“Along the Way: Lost & Found”
Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost – Abingdon Church
September 11, 2016 – The Rev. Torrence Harman
Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; Psalm 14; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10
This morning we are in the lost and found department of the Kingdom of God. Jesus takes us there because as he tries, yet again, to bring about the kingdom of God on earth, the powers that be, those who think they are the powers that be, are critical of his ways and means of doing so. Jesus does seem to try and upset people because he is always challenging our otherwise usual way of thinking and doing things.
Chapter 15 of the Gospel of Luke offers us three parables: the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son (better known as the prodigal son). These parables are staged in the context of table fellowship – a fellowship Jesus seeks out with “sinners.” The Pharisees and scribes looking on (they wouldn’t be caught dead at table with those people) ask “Why?”
Jesus loves open ended questions like this. The Pharisees and scribes are trying to set Jesus up, but once again Jesus seizes the opportunity to turn the tables on them.
The Pharisees see the people Jesus is eating with as “sinners”– people of no value – people`to avoid. Jesus sees the people he is eating with as people of value. Sinners have no value in the eyes of the Pharisees; sinners have immense value in the eyes of God. That’s why there is celebration when what seems lost is “found.”
In the two parables set before us this morning Jesus gets his point across to us when we understand that the real action in the stories is the search. We usually turn our eyes on the plight of the little lost sheep or shine with interest on the coin. But I believe Jesus is really trying to tell us something about the one doing the search (the shepherd orthe woman) for what is lost.
What is the “aha” moment Jesus hopes for us with ears to listen and eyes to see?It is really simple but listen closely. The message we are to hear is that each of us is valuable to God and worthy of the time and effort God takes to search us out and bridge the distance between us. That’s it, pure and simple. Why is it so hard for the Pharisees to see this or for us to live into the truth of it for ourselves and others?
When Jesus talks here about the sinners and the righteous, he is focusing on our distance from God – on the space separating us from God. Are we close to God, aligned with God’s purposes and vision for us? Are we in right relationship with God, thus righteous ones? Are we distant from God for whatever reasons (maybe for reasons under our control or other reasons over which we had no control) – not living and being in alignment with God’s purposes, not as close to God as God desires. This idea of distance from God is the image of “sin” that is at work here.
Can’t we just hear the echo of God’s voice in the Garden of Eden calling out to Adam and Eve? “Where are you?” And isn’t the rest of the Bible really about the Divine seeking us, trying to bring us back home again – close within the fold of the Divine heart? God wants to enfold us, protect us, feed and nurture us. Remember the beautiful words of the 23rd Psalm.
And the Bible stories, over and over again, are about our struggle with this: our wanting to be held and loved, to be safe and secure, delivered from what is enslaving us. We want to be accepted and affirmed on one hand, but on the other hand we fear the loss or diminishment of our own identity, having to give up being our own master because to be dependent on anyone else requires us to give up some of our precious “self-ness.”Sometimes we are afraid of being wanted. This tension between our wanting,yet also being wanted plays out not just in our relationship with God but also with each other. The struggle is between fear and trust, between the desire to be in control or let go of what we know and live into a promise yet to be fulfilled.
I used to worry about the 99 sheep left behind in the wilderness when the good shepherd takes off to search for the lost one. Is the good shepherd turning his back on them as he runs after the one? What ifanother one or more of them decide to wander off, lured by greener grass? What if a four-legged predator is lurking nearby, drooling over the possibility of lamb for dinner, or a two-legged one, a “bad” shepherd, thinking he can add to his master’s flock by stealing a few of the left behind.
I used to think it absurd that the woman threw a big party when she found the one coin missing. Certainly the party cost more money than the value of that one coin. And presumably her other coins (even the ones she might use to throw the party – good thing coins don’t have feelings) were probably tucked away – safe from any thieves – and coins, unlike sheep don’t have a tendency to wander off on their own.
I knew intellectually that the good shepherd or even the woman might symbolize God in the parables. I knew theologically that I am supposed to trust God’s actions as embracing good for all involved. But, really, risking 99 sheep for one, or spending more money than seemed justified over one coin – didn’t seem logical. This is my downfall: when my human logic limits God’s truth. This is the downfall for many of us who think our own logic is what governs things. This was the downfall of the Pharisees and scribes who simply couldn’t see beyond their own logic or their view of how the world they lived in really works.
When we think this way we limit how we see God. This is captured in the idea that we make God in our own image. When we do this we are subject to the accusation: “Your God is too small!” What a provocative observation –applicable to how the Pharisees saw God and how I limit my image of God when I criticize the actions of the good shepherd and the woman, figures I believe Jesus intends for us to see as portraying the character of God.
How big is your God? How big is my God? Can you and I trust something that is bigger than our human way of thinking, larger than our limited understanding, even when that “Bigger Than” is challenging our ideas, confronting our secret sense of how the world really works?
The Pharisees never got Jesus’ attempts to enlarge the God that they held onto so tightly. They found Jesus’ attempts to break through the walls in which they housed their God as threatening what they thought gave them security. They lived in fear that the status quo known to them, their place in the hierarchy of the world as they knew it, would be breached and they would become even more vulnerable to the worldly forces that already dominated them – forces from which they really needed to be delivered.
Here we are this morning in the lost and found department of the Kingdom of God. God has come looking for us. The question Jesus is posing for us is the first one God ever asked of any of God’s children: “And where are you? How far away from me are you: you little lamb, you beautiful coin, you precious child of our Father?” The question asked not because God doesn’t already know where we are in this human/divine relationship, but because God wants us to identify where we are in it – where we are on the continuum of “lost-ness” and “found-ness.”
Just listen and take heart in the message Jesus is trying to get across to each of us today. “You are of value. You are sought after. Wherever you are, I want you close, safe, prospering in my love. Know how wanted and loved you are.”
The table is waiting for all of us. The table in our gospel story this morning was set, ready and waiting not only for those the Pharisees called sinners, but for them too. How sad they couldn’t let themselves approach, take a seat and take part in the feast – be filled with the feast that Jesus had to offer.
There is a beautiful invitation in the Eucharistic liturgy often used at Celtic services. It is the invitation to come to the Table in Holy Communion. It goes something like this. The Celebrant with open arms speaks the Divine invitation:
This is the table, not of the Church, but of the Lord. It is made ready for those who love him and for those who want to love him more. So come, you have much faith, you have little and you who wonder if you have any at all; you who have been here often,you who have not been here long and you who may not have been here before; you who have tried to follow and you who have failed. Come because it is the Lord who invites you. It is his will that those who want him should meet him here.
“You set a table before me,” speaks a long ago psalmist. Implicit here is the idea that wherever we are our Lord is before us, spreading a table of love to nourish and sustain us, inviting us to meet him there.
Why is “table” such an important image in our message today and so many places in the Bible? Because that’s where the Divine and the Human meet to fill their hunger for each other.Don’t we deeply desire to hear our Lord’s voice joyfully calling to us, his arms outstretched, reaching out to gather us in,welcoming us with joy saying: “Oh, here you are. Come, come, taste and see the goodness of what I have for you. Come join me in celebrating that you and I have found each other!”