“So [Jesus] told them this parable: ‘What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it?’” Luke 15:3-4
Who are your giants? At my church, perched in the center of Ivy League academia, it’s the professors. My first time preaching at my church I can remember all too distinctly stepping behind the pulpit and immediately spotting the faces of my seminary professors who had been teaching me weeks before. Who was I to preach to them? What would they think of what I preached? Would they be disappointed? Would I be able to not fall into the many theological traps of which they warned?
We all have these giants in the pews. You know, the ones who might as well be sitting on phone books in the pews their presence looms so large. Maybe it’s your elders. Maybe it is a key donor. Maybe it is a heavy handed congregant who questions your leadership. You know who I mean, they are the ones whose very attendance forces you to go over your sermon or teaching notes that one last time to make sure you haven’t offended or overlooked. The ones whose voices mouth their pet issues right there in the back of your mind as you prepare and as you deliver.
You know that you didn’t become a small group leader or a Sunday School teacher or a pastor to teach like this. But courage has a way of folding up its tents the more one becomes organizationally and relationally connected (entangled?) with the forces that be. The message you thought you were called to teach with all its jaggedness and softness shrinks like David’s brothers in front of the seeming Goliath-like agendas.
The reason it’s so hard, I think, is that when we think of obstacles to preaching the gospel we typically think of confronting something villainous and vile not something that is manifested in the form of faithful Christian men and women. So, when we skip over a text or soften the blows we know scripture brings or tailor a sermon to fit the repeated requests of that faithful congregant, it doesn’t strike us that we’re not doing what we’re supposed to do, just that we’re killing two birds with one stone. But that path of least resistance is rarely the same path as the path of righteousness.
It’s easy to have the parable above lose its emotional punch. What do sheep care if you leave them, after all? But imagine if those ninety nine sheep were people instead, and leaving them to go after the one meant that your message would make them squirm in their chairs (with frustration? Irritation? Disdain?) as you went after the ‘one.’ Jesus never sacrificed a message to the publicans to please the professors. Pull those metaphorical phone books out from under those giants and teach the flock; just like you were called to.