Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 15: 1-10
Things that are lost. Keys, glasses, hair, homework assignments, games, bets, sweatshirts, time, dogs, wars, loves, jobs...
As I thought of the text for this week I sat down and thought about things that are lost...things that I had lost.
The ruby ring my grandmother gave me. It had been hers but the ruby is my birthstone so she had given it to me. I wore it everywhere. Sometime when I was taking the swimming test to be a Jr. lifesaver it was gone. Numerous dives to the bottom of the pool could not locate it. Even cleaning out the filter did not find it.
The gold Cross pen that Doug gave me as an anniversary present after I graduated from seminary. Lost--and found tucked deep in the seat of the car when we cleaned it out to trade it in. Lost again--and found by pastor friend Glenn Vanderkloot who kept it in his brief case for a year till he saw me again and could return it. And alas--lost again.
The things that I've lost--I won't bore you with more. I'm sure you have your own stories about things that were lost.
Then there are other kinds of lost. The election that you thought was wrapped up, the job that went to another applicant, the e-mail that accidentally got deleted.
Lost friends, You know how that goes. They move away and after a while the phone calls get fewer and fewer and then you're down to a Christmas card in December and then somebody moves again and then the cards come back "forwarding address expired."
Lost friends--a clash of opinions over something stupid and then it's just uncomfortable to be around each other. You drift apart.
Carelessness, inattention, happenstance---it's just awful to lose things. We feel diminished, smaller, less complete.
There were 100 sheep and now there are only 99. There were ten coins and now there are only nine. Two simple parables about things that are lost. We can understand that part because we loose things all the time. What is more difficult to understand is the sheer determination, the intensity of the search, to find those things that are lost. So this is what God is like. So this is what God is like!!!!
God doesn't like to loose things. God doesn't want us to just drift away or be misplaced or be fractured by our own sinfulness.
Moses was away a long time up on that mountain. The people began to wonder if he was ever coming back. They began to wonder if there even was a God up there. Then they began to decide that no there wasn't a god up there. If there's no God there then we better make one up down here and they melted down their bracelets and their rings and their gold necklaces and they sculpted a golden calf to worship--a god they could keep handy. God had made a covenant with these folks, "I will be your God and you will be my people." But somehow these people had forgotten this promise and just drifted away. God doesn't like to loose. No other Gods before me. That is the rule of this game. So God is ready to destroy this stiff necked people. But Moses prays and the Lord changed his mind. The way to take care of the problem had seemed so clear but God doesn't like to loose anything or anyone.
The Poet John David Burton in " Naked in the Street" wrote,
"If you knew me, would you love me? Behind this mask called me I hide. If I let you see inside, will you thereafter be my cherished friend?" Tony Campolo puts it this way, "if you knew all the sins in my life, you wouldn't be listening to me. And if I knew all the sins in your life I wouldn't be talking to you." But when Burton asks his question, "If you knew me would you love me?" Jesus answers, "Yes." And when Campolo confesses his sin our Jesus pushes them aside in order to pull us close and warmly embrace us. "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance writes Paul, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." This is the Gospel. And it deserves an "Amen" or a "Praise God" or a "That's right!" The good news is that God knows we're lost and loves us anyway. In what Martin Luther called "the gospel in a nutshell," Jesus said "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him."
God still loves us, God has always loved us. God will always love us. It's grace. It's free. It's unmerited. One scholar wrote, "The basic idea behind the conception of grace is the undeserved generosity of God. One professor explained it to his students, "Pray for mercy. But don't pray for justice because you might just get it." There are two ways to look at grace. Grace is getting what we don't deserve. Grace is not getting what we do deserve.
Paul knew what he deserved. He thought he had been zealous at keeping all those bad people far from God. He was there at Stephen's stoning. He was a master at persecuting those who followed "the way". For him God was a stern taskmaster, a demanding judge gauging every action and every deed against an impossible standard. But then in a flash on a deserted Damascus road he understood. God's desire wasn't to keep people out but to bring them in, bring them back "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst, Paul says, " But for that very reason I received mercy so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost Patience."
God doesn't like to loose--anyone.
So when the Pharisees and the scribes observed "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." They were right. Around Jesus table we're all sinners, we're all lost in need of being found.
The poet, Edwin Markham, was keenly aware of the contrast between the dark spirit of people who are determined to see that others get only what they deserve and the bright spirit of people who give others more then they deserve. He wrote:He drew a circle that shut me out-- Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in!
So then, in Jesus Christ God has come looking for us like a shepherd looking for a lost sheep or a woman looking for a lost coin and has given us in his providence and grace more than we have deserved.
Lost things; Childhood, hope, health, respect, integrity, dreams. We know lost. God knows lost but won't leave it there. God doesn't give up--even on rebellious people who build idols, even on the worst sinner there is a blasphemer , a persecutor, and a man of violence, even on us.
"This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." Come now to the table.
Amen