Sermon for July 27, 2014 – The Lost and Found
Luke 15:1-10 (NRSV)
The Parable of the Lost Sheep
15
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2
And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow
welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
3
So he told
them this parable: 4 “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? 5 When he has found
it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 6 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.’ 7 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.
The Parable of the Lost Coin
8
“Or what
woman having ten silver coins,[a] if she loses one of them,
does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds
it? 9 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.’ 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the
angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Sermon:
I know a little about how the
shepherd and the woman felt…
About 15 years ago, our family was on vacation in
Florida. We drove down to Sanibel
Island, after visiting with my mother in the Orlando area. It had been stormy driving down and we were
pretty delighted to see the weather clear up as we came across the bridge onto
the island. After checking into our
little cottage-like hotel, we put on swim suits and walked down to the private
beach area. My sons Cameron and Blake
were about 6 and 4. It was just the four
of us on the beach. The waves were
pretty big as the tide was rolling in, and little did we know how great the
shelling would be as a result of the storm that had just passed. Cameron was fearless and a lover of all
things water. He and my husband, Paul,
were in the water digging up conch shell after conch shell. Blake was tiny and the size of the waves was
overwhelming to him. He and I were
finding shells on the shore. All of the
sudden, my husband, Paul, said, “Where’s Blake?” My heart dropped – he had been right
there. Paul had been with Cameron in the
water, and now we both were near panic.
Paul had been a lifeguard and waterfront director for many college
years, and was worried about Blake venturing into the waves and getting swept
out. I was worried that he was in the
tall sea grass that was growing between the cottage and the beach. With no hesitation we searched. I started up the boardwalk, surveying the
grass and calling his name, while Paul was searching the beach. As I got back to the cottage, there I saw
him, sitting with legs dangling in a big Adirondack chair on the porch. Joy and relief flooded me, and I ran back to
tell my husband. Relief flooded us and
we rejoiced in the knowing our precious child was safe and happy.
Jesus is trying to teach us
something through these parables, both the ones we have today and the ones we
have studied the last 2 weeks. Why
doesn’t Jesus just come out and tell his disciples, and the crowds that have
gathered, just exactly what he means – what it is that he wants them to get out
of the story he is telling. Well, if he did that, the point he is trying to
make would be in the context only of the time and place in which he was
speaking. In other words, the story
would have specifics to it that would skew the point that he was trying to make,
and it would be valid only the time period of Jesus’ life, around 28CE. As it is, the truths, or the principles he is
making are sufficiently vague enough to inspire you to think about how it might
apply to your setting – your life.
So what do we know about these
stories, and the context in which they were told? First we can consider the background in
scripture up to the place where Jesus was sitting down to dinner with the tax
collectors:
We know from the first chapters of
Matthew that Jesus has been baptized by his cousin, John the Baptist, and
endured the temptations of the devil -- in the wilderness, the pinnacle and the
mountain. He’s come down and gone to
Capernaum, which is located on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. The whole area of Galilee is under the rule
of the Roman Empire.
It’s while Jesus is in Capernaum
that he calls the first of the disciples – Peter, Andrew, James and John, and
most recently Matthew.
Now Matthew is a tax
collector. Here’s the thing about tax
collectors in the Roman Empire – they were not well-liked. The reasons no one liked tax collectors was two-fold: first because taxes were being used to
subsidize the lifestyles of the emperors and governors who were not Jewish. The
second reason no one liked a tax collector was because they padded the tax
assessments in order to pay themselves.
It was a very unethical system that was subject to distrust, extortion
and fraud – hence, the bad reputation of tax collectors.
But there’s a flip-side. Remember when Jesus came to John the Baptist
to be baptized? Well, in the crowd of
people also seeking baptism (Luke 3:12), tax collectors were among those who
had come out. By their baptism they were
signifying a submission and allegiance to God – the one true God, which also
meant they denied the worshipping of multiple Gods in the pagan tradition of
the Roman Empire. What the Pharisees and
other Jews should have seen was that
even tax collectors could receive repentance and align themselves with God’s
purpose.
So now in Luke 15, Jesus has been
making his way to Jerusalem, doing a lot of teaching through parables along the
way. At this point he has just sat down
to have dinner with some tax collectors and sinners when some Pharisees come
along. Now the Pharisees are a sect of
jewish zealots who believed in literally living out all of the laws of the Old
Testament. The name Pharisee in
its Hebrew form means separatists, or the separated ones. They
were separatists because they were extremists in their literal interpretation
and application of the Hebrew law, and very self-righteous.
The Pharisees come upon this scene
and are embarrassed and exasperated.
Verse 2 tells us “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them”. The Pharisees perspective is that Jesus has
no regard for the values and norms of his peer group. Jesus is ignoring the social and religious
boundaries by not only eating with this despicable group, but going so far as
to extend hospitality to them as well. Jesus is hanging out with a bunch of
social outcasts, in a culture that was focused on class, hierarchy, exclusion
and exploitation.
David
Lose, a seminary professor and author in Minnesota, describes the scene like
this:
“Eating -- that is, sharing table fellowship -- is a mark
of camaraderie, acceptance, and friendship. And so in eating with tax
collectors and sinners, Jesus is demonstrating a deep and abiding acceptance of
those whom society has deemed beyond the moral turpitude. Secondly, while we’re used to thinking “we’re
all sinners,” that’s not the way Luke sees it. Rather, when he describes
someone as a “sinner” he’s talking about someone whose pattern of sinning is so
habitual, even second nature, that the whole community knows of it. All of which
means that Jesus is welcoming the local untouchables, the moral disgraces and
public outcasts -- welcoming, accepting, and befriending, to the point of
embarrassment. And the Pharisees, who consider themselves the “decent folk”,
are -- quite understandably -- concerned.
So now Jesus is going to try to help these
Pharisees gain a new understanding; –
and he does this through the telling of two parables, not finger-wagging or
lecturing, but rather story-telling through stories about a lost sheep and a
lost coin.
In the first case, a shepherd has a flock of 100 sheep
and he’s lost one of them. He leaves the
99 sheep, putting them at risk, risking their existence in the wilderness with
no protection or shelter, to seek out the one that is lost. And when he finds
the missing sheep, he rejoices, and carries that sheep on his shoulders while
he herds the whole flock home and calls his friends and neighbors to join in
his celebration.
Here’s what we know about this situation in the reality
of Jesus’ day. If someone owned a
hundred sheep, they were pretty wealthy.
And the owner would not be personally out herding them. The owner would have hired a shepherd. So this shepherd is like a farmhand who was
looking after his owner’s sheep, and he was responsible to the owner for the
well-being of the sheep.
In the second story, a woman has lost a coin. Now she only has 10 coins so this lost coin
is 10% of her wealth. She lights her
lamp and sweeps all night searching for the coin. She finds it!!! In rejoicing,
she also calls together her neighbors and invites them to celebrate.
The reality of this story in Jesus day is that this woman
would have been part of a family and the coins were her dowry. Losing one of them would be a disaster for
the whole family because it would jeopardize a crucial aspect of a marriage
contract for her – dowries were about money, but also about honor and
status. Marriages were public
arrangements where the honor of the family would be on display for the
community, so if she lost one coin, the dowry would be less adequate and she
was risking the family honor.
What is extraordinary is that in both cases, the shepherd
and the woman could have kept quiet about their lost and found. But they are anything but quiet, and they go
about telling everyone what is actually shameful, private business.
So given the context for each story, what is the truth or
truths that are so important for people of this world to understand? Truths that will transcend the context of the
first century and continue to be true to readers centuries later?
I think there are several options for interpretation of these
parables, but my interpretation is based on my experiences, my background, my
context. My interpretations, and anyone
else’s interpretations are starting points for your consideration. The parables are told to be truths that are
timeless and of continual encouragement to you, whatever your experience,
background and context is.
Here are some themes I have interpreted that you may want
to consider…
·
The
joy of finding something so precious that has been lost, is so much greater
than the shame and embarrassment of losing it, that the parent, or the
shepherd, or the woman is willing to share their joy with people all around
them.
·
The
item that each person is searching for, whether it is a son, a sheep or a coin,
is so precious that there isn’t a second thought about whether it is efficient
or practical to look for them or it. The
searching parent, shepherd or woman jumps into action as a reflex to losing
something they value highly.
·
There
is no judgement about how the lost got away, or where they were found. There is only grace and joy in finding them.
There is no blame or guilt, and there’s no repentance.
·
There
is an element that even though there are others surrounding those who are
searchers, their life is incomplete without the one thing that is missing. The missing child, sheep and coin are so
needed and wanted. The stories have a
component about being inclusive.
·
Finally,
all the stories share a theme of restoration.
What if we were to think about the person doing the
searching as God, and we think of the son, sheep or coin as those folks among
us who are lost, or not a part of us?
That would make God a God of extravagance, who is willing to risk the
status quo to search for the lost person.
That makes God a God of great love, grace and joy. That would mean God is inclusive, and actively
values each of his children above all else.
That would mean each person is important to God, and has a place in
God’s world.
I think we can be the most righteous people on earth and
still at times feel lost. We like to think
we have it all together, but life throws some distractions at us and we can
find ourselves alone, apart and without direction. So how do we get found? We reach deep within ourselves and admit our
lost-ness, confide our fears and dashed hopes and dreams to this God of joy,
and peace and restoration. God is so in
love with each of us that he wants nothing more than to have you be in harmony
with him. And if we just can’t do it on
our own, we use our church and our pastor to help us find our way back. Because it’s not about what we’ve done, or
what happened to get us to this lost point, it’s about who we are. And we are
people who are meant to be part of the whole.
God’s dream and celebration is in relationships. God will go to extravagant risks to seek us
out and catch us up in God’s mercy, grace and love.
So think about the themes of the parables and what they
might be telling you. Maybe you are
finding yourself to be the lost, or maybe you are helping someone else be
found. Whatever it is, rejoice in the
restoration. Thanks be to God! Amen