Luke
15:1-10
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to
you that I am no shepherd. And I don’t even know anyone who is a shepherd. So
call me crazy, but I’m still pretty sure that I know the answer to the question
that Jesus poses today. “Which one of you,” he asks, “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?” My answer? No one. No one that
is because who in their right mind would put at risk ninety of something that
they already have for the sake of one that they may or may not find? No one. In that situation you just move on.
But that’s not the only question for
today. “What woman,” Jesus wonders, “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?” Now Jesus is talking about a world I totally get given that I am a
regular loser of inanimate objects - keys, glasses, cell phones, remotes
regularly go missing around my house. And when they do, the hunt is on. The
more valuable the item is to me the more desperately I will search for it.
However, there comes a point where if the lost item is seemingly nowhere to be
found, no matter how precious, I give up. I stop looking, cut my losses, and
again move on.
Because that’s the way the world works.
Eventually we give up the search. But that is not the way that God works. Jesus
isn’t asking these questions in order to poll us for answers but to reveal to
us the wonder of how God works in the world. Even more than the shepherd who
single mindedly sets out to find the one sheep or the woman who thoroughly
scours her home for the valuable coin, God is absolutely committed to searching
and searching and searching until all who are lost are found. Found not in
order to be judged, punished, and condemned, but found so that they may be
nourished, healed, and restored.
That is what makes the Gospel message
such Good News for all of us. Because who among us hasn’t known what it is to
be lost - lost in the wilderness of worry, grief, fear, anger, sickness, pain?
We’ve all been there. And if that is where you find yourself today, lost in one
way or another, know that there is hope. God is seeking you even now and will
find you, guaranteed. And the same goes for those whom we love and care about,
the ones whom we pray for, who are struggling, who are suffering, who are
living in the dark. God will not fail them either. God will relentlessly pursue
them with love until they too are found.
But as comforting as that message is, I
can't help but notice that Jesus isn’t telling the story of the lost sheep and
coin primarily to the tax collectors and the sinners of his day - those who
most likely would have identified with being lost. Rather Jesus is talking to
the Pharisees and the scribes, people who aren’t lost by the standards of
society. People who consider themselves to be relatively good. People who have
a beef with Jesus because he is welcoming to sinners and not only that, but
he’s eating with them too. Meaning that he isn’t just being nice and polite to
the riffraff of society and maybe
offering some kind of generous handout or donation. No, he’s going further than
that, much further. He’s hanging out with these people like they’re friends.
He’s connecting with them, even accepting them. And that is just too much.
We get that, don’t we? I mean we love it
when the Good News is about how much God loves us and those whom we love. But
when Jesus tells us that that same love and mercy extends to people we don’t
love. People we don’t approve of. People that may even threaten or hurt us.
Then the news of God pursuing and welcoming and even rejoicing over people like
that sounds rather offensive.
But that’s the point. Jesus is talking to
the Pharisees and the scribes, those who outwardly seem to have it together,
people who are relatively good, people like you and like me because we need to
be challenged. Challenged because we have a tendency to judge. I know I do. I
don’t mean too and I preach this stuff. Even so I still catch my mind thinking
things along the lines of, “Well, if she just did it my way she’d be a lot
better off,” or “Sure, he’s in that mess because he made bad choices.” But when
we think along those lines, good people, it’s all too easy to completely miss
the fact that we are actually just as lost as everyone else and in equal need
of being found and repenting. Just like the one sinner that Jesus speaks of who
repents, sparking joy in the heavenly realm. But when I speak of repenting, I don’t
mean some type of self-punishment getting mired in regret or guilt or shame.
What I mean is repenting in the original sense of the word. The Greek is
metanoia which means to change one’s mind, to turn in a new direction. For when
we are found by the great love of God we repent by turning towards that love,
that grace, that mercy, that forgiveness, and letting it transform us so that
we are no longer lost in the wilderness or stuck in a false sense of
righteousness. Instead we are restored to wholeness.
For the truth is that we are all sheep -
lost and found. All coins - lost and found too. All of us beloved and belonging
to God. Belonging to the God of the lost who welcomes sinners and even eats
with them. The God who will never call off the search until we are all fully
found and able to join in the extravagant and abundant joy of heaven rejoicing.
No comments:
Post a Comment