.
• God who watches over us, looking down on us.
• God who is above and beyond all that we know.
• That’s OK, and it’s true.

But the message of Christ is that God is not “up there.”

• God is here.  Heaven is here, right in reach, right now.
• Christ is God among us.
• God is present in Christ and lives here among us, sharing our life.

Incarnation: to be in the flesh.

• To wear the same flesh.
• To go to the same places
• To sink into the mud that people live in.
• To go to the homes of the poor and to sit in the streets of the poorest.
• To be where people are, not to shout at them from a distance.

It was wonderful when God gave the law to Moses.

• Called Moses up to the mountain.
• Appeared, and gave Moses the law for the people to live by.
• But the people were down below.  Told not to approach the mountain where God was present.
• It was a transcendent, powerful, terrifying and holy event.
• But the people were down below.
• And what we needed was not so much a law as a healing touch.

So God came to us.  Came down from the mountain.

• Came to us as a baby in a manger, as a child, as helpless as any of us.
• And lived among us.  We had not a boss, not a master, not a king—we had a shepherd.
• Christ who lived as we live, who suffered grief and pain, who knew joy and love.
• Who spoke to us with words that touched us and healed us and changed us.

And we have to do the same.

• The story of Mr. Hill.

We must find ways to be close.  To understand what is happening with others.  To give us a pat or a hug when needed.  To speak words of peace and hope and truth.  To be in their shoes.