Some tales from God’s own lost and found

One of my favorite movies is Sergeant York.

It is about Sgt. Alvin York, a solider in World War I who began his military career as a religious contentious objector to fighting.

Alvin York was born and raised in the Cumberland Mountains in Tennessee in the Valley of the Three Forks of the Wolf.

The opening scene begins with the congregation singing “When the Roll is Called up Yonder” and then with Preacher Pile telling the story of the Lost Sheep in his own translation.

It goes like this, “And he spake this parable unto them, saying, ‘What man of you having 100 sheep if you lose one of them, doth not leave the 90 and nine in the wilderness and go after that which are lost until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulder and rejoiceth and when he cometh and when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying. he calleth to his friends and neighbors saying unto them, ‘Rejoice with me for I have found my sheep which were lost.’”

He continued, “I recollect the time Sam Hawkins lost his old sow. He come out one morning, the pen be busted down, the sow was gone. Sam lit out after her to find her. … He hunted high and low for that old sow.”

Some months later, the preacher continued, when Sam was “plowing home through the snow, he seen something move in the shadows. Sam’s right scared. Figures maybe it’s a bear. Then the bear grunts, and it ain’t no bear at all! It’s the sow! … (Sam was the) rejoicingest man you ever seen. Ten times as rejoiceful for the lost one as for them that stayed in the fold.”

As the preacher is talking, he is interrupted by gunfire outside.

He stops the meeting and tells the men “Appears to me the devil be a-knocking at the door of a house of worship. If there’s any of you want to go get him, you’d be free to go’ cause the meeting’s over.”

Outside they find the initials of Alvin York (A Y) shot in a tree.

Later on, after losing a piece of prime bottom land to a neighbor, Alvin set out to seek revenge. Alvin thought he was swindled out of that land.

It was nighttime and there was a thunderstorm and lightning as he set out to take matters in his own hands. Alvin was holding his shotgun when a bolt of lightning strikes his shotgun and knocked him off his horse.

It’s at this point when God gets his attention that he comes to church and turns his life around. He reads and studies his Bible and teaches the young ones in the church about God. In his reading of the Bible, he understands that he should not take a life and becomes a conscientious objector.

He tries to get out of serving in the military, but his church is not recognized by the government as an official religious church body and thus he is drafted and has to go to boot camp.

The rest of his story they say is history.

Jesus used many parables or illustration to explain to people why he was sent by God. One favorite is from the 15th chapter of Luke’s Gospel.

Jesus used several illustrations to talk about being lost in this chapter. Jesus used the poor woman who had 10 coins but lost one on the floor. He used a father and his two sons, which is often called the story of a prodigal son.

One also was the parable of the lost sheep.

Jesus refers to the people of God as sheep. Jesus refers that the people of God are like lost sheep, sheep that have gone astray, or even hogs that have broken out of their pen.

Alvin York was that lost sheep that Jesus the Good Shepherd was seeking.

So we too must ask, “What is the point?”

The point is this. The Parable of the Lost Sheep is a wonderful story told by Jesus to illustrate the love and compassion that God has for those who are His.

It echoes Isiah 53:6 ”All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”

In all occasions, the lost sheep refers to the sinners. It refers to the people of God who went astray.

Jesus later calls himself the Good Shepherd in John 10:11-18, who not only searches for lost sheep (sinners) but who lays down his life for them.

Jesus said God cares and is worried about each one of us.

That is very comforting in these difficult times that we have been navigation since 2019.

Like Pastor Pile, who did not give up on Alvin and trusted God to find him, God does not give up on us when we are lost.

When we lose our way like the sheep, God will not abandon us.

May we never go astray, but if we do, may we remember that God will search for us until we are found.

Rev. Frank Chlastak began work as senior minister of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Poplar Bluff in 2015. He is a graduate of Northeast Louisiana University and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and has served congregations of the Christian Church in Louisiana, Arkansas, Virginia, Oklahoma and Missouri.