Found

September 11, 2016   Pentecost 17                           Luke 15:1-10

This week’s gospel reading picks up almost immediately after last week’s leaves off.  If you were here last week and you remember it you’ll realize there is a jarring contrast.  Last week Jesus said to: hate father, mother, sibling, spouse and children, and yourself.  Bear a cross.  Get rid of all your possessions.  If that’s all we had of Jesus’ teachings from the first century we’d think he was a tyrant who was impossible to please.

Then this week we have two parables about lost things.  The contrast couldn’t be more different.  Here we have a shepherd going out to find a lost sheep.  He finds it.  He puts it on his shoulders.  He carries it back and then has a big celebration.  We also have a woman who has lost one of ten drachmas.  A drachma was a small silver Greek coin worth about a day’s wages.  It was similar in value to a denarius, which was a Roman silver coin worth about a day’s wage.  So to lose a day’s wages was a significant loss, especially if her live savings was ten days wages, but it is still not a huge sum of money.

If our gospel reading continued we’d realize that these two parables are actually two of a set of three parables about lost things that are recovered.  You’ll remember that the third parable is that of the Prodigal Son.  There we see the progression fully unfolding: 1 of 100 sheep, 1 of 10 coins, 1 of 2 sons.

In every case the lost thing did not seek to be found or restored.  The shepherd or the woman or the father seeks that which is lost.  These are stories about great rejoicing over lost things found.  They are not stories about repentance.

So how do we understand this joy compared to last week’s harsh commands?

I think we start by remembering Jesus’ context and audience.  I feel like a broken record when I say it because I’ve said it so many times, but we are still journeying with Jesus to Jerusalem.  All these teachings are things said on the road or on the journey.  The 12 disciples, some close women followers and a crowd are traveling along.  This collection of people includes tax collectors, people labeled as “sinners” and probably a whole bunch of people you wouldn’t want your teenage child dating.

Good, clean, wholesome, upright people – like Pharisees and scribes – aren’t too happy about the warm welcome the sinners receive from Jesus.  Pharisees are willing to be forgiving.  They can be accepting of differences, but they aren’t too keen on accepting socially questionable people just as they are.  They expect a sinner to see the error of his or her ways, repent and come around to righteousness.  Then the Pharisees will be accepting.

So Jesus tells these parables.  While they are a jarring contrast to what Jesus just said before, when we see it all through the lens of God’s grace we understand they are actually different expressions of the same thing.

Last week we saw that all sorts of things that we think are of absolute importance – money, possessions, family relationship, social networks – are all secondary to a relationship with God.  Yet they so easily contradict what God is calling us to do.  They limit us and hold us back.  Though earthly things – especially family relationships – can be very important to us, they must still be secondary.

Perhaps an easy example of this is the adult child whose parent or parents are still ruling their lives.  The parents judge everything their adult child does.  Education, spouse, career, children, etc.  They may run them ragged doing supposedly essential tasks.  I can hear a mother saying, “Do you remember how many hours I spent in labor for you?  You owe me your life!”  Of course this is an exaggeration, but you get the point.  Discipleship to God comes first.  God’s call is more important than all others.  If God is calling you to do something, but you think you can’t because you’re essential somewhere else, then that “somewhere else” either isn’t essential, or if it is, God will have someone else do it.

With priorities built around God and an understanding of God’s grace constantly flowing toward us we are ready to see like God.  And we are ready to rejoice when tax collectors and sinners and social losers are embraced by God.  That is what Jesus’ parables are about.

I’m sure you’ve lost something somewhere along the line in your life.  If it was small and unimportant it was no big deal.  But how do you feel if you’ve lost your credit cards or your wallet?  How do you feel if you’ve misplaced your car keys?  Now you worry.  What will happen?  You know it isn’t the end of the world if the lost object isn’t found, but life will be a whole lot simpler if you could just find it!

One evening last week I realized I had misplaced my cell phone.  It wasn’t in my pocket or on the shelf in the house where I usually put it.  Was it in the car?  No.  I thought back over the day.  Where all had I been?  I had been a lot of places and it could have been any of them!  Maybe I had left it in the office here.  In that case I’d have to wait until the next day  because it seemed foolish to make a special trip just to look for it.  Though it is replaceable I wanted to find it. 

Of course cell phones can be easy to find if you’ve left the ringer on.  So I did a smart thing.  I called myself.  Indeed my phone rang somewhere in the kitchen – it turned out to be beside a pile of clean dishes waiting to be put away.  And though minor, it was a relief to have it back.

What is the anxiety that families of coal miners feel when there is an explosion or cave-in?  They wait with fear and anxiety outside the mine shaft waiting as the elevator brings miners to the surface.  Is their loved one in this car load?  No.  Maybe the next, or the next.  There is relief and joy when they see their loved one emerge.  What do they feel when their loved one hasn’t emerged and the elevator is no longer bringing people to the surface.

If you’ve ever waited outside a mine, or lost a child, or any similar experience I think you have a sense of God’s feelings when his children are lost and away from him.  You are obsessed and overcome with worry.  The relief at reunification is tremendous.  Nothing can dampen that joy!

This is what Jesus was trying to get across to the Pharisees and their scribes when they criticized those around Jesus.  Lost children were being restored.  It was time to celebrate.

Whenever you see someone who repulses you or offends you try to see that person as a child of God needing to be restored.  You don’t have to like that person.  And you don’t have to approve of what they do.  But you do need to seek to restore them, and rejoice when they are.

Indeed all of this can be unfair.  If you consider yourself to be one of the 99 sheep who stayed, or one of the nine coins that were never lost, or the faithful son, you may be jealous; not liking God’s grace and forgiveness and reconciliation and celebration going out to those who don’t deserve it.  Yet this is the old way of thinking still capturing us.  When that happens we forget that we too are sinners in need of God’s grace.

Let me conclude with an old Jewish story I think I’ve shared before.  The Lord appears to this hard working farmer and grants him three wishes.  There is only one condition.  Whatever he wishes for his neighbor gets double.  The farmer can scarcely believe this good fortune.  He immediately wishes for 100 cattle.  Immediately he received 100 cattle.  He was overjoyed and the prosperity this would bring him.  That is until he noticed that his neighbor had received 200 cattle.  So he wished for 100 acres of land.  Immediately he received it and rejoiced…  until he saw that his neighbor had received 200 acres of land.  The neighbor hadn’t earned it.  He wasn’t the hard working righteous farmer that the Lord granted a special favor to.  This wasn’t fair!  The neighbor wasn’t even asking for these blessings yet he was receiving this great abundance.

Rather than celebrating his good fortune and his neighbors good fortune too, the farmer couldn’t help feeling slighted because no matter what his neighbor would receive more than he.  Finally he stated his third wish: that God would strike him blind in one eye.  And God wept.

Are you a Pharisee jealous of other’s good fortune?  Are you jealous that you have to work hard to deserve everything you have meanwhile others coast through life with no apparent hardships?  Are you upset that God’s grace isn’t fair?  These are all very human feelings, all of them like the Pharisees.

Or are you a sinner in need of God’s grace?  Do you see that you too do not deserve God’s goodness?  Do you see that it is not your role to judge fairness.  It is your role to rejoice with God and celebrate.  For if you are wrapped up in jealousy you will not be able to celebrate and find true joy.