FIFTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST SEPTEMBER 16, 2001 LUKE 15:1-10
Thank you Heavenly Father for being ever-watchful even when we are not and for seeking us out when we are lost and pointing us in the right direction when we lose something valuable. Amen.
Title: “God is ever-watchful.”
Jesus continues to teach along the way of his journey to Jerusalem. Here he develops the theme of God’s joy at sinners who return to him and defends his own attitude toward sinners.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN forms one self-contained unit with a single theme: God’s joy with sinners who return to him and Jesus’ acceptance of those who do and tolerance of those who have yet to do so. The introduction, verses one to three, is followed by two short, similarly constructed parables verses four to seven, and eight to ten, and one longer one verses eleven to thirty-two, which all make the same point by using the “lost-found” motif.
In verse one, tax collectors and sinners: Tax collectors were Jews who helped the hated Romans by collecting their taxes for them. They were assigned a certain amount to turn in to the Roman government and were able to keep anything above that as their commission. Consequently, they were hated for both collecting taxes for a despised occupier and for extorting their own countrymen on top of it. They were considered traitors. They would also be considered sinners, a category that included anyone whose occupation was regarded as incompatible with Jewish law. Of course, “sinners” included more than just tax collectors, but these public sinners were so outside of the law that even rabbis would not associate with them. Jesus’ audience included people a self-respecting Pharisee would have nothing to do with. Associating with such people made one “unclean” and therefore unqualified to worship God or associate with those who do.
In verse two, the Pharisees and scribes: Pharisees were lay folk who observed the Jewish law to the letter, or at least tried to and claimed to. They were proud of their religiosity and looked down on those who did not comply with the law. All scribes, experts in the law, were not necessarily Pharisees. Those referred to here would also be Pharisees. It was a basic tenet of the law that associating with a sinner, knowingly or unknowingly, tainted one and required purification, minor washing or major sacrifice in the Temple, depending upon the case. The complaint here that Jesus “welcomes sinners and eats with them” is tantamount to accusing Jesus of being one of them, since one sinned simply by being in their company. The Pharisaic attitude would shun them, snub them, shame them. Jesus would have none of this. He goes on to illustrate why.
In verse four, a hundred sheep: A hundred sheep would be a fairly normal size herd for a small farmer. The shepherd would count his sheep in the evening when they returned from grazing before entering the enclosure. In this parable the shepherd notices one missing. Most people would not miss one out of a hundred anything, but a good shepherd would.
Leave the ninety-nine: Most shepherds would not do this. It would be too risky, too dangerous for the other sheep to be attacked or stolen. His venture after but one sheep is unusual behavior meant to reflect the behavior of God who goes to extraordinary lengths to find the lost, even one out of a hundred.
In verse five, with great joy: The joy a shepherd feels at the end of an arduous search for a single lost sheep is meant to express God’s reaction when a sinner is returned safely to the fold. While we could never know what, if anything, the great and awesome God actually feels, Jesus uses the human experience of “joy” to, in some sense, describe it. That joy also explains Jesus’ own reaction to and relationship with sinners. Disapproving of what sinners do, that is, sin, he still accepts them, indeed seeks them out.
In verse seven, more joy in heaven: Using what we call the “theological passive,” a roundabout but respectful way of talking about God, Jesus, in effect, says, “God is happier with a repentant sinner than someone who wrongly thinks he or she is without sin because of his or her religious observance.” Such a one cannot repent for he or she sees no need to. Repentance results in God declaring a sinner righteous. The self- righteous consider themselves something they are not. The tag or term “righteous” is bestowed by God, not earned by deeds or claimed by self.
In verse eight, woman having ten coins: This parable is constructed the same as the above parable of the Lost Sheep. Here a woman is the center of attention, whereas the above, twin, parable featured a man. The Greek identifies the coins as drachmas, equivalent in value to the Roman denarius; about a day’s wages of a common laborer. About 300BC it actually represented the value of a sheep, but the coin was considerably devalued by the first century AD. Although Jesus is not specific about it, it would seem this was the woman’s dowry commonly in the form of a headdress, although it could represent her savings. It was a considerable amount of money for a peasant to have, whatever it represented.
Light a lamp: Peasants’ houses had a low door and no windows. The woman would have to light a lamp to see.
In verse nine, rejoice with me: Joy needs to be shared. Like the parable of the Lost Sheep this one stresses the same point: God is happy over repentant sinners.
In verse ten, rejoicing among the angels: He shares whatever is the divine equivalent of human joy with his angels in heaven. Like humans, God does not rejoice alone.
Sermon
As children most of us got lost, at least once, probably only once, the experience was so horrifying that we made sure it never happened again. When we remember that scary experience and the even more marvelous experience of being found and reunited with our parents and families, we can relate to Jesus’ story about the lost sheep. As adults most of us have lost something valuable and or useful- keys, wallets, jewelry more of sentimental value than monetary- and know the sick experience of realizing we had lost it and know the even more exhilarating feeling of finding it. When we remember those times and there are usually several of them, especially as we grow older, we can relate to Jesus’ story about the lost coin. Surely, all of us have had our “parting of the ways” with family members or friends and felt the hole in our soul and remember the joy when we made up and became united once again. We can certainly relate to Jesus’ story of the returning son and merciful father, popularly called the Parable of the Prodigal Son, one of the most widely known stories in the entire world.
Jesus was certainly a master teacher. He could take universal life experiences and put them into story form in order to teach a lesson. Even though he used the language and culture of his Jewish roots to make the point specific to his audience, later generations can easily extract the timeless truth from the time-bound and culture-bound details and apply that truth to their own lives. Since we can all relate to the “once lost but now found” motif we can not only apply the lesson of this chapter of Luke to “the hour I first believed,” to quote from the hymn “Amazing Grace,” but we can also apply it to the many times in the course of our lives, indeed in the course of every day, when we became maybe not totally lost but a little distracted and strayed from awareness of the watchful and loving eye of our divine Parent. Once we have accepted Christ as our savior we may never again experience being totally lost ourselves, but that does not mean that we will never lose something valuable- a gem, a jewel, a precious coin- something that is part and parcel of our inheritance as a son or daughter of God, some family heirloom he entrusted to us as a Baptism gift, what we now call “gifts of the Spirit.”
If we are blasé, casual, neglectful of the gifts we have been entrusted with, it is so encouraging to know that those gifts are not lost forever. The Lord constantly calls us by name, by our nature, or character, and points out to us where we left or lost our God-given gifts, His gifts. While we may never be totally lost ever again and never know that sick feeling we had as a child when we were temporarily separated from our parents, we will still lose valuable aspects of our relationship with the Lord. The Lord, great teacher that He is, knew that would happen to many, if not all, of us and so he told these little stories for all time. It makes little difference in the long run whether we lost a gift or gifts accidentally, as in the case of the lost coin, or on purpose, as in the case of the wandering son, or half-and-half, as in the case of the wandering sheep. What matters and what these three stories tell us is that God is ever-watchful even when we are not and that he seeks us out when we are lost and he points us in the right direction when we lose something valuable, something he gave us as a Baptism or Confirmation gift.
How does the Lord let us know that we are lost? It seems that he lets us find that out ourselves. He lets us hit rock bottom, like the wandering son, and come to our senses when we have nowhere else to go. However, in the case of having lost one or more of our Baptismal gifts, the Lord seems to take a slightly different approach. When we are praying with him he seems to ask us questions about where is that gift we used to have but now have lost. What happened to our enthusiasm for the “things of God?” Or where is that courage he gave us once upon a time? We need it now for a new challenge and it seems to be gone. Then, the Lord helps us, if we listen to his clues. We know the Lord well enough by now to know that he rarely speaks directly. He prefers to give us hints and then let us figure it out for ourselves. Not by ourselves, he is always there helping, but for ourselves. If we listen to his clues he will point us in the right direction, really lead us in the right direction and find again that original grace. As the hymn sings, “Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved.” It’s all grace.
God expects us to reject sin, not reject the sinner.
When his children repent it makes God happy and is a cause for celebration.
Self-righteousness is a form of bluffing, bluffing goodness. Every human being needs to repent.
One lost person is as important to God as ninety-nine already repentant ones.
The Lost Sheep: Suppose someone has a hundred one dollar bills. Would that person miss one of them missing? Only if he or she counted those bills every day would the one missing bill be noticed. And when noticed, would that person leave the ninety-nine on the table, out in the open, exposed to theft, and go in search of the one lost dollar bill? This would be very unusual behavior. Yet, Jesus tells the simple story of the lost sheep to show us something about the character of God, our Father. He does count his sheep continually and he does notice if even only one goes astray and he does leave the ninety-nine, figuratively speaking, not really, and go in search of the one lost. No other human being but Jesus would describe God as searching out the lost. It seems so un-Godly for God to lower himself and go searching. Should not he sit piously and pompously on his throne, thoroughly satisfied with himself, like the Pharisees and scribes, reasoning that the lost sheep caused his condition and deserves to suffer the consequences? We need Jesus to tell us about our heavenly Father because we would never have figured this one out. Jesus is saying that we cannot presume that God acts like human beings would act in a given situation. No doubt there would be that rare and unusual shepherd who would go out in search of the one lost at the risk of losing the others he had safely penned in, but such a human shepherd would be rare. For God such behavior is ordinary. It is the way he is. He loves us unconditionally and sees no difference in the value of ninety-nine and the value of one when it comes to his human children. To humans this might seem like a distortion of value, a disproportional expenditure of resources, but to God it is simply his sense, divine sense, of proportion. In telling his audience about a good shepherd, a human being, who behaved in this uncommon way, he helped them to understand what he was saying about his Father, soon to be their Father, if they accepted him on his terms. We cannot equate God’s behavior with that of human beings. God does not get his values from human beings. It is the other way around. We should not presume that God is like us or will behave like us, but we can know God’s attitudes, thanks to Christ, and imitate God’s behavior, thanks to his grace. The good shepherd, the rejoicing woman, and the forgiving father are all models of behavior, divine behavior, to be imitated. To continue to love people after they have hurt us, turned their backs on us, were nowhere to be seen when we needed them, is to love like God loves all of us all the time. Indeed, it is to appropriate the character of God into ourselves and look more like him as “the spittin’ image” of our heavenly Father. We certainly are one of those lost sheep, but one that has been found. Now, God wants us to reach out to any lost souls and let them know by our behavior, our care and concern for them, that they too are loved by this fantastic Father who considers them valuable no matter what their circumstances or their stance vis-à-vis him might be. That is why I repeat the request to invite people to church, so you can save their souls.
Rejoicing: People who are critical of others in the way the Pharisees typically were are rather joyless folks. The only time they smile or laugh is in ridicule of another. They do not know the constant non-judgmental, oceanic joy of simply being alive by the grace of God. Jesus uses the word “joy” to describe the divine attitude when a sinner repents and returns to God, accepts him on his terms. Jesus is not saying that God is actually, factually unhappy because of sinners’ behavior. That would give sinners a power over God that they, we, do not have. We should not press Jesus’ analogies further than he intends them. What he is saying is that if we took the feeling we get when we find something valuable or find ourselves or are reunited with a former loved one after a spat we will come close to the attitude, not feeling, since God does not have feelings per se, of God when we accept him as God unconditionally and accept that we are loved by him unconditionally. Amen.
