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| Bobby the Bear enjoying the corner of my office. |
C Lectionary 24 – September 15, 2013
Text: Luke 15:1-10
Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas
+ INJ +
Grace to you, and peace, from God
our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Context: Jesus is dining with “tax collectors
and sinners” – like so many others, they are spending time with Jesus in order
to listen to him and learn from him. Enter the Pharisees, who were religious
leaders, and who see these “tax collectors and sinners” as total outcasts – and
so the Pharisees begin complaining about the company that Jesus is keeping. In
their minds, these outcasts aren’t even worth Jesus’ time and effort.
Jesus responds to their complaining
by telling several parables. He uses what is familiar to them in order to make a
point: he begins talking about a lost sheep and a lost coin – and then, in the
portion of Luke 15 we don’t read today – the Prodigal Son.
Maybe a lost sheep doesn’t mean
much to us – but Jesus’ listeners would’ve gotten it. Sheep were a part of a shepherd’s
livelihood, after all. And as for the lost coin – I’m not sure how many of us
would turn our homes upside down for a lost coin, but for the woman, that one
coin represented maybe a day’s wages. I’d turn my home upside down to find
that! I think most of us would. In other words, Jesus is saying, these “tax
collectors and sinners” are very much worth his time and effort because they
have worth to God, who loves them.
So if we were going to create a
modern-day parable, we could start by answering these questions: What have you
lost? What have you found?
One example: Two different people
told me about their experiences this past week of losing their keys - Kathy and
Kris. Both were out running errands; both were a bit frantic in realizing their
keys were missing; both were then beyond over-joyed when their keys were found.
And another example: this week,
we’ve been doing lots of work around here to get the building ready for the
anniversary celebration next weekend. I decided I would finally tackle the pile
in the corner of my office. It’s been hiding there, behind a chair, pretty much
since the week I moved in. I hauled all that stuff into the middle of the room,
sorted it out, found new homes for it, and – lo and behold! – I found a whole
corner of my office that had been lost! I rejoiced with those who were here for
the work day, and later, with the friends I was joining for dinner.
In his parables of the lost sheep
and the lost coin, Jesus has us thinking about the joy we have whenever
something we have lost is found. Jesus is making a point about how the love of
God works.
We are the lost “thing” – we are
the missing sheep, the coin that rolled away, or in our modern version: the
keys hiding in the store, the corner buried under a pile. The ones doing the
searching – the shepherd and the woman – they portray God: always searching,
and not giving up.
Have you ever been lost yourself?
If not lost in terms of directions, then maybe lost in terms of being separated
from others – like as a child, lost in the grocery store? Maybe you’ve felt
lost in other ways – disconnected, unfocused, without purpose.
Maybe you’ve tried to be lost on
purpose. Psalm 139 alludes to this. The psalmist writes:
Where can I go from your spirit? Or
where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are
there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you
are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness
shall cover me, and the light around me become night,”
even the darkness is not dark to
you; the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.[1]
Fleeing from God’s presence, he
looks for us. Covering ourselves with darkness, he turns on the light switch,
and there we are.
And so, returning to our parables,
notice where the action is – GOD is doing the searching and the finding.
That lost sheep doesn’t wander around, looking for the shepherd. The missing coin
doesn’t roll around, looking for the woman. GOD FINDS US.
These parables, then, are less
about us trying to be perfect, or us finding holiness. Even as we are imperfect
and unrighteous – even as we are lost - here is the most important thing that
we are: We are found by God because we are loved by God.
If God is the shepherd in the first
parable or the woman in the second, then look at what happens at the end of
each parable: The shepherd celebrates! The woman rejoices! They call together
friends and neighbors and invite them to rejoice, for that which was lost has
been found!
The ends of these stories seem a
bit extravagant – calling together friends and neighbors to celebrate finding a
sheep? Or a coin? But that is Jesus’ point, exactly – that the love of God in
searching for us and finding us – it is an extravagant love. And for us, there
is such great joy in knowing that God rejoices over us, celebrating out of that
extravagant love.
May we, as ones who are found by
God and loved by God, share that extravagant love of God with everyone we
encounter.
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