For One, For All
The 15th chapter of Luke includes three parables
– the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son. You’ve just heard the first two...
Each parable focuses our attention on God’s work of finding
and returning the lost to community. Each parable celebrates with joy, with
rejoicing. What is celebrated is the
finding, the return, the restoration which makes the lost and the body to which
the lost belongs WHOLE AGAIN. This
chapter is seen by many biblical scholars as the “heart of Luke’s gospel.” God
is loving and merciful and seeks after every one of us so that communities will
be whole.
These two parables are formulaic – someone lost something,
and when it is lost, they go seeking after it until it is found. And when the seeker has found the lost thing,
they call together their community and celebrate with joy.
Jesus chose very specific seekers in his effort to paint a
picture of how God goes after the lost.
He first uses a shepherd.
Shepherds were not well-respected in this society. They were generally understood as rough
around the edges and possibly untrustworthy.
A funny stand in for God.
And then Jesus tells about a WOMAN seeking after her lost
coin with a lamp and a broom…it would have been unbelievable in that day and
time to compare God to a woman, let alone a woman using the common household
tools of cleaning and serving to find the object. A woman who, in the face of
something lost, persisted to find it.
Nevertheless, she persisted.
Imagine the affront that this was to the religious leaders to whom Jesus
tells this story.
This is Jesus at his eyebrow raising best…nudging the order
and structure of the temple, prodding the “gatekeepers” while using shifty
shepherds and a humble working woman as a stand-in for the seeking work of God.
Nevertheless, God persists.
In our pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps form of American
Christianity, we might read this with a focus on the one who is lost, on their
lost-ness, on the way God goes after the one.
We may be tempted to see this as a comfort for us and our individual
restoration.
One of
the commentaries I use this week shared the perspective of students sitting in
the classroom from other parts of the world meeting these parables. They noted
the way we focused on the individual and they turned attention to the
restoration of a community - the way everyone celebrate it together.
I think it is important to pay attention to the ways this
story is about our interdependence, on God’s value for whole communities as
well as whole individuals. When the lost
is found, the unit is stronger. The
sheep herd is complete. The coins regain
their cumulative value.
In counterpoint to the joy and rejoicing that happens when
the lost is found and the community restored is the grumbling, frankly the
kvetching of the religious authorities who at the beginning of this scripture
are “grumbling” because Jesus welcomes sinners…and (gasp) eats with them.
Pay attention. The
religious insiders are grumbling about the way Jesus tends to the religious
outsiders. They are building the case
against Jesus - a case that will ultimately lead to his death – because he his
hanging out with sinners. He is doing the risky work of reaching beyond who is
in and who is out to say everyone is worthy.
It would never occur to The Pharisees and religious authorities that they, the
institutional insiders, might also be sinners…right?
It would never occur to them that somehow they were failing
to keep the commandment to love God and to love one another with their choice
to exclude a person or a group of persons based on their perceived sinfulness.
So much of the work of these religious leaders was to draw
lines, determine who was righteous and who was not, to create divisions.
Do you ever find yourself grumbling when something good
happens to another? Sort of stunned that
someone like “that” could have good fortune? Questioning what they did to
deserve such good fortune?
Do you ever find yourself wanting to dismiss someone with
whom you disagree rather than wanting to draw them closer to you? Because it is
easier to dismiss them and avoid the complications of having to navigate the
ways we are different?
Ohhh….God bless you if you answered no to both of those
things. Because I cannot.
Yes, hear that. I
wrestle mightily with these sorts of things.
I wrestle with really trusting that God is a God of mercy
and not merit. What do you mean that I cannot EARN God’s love? You mean it is there for everyone, no matter
what? I wrestle to remember that there is more than one right way to be in the
world, that my being right does preclude another from being right…and that
God’s love for me does not depend on my rightness….
I wrestle…I wrestle to receive grace and to offer it at
times?
Recently, it was suggested to me that clergy should somehow
be more perfect, less human that the people they serve.
Hmm. I’m pretty sure
that is the expectation that shaped the
Pharisees. And the religious order of the day.
Here is the thing…we are all human.
We are all broken.
We are all sinful.
And God loves us anyway.
And God doesn’t just love us…
God seeks after us.
Every single one of us.
The gambler, the murderer, the terrorist, the adulterer, the
addicted.
But also the vain, the proud, those who cling to their money
as security, those who think “liberals” or “conservatives” have it all wrong,
those who are convinced they know the one right way.
Every single one of us.
And if you have found yourself in a category of sinfulness
and then pulled back from the edge, really accepting that God loves you in that
moment and for the rest of time no matter what, you value that salvation
differently than if you are working hard to make someone else’s sin greater
than your own.
Mercy.
Not merit.
God persists with MERCY.
Not merit.
For you. For me. For us as a faith community. For Rockville. For citizens of the US and for
citizens of the world. For our United
Methodist denomination, which is part of the reason I am so puzzled by why we
would single out any one group for condemnation, for exclusion, for punishment.
God persists with mercy, not merit.
We also heard today from the prophet Jeremiah who is
speaking into a season of hard political battles, battles that are ripping day-to-day
life apart, sending folks into chaos, dividing communities and dividing
families.
Throughout Jeremiah’s writing, this is understood as God’s
wrath for how the people have not been obedient. In the verses that immediately precede our
reading for today, the voice of God speaks:
“For my people are foolish,
they do not know me;
they are stupid children,
they have no understanding.
They are skilled in doing evil,
but do not know how to do good.”
It is powerful to lay this voice of God next to the story
Jesus tells about the persistent seeking God.
It is a reminder that in a moment in time, it was easy for the prophet
to see all as lost, all as failing, all as impossible.
But when God does a new thing, a new thing in the incarnate,
teaching being who is Jesus, Jesus’ assurance is that the lost are sought and
found. That the community is restored.
This is the promise given to Noah in a rainbow.
This is the promise of manna in the wilderness.
This is the loyalty of Ruth to Naomi.
This is the bold yes spoken by a young Mary.
This is the promise of resurrection.
The persistent God has got this – and is at work in every
moment to restore wholeness.
This is the good news for you and for me every day.
And it should be the good news that we share with all the
world.
It should be the good news that undergirds our work here in
this Rockville community.
That none of us is sinless, that all of us need God’s mercy,
and that mercy is not earned but freely given.
That the mercy we receive ought to transform us into people
who are willing to open ourselves to everyone – seeing our commonality.
That we live with abundance and not scarcity.
That we are called to hope and not fear.
On Friday as I was wrapping up my sermon prep – bishop
Easterling posted this to Facebook: with whom will we build a relationship
today? with whom will we mend a fence? where will we tear down a wall?
I’m always amazed when things line up – Linda and Bob Bowles
will say they don’t believe in coincidence – it is all movement of the Holy
Spirit.
In light of this…in light of the way that God is actively
seeking the lost to draw them back into the wholeness of community, with whom
will we – Faith church – build a relationship.
With whom will we mend a fence?
With whom will we tear down a wall.
This is our call.
This is our thanksgiving. This is
our joy…to go and do likewise.
May it be so.
Amen.
Sources: Sermon Brainwave podcast (episode 680) from Working Preacher at Luther Seminary; Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship (Proper 19, Donald K. McKim & Lynn Japinga).
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