“Found Out” – Sermon on Sept 15, 2013
September 15, 2013
Scripture: Luke 15: 1-32
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Sermon: Found Out
by Rev. Doreen Oughton
Our story starts off today with a bunch of riffraff coming to listen to Jesus preach. The scribes and Pharisees, which would be like the deacons and ministers, start to grumble. They can’t believe that this guy would not only waste his breath teaching to these lowlifes, but that he actually eats with them. Jesus is aware of their grumbling, and so tells them a few parables. Now with this set up, you might expect the parables to be about hypocrisy, or maybe about how a physician comes for the sick not the healthy, or some story that lifts up the sinner vs. the righteous.
Let’s take a moment to define those terms, righteous and sinner. You’ve heard me say that the word sin can mean to miss the mark, and certainly we have all missed the mark. And probably you’ve heard faithful and religious people assert that we all are sinners. And when we hear the term righteous, a lot of times we tie it with the word “self” and see someone who is “self-righteous” having a sort of superior attitude, as if they were better than. Or we might think of righteousness as perfection, as not ever missing the mark. I won’t quarrel with any of those ideas or perceptions. But when gospel writer Luke uses these terms, the sinners are the people who are habitual sinners, who have made a fairly public mess of their lives. And the righteous are those who, while imperfect, really try to live up to the law and do the right thing.
But in this passage, Jesus doesn’t tell parables that refer to sin and righteousness, but tells stories about things being lost – a coin and a sheep. It is not a bad coin or a sinning sheep. They are lost things. Has anyone here ever lost something that was really important to you? And I don’t mean to death – I mean you couldn’t find it…. Has anyone here ever been lost? When I was a little girl my mother and her sister often took their 10 kids combined on trips to Boston, to the beach, to amusements parks. I was a bit of a straggler, slowing down to look at things that caught my eye, and I’d turn back and my family would be gone. I never thought I was lost, and I rarely worried. I knew someone would find me, or I’d ask someone for help and they’d bring to a pick up place. I think I enjoyed both the little adventure I had, plus all the attention I got when reunited with the family.
In contrast, my stomach still can churn when I think of the times I couldn’t find my own children – when I turned from the shopping cart that held my infant son to look at a rack of clothes and turned back to find the cart gone; the times my daughter would run ahead on a hike and duck off the trail. I still tended to expect a good outcome, but I was a lot more frightened than they were.
So anyway, Jesus is talking about the actions of the people who have lost something. “Which of you,” he says, “would not leave behind in the wilderness 99 sheep of the flock to go seek out the one who has fallen behind.” Jesus is not suggesting that they would lock the 99 safely in the field and then go look, no, he says that as soon as the loss is noticed, any of them would take off to search. And then they would throw a party once the lamb is found. Do you think the listeners were all nodding in assent? I doubt it. And while most of them probably would have looked for the lost coin that was 10 percent of the wealth the woman in the parable had, I doubt they would have thrown a celebratory party upon finding it. It would likely strike them as ridiculous.
So perhaps Jesus’ message was to the Scribes and Pharisees that they ought to be as concerned as the shepherd who lost a sheep, or the woman who lost a coin, about the sinners that he teaches and eats with. These are lost children of Israel who ought to be sought out, whose return out to be celebrated, ridiculously celebrated, and not grumbled about. Is there a message in this for us today? When people lose their way, mess up their lives in a rather public way, are there efforts to find them, to bring them back? When they come back, is there a celebration? For the prisoner who has done his or her time and is released into the community – a celebration? For the parent who abandoned his or her children for years and now wants to reconnect – a celebration?
And when we seek after someone who we think has wandered off, isn’t there the risk that we are just trying to get them to do what we want them to do, not necessarily what is right for them? I know that while I can sincerely and truly let someone who has left the church know that we miss them, I hesitate to push them to return. I am reminded of that great anthem the choir sang a few weeks ago – come in from the cold, my friend, we’ve prayed for your safe return, don’t try to explain or defend, we know you had lessons to learn. And I might downplay the celebration of their return if it comes for fear of scaring them off again. But Jesus tells us in these parables that God doesn’t downplay the celebration, that there is great rejoicing in heaven when even one person repents, joy in the presence of angels.
I wonder if there is also a message in these parables to the scribes and Pharisees, to the righteous, not just about having lost something, not just to seek out that which is lost, but of being lost themselves. I would suppose that most people who come to church come because they are trying to do the right thing, to live into God’s kindom. You come to hear a Word that will inspire and guide you to live a righteous life, whether in the hope of a reward to come, or to create or find the beloved community right here and now. In this way we have a lot more in common with the scribes and Pharisees in this story than we do with the people Luke describes as sinners. You don’t come here to be convinced that you are sinners but Jesus forgives and loves you anyway, right? Could it be that Jesus saw the scribes and Pharisees as lost in some important way, despite their righteousness? Could it be that even though we are good people trying hard to do the right thing in a complicated and difficult world, that we are still lost? Could Jesus be searching for us, wanting to bring us back home, not because we are sinful, but because we have been distracted by something that is not useful to us?
There are all kinds of ways righteous people can wander off from a life rich in joy and meaning. Perhaps it is the parents who start off wanting the best for the children, then get confused about what this means, competing and pushing their children to compete in a way that results in terrible stress on the body, soul and family. Or the person so career-minded that moving up the ladder is the one and only priority? Or what about people work jobs they hate, or compromise their values and ethics in order to accumulate more and bigger things? How about the teen who works so hard to be perfect and who is willing to do just about anything to fit in be lost? Or those earnest Christians who constantly asks whether people have accepted Jesus into their hearts? Could they all be lost?
What about you? There are so many ways that our society defines success that contradict the teachings of Jesus. We are taught to value power and security, material wealth and popularity. I’m not saying these things are bad, just that they promise more than they can deliver. I believe that if someone has a life rich in meaning, a life that is fulfilling, that person is not likely to grumble about good things happening to or for other people the way the Pharisees are grumbling about Jesus eating with sinners. I believe if someone has a life rich in meaning, a life that is fulfilling, he or she will indeed want to rejoice in the presence of angels when the lost are found. And if you are not celebrating, you are likely lost yourself. If you don’t know who and whose you are, if you have not yet found out that you are beloved, you are of God, then you are lost. Once you do know this, you know that all the rest of us are also, and you are as eager as Jesus is to remind us of this.
In the parables, Jesus talks about the joy over those sinners who repent. What does it mean to repent…. ? It means to turn around. So for the person who has wandered off, repent, turn around and see that the good life is passing you by. Turn around and head torwards it. If you are running away from those sinners, turn around, turn around to look for them, encourage them to turn with you to the good life Jesus invites you to. If you have wandered too far towards worldly successes but they have left you resentful and stressed and anxious, turn around, turn around, turn around. When we think of ourselves and others in terms of who is righteous and who is a sinner, our identities become tied to what we do or have done. But when we think about ourselves and others in terms of being lost or found, our identity is tied to our being and our relationships. Our identities are understood as much more than what we do. Church can be a place for those who are lost, whether righteous or sinner. Church can be a place that reminds you of who and whose you are no matter what you do. When we come seeking God, we are found, we are found out to be beloved. And there is much rejoicing. May it be so.
