Being Lost & Found 9-11-22
Being Lost & Found
Ex 32:7-14; Luke 15:1-10
Ex 32:7-14
The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.” But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.
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.”
Prayer – Gracious God, as we worship you this day, rescue us form thinking that you gathered here with us is the full extent of your intentions for your kingdom. We have a tendency to imagine that we and the church are your main intent. Reminding us and filling us with amazement at your searching, seeking love and stir up in us a determination to take part in your loving work in the world. May we your beloveds who join in seeking and finding the lost – amen.
I love Luke’s gospel because he is such a master storyteller and our passage this morning of the lost sheep and lost coin are not found in the other synoptic gospels. Throughout Jesus’ ministry, he gets pushback from both religious and civil authorities. This constant criticism of Jesus is surely meant by Luke to be a foreshadowing of the cross. Luke’s entire gospel is about that journey to Jerusalem and the cross.
Last Sunday, Jesus stomped on some toes as he spoke of the disruptive, high cost of discipleship. Though a large crowd was clambering after him, few were willing to follow all the way to the cross. Jesus didn’t seem too concerned, surely not as concerned as I was, by setting forth the difficult demands of discipleship to the point that some, maybe even many, will turn away from following him. He tells everyone that sacrifice and the cross is part of the expected experience of his followers.
And yet this Sunday, almost in contrast to last week, Jesus tells two parables that speak of God’s reign as a relentless divine, seeking and finding of the lost. The beginning of our passage sets the context for these parables as Jesus is slammed once again by his critics for his tendency to hang out with the irretrievably lost, those beyond measures of God’s redemption, rather than hanging out with the religiously sophisticated and respectable of the community.
Thinking back throughout Luke’s gospel there are countless stories as Jesus seeks out and intrudes into human need. Jesus has compassion for the bent-over woman in the synagogue on the Sabbath, starts trouble at the home of the religious elite in an effort to reach and teach his critics, and he didn’t seem to hold back his harshest teaching from the crowds who followed him last week. Luke’s intent is to portray Jesus as the savior who saves all people, sinners included, even as the presumed righteous ridicule him for doing so. Luke alone offers the story of the sinful woman who anoints Jesus’ feet with expensive tears. Jesus is further criticized for inviting himself to the home of Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, in Luke’s gospel and of course, Jesus’ offer of forgiveness for his executioners as well as the thief on the cross beside him. Safe to say, Jesus’ critics sneering is a well-documented charge in Luke.
Surprisingly, perhaps even strange that though Jesus says he is seeking sinners in order that they might turn and repent, never does Jesus criticize or correct those lost sinners. He eats with them and is criticized for doing so. So in our passage this morning, Jesus tells of a shepherd who loses one of his sheep and of a woman who loses one of her ten coins. Neither the sheep nor the coin does any ‘repenting’. All the action is in the hands of the seeking and finding shepherd, the searching and finding woman, both of whom are determined to find what is lost. The stories are full of active verbs. The shepherd goes after, finds, lays on the shoulders, comes home and calls together his friends in order to have a party. The woman lights a lamp, sweeps the house, searches, finds and calls together her friends in order to have a party.
To be noted, and held up for all of us to see, the main action in the stories is not in the losing or the lostness but upon the finding. Sadly, not all celebrate the victories of the shepherd and woman. The righteous grumble. And in the very next story in Luke’s gospel, that of the prodigal son, we’ll again hear grumbling, this time by the older brother of the younger son who had been lost and found his way home.
How does heaven respond to the prospect of the lost now found? Not with grumbling but with a raucous party in which there is joy among the angels of God. Perhaps Jesus means to sharply contrast the response of heaven with the usual, grumbling response of the righteous.
So we may wonder, what is Jesus’ mission here on earth? Some would assert that Jesus is mainly interested in changing human behavior, ethics, if you will. But in our passage this morning, Jesus is speaking of what God is doing, what he as God’s son is doing, not what we are supposed to be doing. Maybe even from our passage this morning you would say that Jesus’ job is not to introduce a new code of ethics but to call everyone to a party where all the sinful, the lost, and the wayward are found and included.
Jesus advocated no program of human reform, recommended no collective social adjustments, no matter how badly needed or enlightened. Jesus was not into ethical codes, had no ideology, did no interesting work in political science and social ethics, and never put forth a plan of action, other than the seemingly wildly impractical notions that the first would be last, that we must turn the other cheek to those who strike us, find our lives by losing them, turn and become like little children. But he did show us who and what God is, was and always will be – a loving parent, a seeking shepherd, a searching woman.
What do we learn about God in our passage this morning? God is the shepherd who searches for the lost, the woman who turns her house upside down and keeps searching until she finds her lost coin. And when the shepherd brings that once lost sheep home or the woman puts the coin back in her purse, both of them say to the neighborhood, “Let’s celebrate,” what has been lost has been found.
All of the action in these two parables are in the actions of the seeking shepherd and the searching woman. What did the lost sheep do to be found? Got lost, didn’t repent, didn’t even say sorry for straying away. A coin is an inanimate object that can’t do anything but lie where placed, dropped, misplaced and wait to be found. These are NOT stories about how a lost sinner came to his or her senses, realizing the error of their ways, repented and turned back home. These stories are about God, about who God is and what God is up to – seeking, searching, finding and celebrating the found.
Another thing these stories say is that God is not sitting back, gazing at our lostness from on high, waiting for us to realize our lost or misplaced ways. God is the seeking shepherd, the searching woman who doesn’t wait for us to come to our senses and turn back toward God. This God in Jesus Christ has come to us, seeks us out and searches for us no matter how close or far we stray.
I would assume that this is good news for me and those of us who sometimes get lost, wander off on our own, or just stubbornly think we can find our way in this big and complicated world never once considering that we are taking the long way. But for some reason, religious folks sometimes can’t, or won’t wrap their heads around the notion that God is the shepherd who understands that the needs of the one sometimes outweigh the needs of the many. Or that God is like a woman who has lost a coin, knowing she still has others, and will search high and low, in darkness and in the light, to find the one because the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many.
What kind of God is like that you may wonder? Is that the kind of God that is almighty and omniscient, and all powerful? A God who will look for the lost one when there are countless others with just as important needs. That is the kind of God who says, I don’t need you to do something to validate me; I don’t need you to turn around from your foolishness; I don’t need you to be perfect because no matter what you say, no matter what you may do, I will find you, you are inescapable from me and my love. NO far is too far gone.
If you are anything like me, growing up in a world that says you’ve got to earn your way, you’ve got to make good decisions, you’ve got to follow this particular path of high school, college, family, responsibility . . . then the whole idea that the grace of God is so unbelievably radical and overwhelming and surprising; seeking and searching and finding; that we sometimes just tend to ignore it and or assume that God’s grace is just, for those who see the light, who don’t wander too far off, or who realize the error of their ways and turn back towards God.
Jesus is telling us this morning, perhaps in a new and different way, that being lost is not the end of the world, not the end of the grace. Being lost, being far gone means that God is going to keep seeking and searching until we are found. And then, there is going to be a shindig like nothing you have ever seen – celebrating that the one who was lost has been found. Being lost and found is what God’s love and grace and mercy is all about – a radical idea in an old timey book – thanks be to God – amen.