Searching and Rejoicing, Lectionary 24C, Luke 15:1-10, 9/11/16

Searching and Rejoicing, Lectionary 24C, Luke 15:1-10, 9/11/16

• If you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas.
• You know a man by the company he keeps.
• Be around people you want to be like because you will be like the people you are around.
• And from the Apostle Paul, “Do not be misled, bad company corrupts good character [I Cor. 15:37].

I suspect you silently nodded as I shared these aphorisms and I did so to illustrate that the Pharisees in today’s gospel lesson are neither crazy nor particularly venial in believing whom we associate with matters. Too often Pharisees become cardboard cutouts in our minds, the villains we love to hate. We think of them as vinegary souls who are haunted by the possibility that somewhere, someone might be having fun.

Maybe we should be a little more charitable toward them because they are not so different from us. They believe that who you hang out with is important and few of us would disagree. It is important for us to put ourselves in their skin if we are to understand today’s lesson. Trying to live righteously is a worthy goal, but Jesus wants us to see that some things are even more important, chief of which is understanding the heart of God.

As our lesson opens Jesus has been preaching and teaching--and folks have been responding to him. The problem is that it not exactly the right kind of people. The Pharisees are all for adding some respectable families to the community. What synagogue wouldn’t welcome an infusion of new folks? These folks though…they are…well they are a little sketchy. They don’t always keep all the rules. They have made some mistakes—and might make some more. The Pharisees are afraid that by associating with them Jesus is endangering his own credibility and suggesting that anything goes. So they begin to grumble.

This prompts Jesus to tell three parables: lost sheep, lost coin, and lost sons—two of which we just heard. I want you to notice that Jesus and the Pharisees agree that these people are in some way lost. The difference is that the Pharisees believe God is waiting for them to come to their senses and then will gladly welcome them in. Jesus says God is all about taking the initiative, welcoming them before they do a thing.

The focus of these parables is not repentance, a demand that we change so that we can be acceptable. Coins and sheep can not repent. The main action in these parables is not repentance but the shepherd and woman seeking what is lost and the celebrating at the end. These storiesinvite us to see that the community of Jesus is more interested in rejoicingover small victories than judging failures.

Still, it is hard not to judge. If we are honest we will admit there is a little Pharisee in all of us. We operate on the assumption that if someone is lost, it is pretty much their own fault. If they want a better life they just need to make better choices and clean up their act. And of course at some point we do have to be responsible for our choices. But then I think about a Robie, a boy in my wife’s kindergarten class. I hasten to add that Robie is a composite of many children she has had over the years; he is one child but he is also many.

Robie has a hard time at school. He’s constantly fidgeting. He refuses to follow directions. When the kids line up he always wants to be first and pushes anyone who says he can’t be. At free choice time he is more likely to be knocking over someone else’s blocks than building something himself. He bites a classmate for no good reason and spits on his teacher. He is hard to like. His school day is one bad choice after another. You look at him and think his life could be a lot better if he would just do the right things.

Then you look at his folder. Born to a mom who was drinking heavily and eventually died of heroin overdose, he probably has brain damage. Dad was absent and is now in prison. Robie bounced around until an aunt took him in. But she developed cancer and died. Now he lives with his mother’s brother and there is reason to suspect abuse. Most days he comes to school smelly and hungry. Robie is most assuredly lost, but I am not sure you’d say it’s all his fault, that all he has to do is repent of his bad ways.

Perhaps you’ll say that Robie is a dramatic special case. I am not so sure. Scratch the surface of destructive, obnoxious behavior and I think you will usually find some trauma, some lack of mentoring, some inability to feel loved and valued. But whether that is true or not, Jesus makes it clear in these parables that God does not really care why we are lost, he just hurts when we are. God’s instinct is not to wait for us to come to our senses, but to reach out and bring us home. Like a wounded animal we may kick, and scratch, and bite, but if we are lost God is seeking us.

If that is true then our calling as Christians is also to be seekers of the lost. When I was growing up seeking the lost in my church was pretty narrowly defined as getting others to make a profession of faith in Jesus as Lord. I do believe that to know Jesus as the center of your life is to find an anchor which will not fail. But sometimes folks need to experience our seeking in very concrete ways before they are ready to make a profession of faith. Seeking the lost may take the form of

• patiently listening while another pours out her pain
• putting a drunken hall mate to bed with as much gentleness as we can muster
• handing someone the number for Narcotics Anonymous
• inviting an obviously lonely coworker to share a cup of coffee
• resisting the urge to say “I told you so” when a friend’s choice goes horribly wrong.

Seeking the lost takes many forms, but it always involves deep care and a minimum of judging. When people are on a freeway to destruction, they seldom need to be told they are on a path of pain. Life is making that abundantly clear. What they need is an off ramp and someone to ride beside them as they find a new road.

So do we at Luther Memorial offer that kind of gracious off ramp; do people who encounter us sense conviction, but also compassion and a willingness to celebrate small victories? A story in the New York Timesabout Great Britain included this sentence, “A good pub is a ready made party, a home away from home, a club that anyone can join.”

Perhaps the same description would fit for a good congregation. I am not suggesting Luther Memorial should exist for socializing, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if our community’s image of our church were that it is a place of joy, welcome, and openness.

Too often that is not the image the world has of this or any other church. People on the outside may see us as grimly faithful, but not joyful. Singer Billy Joel renders the verdict of many a person in our culture, “I rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints, ‘cause sinners are much more fun. Only the good die young.”

Both of Jesus’ parables end with a party, with an outsized celebration. That should tell us something about what the mood of the church is supposed to be: Precious little looking back. Precious little reflection on how or why someone got lost. Just a celebration that somehow, by God’s grace, the one who was lost is now home. Count on it. This week you will meet someone who is lost—crushed by addiction, self-hate, depression, or bitterness. Show them the love of God, even if it is very hard because they greet your concern with apathy or derision. Take the risk to reach out—and know that in that moment a heavenly party breaks out.