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Trinity Episcopal Church Hattiesburg, Mississippi Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost (Proper 19) September 16, 2007 Go To Trinity's Home Page

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
Psalm 14
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10
Collect of the Day
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 74 th General Convention of the ECUSA

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable: “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? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 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.’ 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. “Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 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.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:1-10)

Seek, Find, Celebrate!
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop, Rector

     Like lots of people who lived in the country, when I was growing up, we went into town on Saturday to shop for weekly provisions. On Thursday my mother, General Mom, would pour over the grocery ads and map out a campaign. We would begin at Safeway, downtown, and then go to Market Basket across the street. Over the next several hours we would visit three or four more grocery stores, as well as Wards, Sears, PayLess, the Coast to Coast store, J.C. Penny, Newberry’s and the Woolworth store.

     One time when I was about four or five, I was determined to carry some groceries back to the car myself. As we walked between the parked cars, I turned one way, and unknowing, my parents turned the other. Moving between the cars, and struggling to see through the stalk of celery protruding from the sack, I suddenly realized that our Desoto was not where it was supposed to be. I turned around, and discovered I was alone. I was lost. Really not tall enough to look over the hoods and trunks of the cars, I dropped the sack of groceries, and began yelling for my parents. I ran up and down the rows of cars. I was terrified. But after what seemed like forever, I heard my Dad’s voice calling my name. And then I saw his shoes under a car. We moved toward each other, and he hugged me. Then he wanted me to crawl under cars to retrieve the canned goods that had rolled everywhere.

     Today we are in the gospel within the gospel, the fifteenth chapter of Luke. .

     Luke sets the three stories of lostness – the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son (the prodigal son) – right next to each other and frames them in the context of God seeking reconciliation. To Luke, Jesus represents a God who loves sinners.

To Christians today, these stories sound just like the Jesus we remember from childhood Sunday school. But these were radical in Jesus’ time.

     Luke begins by telling us that all the tax collectors and sinners came to Jesus; that offended the Pharisees. This was because the Pharisees classified these people as lawless; they did not follow Torah. They were called the People of the Land, and the Pharisees erected a complete barrier between themselves and those people.[1] People of the Land were considered untrustworthy in matters of money and testimony, and could not be entrusted with secrets. ‘Good people’ were forbidden to host or to be the guest of a person of the land. “To marry a daughter to one of them was like exposing her bound and helpless to a lion.”[2] Luke’s Jesus, however, embraced these people openly, because Jesus regarded all people as equals. So it is not surprising that Luke put together three parables about equality.[3] ,[4]

     When we hear these stories, or read the italicized headers about them in our Bibles, they often make reference to their negative quality: the lost sheep, not the found sheep; the lost coin, not the found coin; the prodigal son, not the loving father.[5] All of these stories speak about love and forgiveness, and they end in the common theme of joy and celebration; they speak of being found.

     Perhaps if you’re the kind of person who sees a partially filled glass as half empty you’ll focus on the lost elements of the story; if you see the glass half full, you’ll hear the joy. But that is the nature of parables. They are heard differently depending on where we are in life. If we stand beside Jesus, maybe then we point our fingers at the Pharisees. If we sit ourselves among the Pharisees, we probably become defensive. The Pharisees simply believed that the separation of ‘good’ people from ‘bad’ people was how the community preserved itself and provided moral and ethical instruction of its young. Don’t we often do exactly the same thing today? How many parents have warned their youngsters to stay away from the ‘wrong’ crowd, lest they go down the ‘bad’ road?

     Those of us in religious communities are probably more guilty than most of this kind of judgmental self righteousness. We sometimes act as if we have the inside track to the Truth. But in fact, Luke’s parables show us that the problems we create in the church are the same kind of problems the Pharisees and scribes created in Jesus’ time. And Luke’s parables tell us how we can resolve these problems. I know that I am not smart enough or insightful enough to really know what is right all of the time. So the best place for me to stand is not with Jesus or with the Pharisees, but with the tax collectors, the People of the Land, and the other sinners who were welcomed by Jesus and forgiven in his presence.[6]

     Luke provides us with a model for God’s abundance and grace in Jesus the shepherd. And much ink has been spilled trying to explain why Jesus the shepherd would leave ninety nine sheep on a hillside to look for a one that was missing. One explanation is that shepherds always worked in twos or threes, and while the good shepherd looked for the lost sheep, the others stayed behind to keep the ninety nine in place. Another explanation is that the ninety nine were put in a fold (sheep corral) before the shepherd left. But that idea comes from an old gospel song, and not from the four canonical Gospels. People have been trying to explain away the seeming irresponsibility of the lone shepherd ever since Jesus’ told the story. The non-canonical Gospel of Thomas, considered by some to predate the Gospel of Mark, includes the explanation that the one sheep that went astray was the largest, and he “looked for that one until he found it.”[7]

     I think all of these explanations are rationalizations that miss the point. Jesus was speaking to Pharisees when he said, “Which one of you … does not go after the one that is lost until he finds it?” First century Jewish shepherds were regarded so poorly that they might today elicit a remark like, “Do we really want those kinds of people in our church?” So when Jesus compared the shepherds with the Pharisees he made the Pharisees equal to the People of the Land. Not only was this insulting to the Pharisees, it was a challenge too, because Jesus implied that they were not doing what they should do for all of God’s people. Luke wanted us to understand that we are all shepherds, and that we called to love all people equally, and to seek the lost and invite them to eat, rejoice, and celebrate.

     There are a lot of reasons we become lost. Sometimes we start out to do the right thing, but turn one way when we should have turned the other. Most of us lose sight of the shepherd during our teen years when we take a natural turn away from what we are taught, and seek to find our own way. In my work as a college chaplain, I often encountered young people who came from solidly religious families, but who were unconvinced that all this stuff about God, sacred space, Holiness, and Jesus was relevant to their lives. I certainly went down that road as a young adult.

     There are people who are good and faithful members of a church who leave their church families over disputes about politics, philosophy, or some such thing.

     Luke’s parables in this chapter ask us to seek these people out ourselves, and invite them to let God embrace them, to pick them up and lay them on God’s shoulders, in anticipation of a joyous celebration. Luke reminds us that we are not righteous because we are like him or because we are like the Pharisees, but we are righteous simply because we are God’s children – just like everybody else.

     Maybe there is someone you know who is seeking God or sensing the Divine in their life. Maybe you know a child or a young person who feels a growing sense of spirituality, and wants to find people who will support him and not judge him. Maybe you know someone who left Trinity or another church for a time, and is just waiting for an invitation to return. We should all invite people to experience God, not because they are lost – because no one is ever lost to God – but because we have been called to be shepherds and to welcome people into God’s presence. And the rest we can leave in God’s hands, for it God who will bestow God’s abundant grace and forgiveness to us all.

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Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28

At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem: A hot wind comes from me out of the bare heights in the desert toward my poor people, not to winnow or cleanse-- a wind too strong for that. Now it is I who speak in judgment against them. “For my people are foolish, they do not know me; they are stupid children, they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but do not know how to do good.” I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light. I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro. I looked, and lo, there was no one at all, and all the birds of the air had fled. I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the LORD, before his fierce anger. For thus says the LORD: The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end. Because of this the earth shall mourn, and the heavens above grow black; for I have spoken, I have purposed; I have not relented nor will I turn back.

Psalm 14 Dixit insipiens

1 The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." *
All are corrupt and commit abominable acts;
there is none who does any good.

2 The LORD looks down from heaven upon us all, *
to see if there is any who is wise,
if there is one who seeks after God.

3 Every one has proved faithless;
all alike have turned bad; *
there is none who does good; no, not one.

4 Have they no knowledge, all those evildoers *
who eat up my people like bread
and do not call upon the LORD?

5 See how they tremble with fear, *
because God is in the company of the righteous.

6 Their aim is to confound the plans of the afflicted, *
but the LORD is their refuge.

7 Oh, that Israel's deliverance would come out of Zion! *
when the LORD restores the fortunes of his people,
Jacob will rejoice and Israel be glad.

1 Timothy 1:12-17

I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the foremost. But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Luke 15:1-10

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable: “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? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 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.’ 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. “Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 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.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Collect of the Day

O God, because without you we are not able to please you mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

[1] William Barclay. The Gospel of Luke, Revised Edition. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1975. p. 199.
[2] Barclay, op cit.
[3] Fred B. Craddock. Luke. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1990. p. 185.
[4] There are several parables involving women in the Gospel of Luke including the stories about the leaven, the closed door, the lost coin, and the unjust judge. As David Butterick once wrote, “In a patriarchial society where pious men could pray, ‘Blessed be God that he [sic!] has not made me a woman,’ Jesus’ stories with female characters would be startling, if not offensive… The unabashed use of women heroes in [the Lukan versions] of Jesus’ parables is quite remarkable.” See David Butterick. Speaking Parables. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 2000. p. 197.
[5] Craddock, 186.
[6] Craddock, 185.
[7] Logion 107 of the Gospel of Thomas. See the Gospel of Thomas on line at http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html.

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Copyright © 2007, William G. Stroop - All Rights Reserved.
13 September 2007

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