The Scandal of God's Welcome: Sermon for Proper 19C

A few years ago when my kids were little, we had gone to the mall with one of our good friends and her kids. Since her baby was in a stroller, and they don’t allow strollers on escalators, we had gone into one of the department stores to use the elevator, which moved at a glacial pace. As we herded all of our kids off on the middle floor of this store, one of them stayed back on the elevator and pushed the button while we were bent over the baby. We didn’t realize what had happened before the elevator had actually departed, so we had to wait to see what floor the elevator stopped at. 

My friend stayed with the other four kids while I then took the store escalator to the floor it had stopped at. Yet when I got there, no kid. So I called on the cell phone, to find out that the little imp had stayed on the elevator and pushed the button back down, and the door had opened and -- voila! There he was. Yet when the kid got off the elevator, he was actually mad at us—and told us we were “bad” for getting lost. No, YOU were lost, his mom replied. “No mama. I stayed in the elevator. I didn’t know where you were. YOU were lost,” he insisted. 

 In her relief, his mother stopped being mad at him, though. Our immediate reaction was gratitude and joy at getting him back safe and sound. As he continued to be mad at us, it was then a struggle not to burst out laughing at his insistence that wehad been the ones lost, which would have led to a full-blown meltdown in public, so we managed to hold it in. Eventually everyone calmed down, and we went about our shopping excursion without further incident. 

I guess it all depends on your perspective—which party counts as lost, and which party counts as the found. 

And that’s exactly the point that Jesus is making with our two little parables today. Those who the religious leaders see as the lost—sinners and tax collectors—are actually the ones doing the finding: they’ve found Jesus, and are following him about to learn from him. They have taken a significant step toward aligning themselves with Jesus’s message. There’s an aura of wonder and relief on the part of those so-called “sinners.” The fact that they are also eating with Jesus—in Luke Jesus does an awful lot of teaching at the banquet table, as we have noted before—shows that there is joy, because big communal meals were festive occasions. 

Through God’s radical welcome, embodied by Jesus’s refusal to be bound by societal categories of exclusion, they have gone from being outcasts to invited guests. So of course there is joy. The word joy is the most common word in our gospel passage for today, in fact. And here the gospel reinforces what we are talking about in our Invite Welcome Connect ministry. When we invite people to come to church with us, we are showing how much we value them by inviting them into accompanying us on our spiritual journey, inviting them into this place which is such a treasured part of our lives. 

Jesus invites those who were overlooked and outcast specifically to come talk with him and eat with him, and in doing so proclaims their worth to the world. So, I wonder if the religious leaders who are challenging Jesus and grumbling at him actually get that, by their refusal to themselves sit down with those they look down on, that THEY are the lost ones? I doubt it. They seem pretty sure that they are righteous. 

The Pharisees and scribes are certain of their righteousness—they are the 99 sheep. They are unified as a community by their righteousness. Sinners are outcasts through their own fault, and it stands to reason that they have to change in order to rejoin the “flock.” Yet here it is the righteous who are abandoned by the shepherd for the sake of the one sinner who is lost. This is not how the Pharisees believe society should be ordered—sinners are lost through their own fault, and therefore count for nothing. 

Jesus does not agree. I am convinced that he is challenging his opponents to examine with new eyes who were the lost, and who were the found here. Our opening verse states that the sinners and tax collectors had found Jesus and were coming near to listen to him. It’s the scribes and Pharisees that hold themselves aloof, who have wandered away from the flock. Jesus is talking about lost sheep and coins with the leaders, those who undoubtedly think they are not lost—and yet they certainly not only fail to understand Gpd’s love but reject God’s economy as Jesus embodies it. Their self-righteousness has blinded them and unmoored them. They see Jesus’s welcome as a scandal. 

In the second parable, that of the woman and the lost coin, Jesus sets up a similar situation. But this second story is more shocking to those grumbling against Jesus, because this time the part of God is played by a woman. Once again, it is God (as the woman) who takes the initiative to find what is lost. Further, Jesus lets the so-called sinners even further off the hook, here—because of course the coin is not at fault for being lost—it can’t wander off on its own, like a sheep can. 

In both stories, God (as the shepherd or the woman) takes the initiative to find the lost. The entire way of life for the Pharisees and scribes is being challenged here. They believe that the righteous should not be counted for less than the lost-- but that is exactly what Jesus is saying with this parable. They also believe that sinners should have to work for their redemption through adopting right actions—but the shepherd doesn’t require anything of the lost sheep or coin. God carries the lost back into community after seeking out the lost. Just as we saw in the Jeremiah reading last week, it is God who is faithful and constantly approaching the lost and initiating reconciliation. 

God’s welcome can be scandalous, though, to those who don’t see how lost we ALL can become. I also am convinced that Jesus’s parables here are not meant to taunt the Pharisees, but actually preach a word of comfort to them, if only they could let go of their hard-hearted desire to ostracize and punish those that they think are beneath them. After all, if the shepherd had simply shrugged at the loss of the one, and remained with the 99, the message would have been that one sheep had no value. And by extension that means individually each of the sheep have no value. No sheep would have been safe. But by being willing to do anything to find the lost sheep, all sheep are assured of their individual preciousness and worth in the eyes of the shepherd. 

With these two little parables, Jesus makes it clear that the Pharisees should not be disgusted by Jesus eating with “sinners,” but should themselvesembrace their common humanity and sit with the sinners, too. Remember, the parable about the shepherd starts off with placing the Pharisees in the role of the shepherd: “Which of you…” Jesus asks them, and the gloves come off right there. Because they identify as being the godly, they of course are expected to behave as God would. God is willing to risk everything to have the lost returned to the flock. Can they say the same? 

God’s boldness and relentless love can seem overwhelming. After all, we live in a context in which we carefully consider risk and reward before doing almost anything. And so that question Jesus asks challenges us as much as it did those Pharisees and scribes, so long ago. 

"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?” 

What would we say in response? I am willing to bet, that with the exception of maybe Sherrie Algren, most of us have very little familiarity with work with flocks or herds or any number of animals above the amount of three. But even those of us who are hard-core suburbanites can look at the details of this question and wonder if Jesus isn’t being just a bit, um, impractical. The details are this: One hundred sheep. One lost. 100-1=99, left in the wilderness—WILDERNESS, mind you, where there are lions and tigers and bears, oh my-- to go find one that didn’t have the sense to stay with the herd? 

Seems like any shepherd who might act like Jesus’s proverbial shepherd might end up with not just 99, but maybe even 70. 
Or maybe 50. 
Or maybe none. 

There are a lot of wolves out there in the wilderness, after all. 

The practical thing is to hang on to those 99 who had the sense not to wander off and chalk the lost one up to Darwinism in action. Yes, it’s sad, we often tell ourselves, but you can’t save everyone. 

But this is where the values of the gospel once again encourage us not to be bound by any law but the law of love and community. That shepherd goes after the one because without that one his flock is not complete. He will always know that the one was lost. Jesus’s love is not a practical love—it is an extravagant love that doesn’t count the cost but instead rejoices at the prospect of gain. 

Jesus’s love is a prodigal love. Jesus insists, “NO, we can save everyone. Everyone—meaning every ‘one’-- matters.” And what if all the sheep went with the shepherd to help look for the lost? Isn’t that our call, too? God’s love insists, especially, that each particular life matters, and insists against the brutal calculus of the world that the lives of the oppressed are precious. 

We’re the ones who keep trying to create artificial barriers of competition in claiming status as God’s beloved—we’re the ones who do that, not God. God’s love is not like pie, after all—there’s plenty enough to go around. The gospel always slaps us upside the head and reminds us that God’s love for us isn’t practical, but extravagant, bountiful, abundant. 

Which of you, Jesus asks, would not go out and rejoice over the sheep being found? Jesus is calling us to put aside our assumptions and allow ourselves to be open and vulnerable with each other. Sometimes the person who seems to have it all figured out inwardly feels as lost and as lonely as that missing sheep. We never know the struggles or burdens others are carrying, despite appearances. Jesus calls us to look beyond the surface and rejoice rather than grumble when another person is invited to the banquet, when another sheep is found. Let us rejoice at the scandal of God’ welcome. 

Amen.

Preached at the 505 on September 14 and at 8:00 and 10:30 am on September 15, 2019 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO.

Readings:
Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28Psalm 141 Timothy 1:12-17Luke 15:1-10