For a variety of reasons, I swapped this week’s and last week’s lectionary readings, so this week we heard the RCL readings for the 14th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 19. The sermon texts this week were 1 Timothy 1:12-17, Psalm 51:1-10, and Luke 15:1-10. I found inspiration in this sermon from Scott Spencer on this text, and in James Howell’s commentary at Ministry Matters. Here’s the sermon for September 22, 2019:
Two months ago on our way back from the Luther League Houston trip, we stopped at the Incredible Pizza Company in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Picture Chuck E. Cheese on steroids—there’s a buffet, a bunch of arcade games, and some upgrade attractions, like bumper cars, go-karts, and laser tag. It’s a great place to burn off energy with 22 people on a 12 hour day of driving.
After about two hours as we’re walking out of the restaurant, I check my pockets, and the key to the rental van isn’t there. Not a big deal; I’d just ridden the go-karts, and I remember pulling my phone out of my pocket to text Christin to take a picture, so all of you could see how cool your pastor is. I bet the van key fell out there and fell into the go-kart.
So I went back and the go-kart guy and I checked all the go-karts. No luck. Now this is a problem. Jesus describes a woman lighting a lamp and sweeping her house to find a missing silver coin. Our search involved 22 of us peering under arcade games with cell phone flashlights.
Eventually, after an hour of searching the entire building and calling the car rental place, the local Dodge dealership, and a locksmith, Carrie checked the go-karts—which had been searched at least 3 times—and the lost key was found.
Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
These parables Jesus tells are familiar to many of us. We understand losing and finding things. Even if you’ve never been to church, there’s a good chance you’ve seen pictures of Jesus as the good shepherd carrying the lost sheep home on his shoulders.
As you think about this familiar parable today, I invite you to pay attention to the setting. Jesus tells these stories because he notices the Pharisees and the scribes are grumbling.
We often think of the Pharisees as enemies of Jesus, but remember, they actually have a lot in common. They’re the religious elite of their day, the ones who go to synagogue every weekend, the ones who give their offerings, the ones who show up and do the work of faith. Many of them like what Jesus is doing, teaching and healing, inspiring them with promises of God’s kingdom.
But Jesus goes too far for them. Much of the conflict in the gospels is because Jesus doesn’t play by the rules that are so important to the Pharisees.
These good, respectable religious leaders get bent out of shape because when Jesus talks, sinners, and tax collectors, and other disreputable types show up to listen, and Jesus is ok with it. He keeps spending time with these sinners instead of staying where he’s supposed to, with the good religious people. And so they grumble. And Jesus notices.
Now, notice there are two different audiences listening to Jesus. As he tells these stories, he’s trying to teach a lesson to the grumbling religious leaders. But remember, all these tax collectors and sinners are still there listening, and I suspect Jesus intends his parables for both groups.
For the grumblers, the ones who see themselves as righteous and wonder why everyone else doesn’t just follow God like they do, Jesus reminds them they are not the only ones God cares about. Of course there is joy in heaven over the 99 who are not missing. Of course it is good to have 9 coins. But without the 100th sheep, without the 10th coin, they are incomplete.
In fact, I daresay Jesus is not only saying God goes and looks for the lost sheep, but it’s their responsibility as faithful people to also go out looking for the missing ones.
And when one who is missing is found, they should rejoice. Instead of fluttering their hands in dismay that the sinners are showing up to hear Jesus, they ought to be rejoicing. Salvation is not a zero-sum game. There is always room in the flock for more to come in, and when one who is lost is found, the correct response is not grumbling, but rejoicing, throwing a party.
This group needs to hear that God cares for sinners. The definition of God’s grace is that it’s for people who don’t deserve it.
Jesus tells of a God who doesn’t fit into the Pharisee’s box, who doesn’t care about their categories of deserving and undeserving, of righteous and sinner. Jesus describes God as a shepherd who is reckless enough to leave the rest of the flock just to find the missing ones, reckless enough to come into this broken world to restore it. God goes out looking for people to give grace to.
But Jesus is not only talking to those who see themselves as righteous; he’s also talking to the people the Pharisees are complaining about, the tax collectors and sinners.
Imagine how Jesus’ parables sound to this group. If Jesus could hear the Pharisees complaining about “those people,” you have to imagine they could hear it as well.
They know what the Pharisees and the scribes think of them. They’re used to being judged for their sin, never mind that it’s pretty obvious the supposedly righteous Pharisees are also sinful. There’s a reason Jesus calls them hypocrites elsewhere in the gospels.
What must it be like to be publicly shamed as part of the “sinner” group, to be one of the outsiders? I suspect many people in our world, many of our neighbors even here in Greene have had that experience, because we Christians are really good at labeling others as sinful.
Even if we don’t say it out loud (and I hope we don’t…although there are always parts of the church who do), we still treat some people as unworthy of being part of the flock in the church. We’re even pretty good (at least I am) at sort of ranking sins and assuming people who do “that” or live “that way” are not welcome. But that’s not what Jesus does.
Generally, I think people have a pretty good idea what’s lost in their lives. Even those who don’t call it “sin” know what’s broken in their lives.
Maybe we don’t say it in as profound of language as David does in Psalm 51, but we know our transgressions. We know our sin. We know we’re born sinful, born guilty of looking out for ourselves first. This group needs to hear the good news that God’s grace is for them too. Despite their sin, God has not given up on them.
As followers of Jesus today, our job is not to go point at people and say, “Look! Sinner!” but to follow Jesus’ example of spending time with people, to welcome sinners and eat with them. Our job is to point to a God whom we know does not give up on sinners, on lost sheep, because we know God has not given up on us. The fact that God has claimed and redeemed you and me is good evidence God cares about sinners!
In 1 Timothy, Paul uses himself as the proof of God’s seeking and finding. If you know Paul’s story from Acts, you know he’s not exaggerating when he says he was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, a man of violence. And yet Jesus did not give up on him. Without even waiting for him to change his ways, to stop sinning and repent, Jesus sought him out and changed his life.
That’s an important point in these parables. The sheep doesn’t decide to get found. It doesn’t hear an inspirational sermon and decide to come forward and accept the shepherd as its personal lord and savior. Maybe it recognized it was lost and started looking for the rest of the flock, but it doesn’t come back on its own. All it does is wander away, and then get found.
Christians talk sometimes about finding Jesus, and sometimes it can feel like that’s what happens. Maybe you’re one of those people who can point to a specific moments where you recognized you were lost, and prayed a prayer of repentance.
But that’s not quite what happens in these stories Jesus tells. These are stories about the lost being found, but it’s the finder who is the active one. Jesus doesn’t say anything about the sheep crying out in desperation and vowing to change its wandering ways, or taking even a single step toward its savior. It’s the shepherd who does all the work.
In Jesus’ second parable, that’s even more clear. A missing coin is an inanimate object.
There is literally nothing it can do to be found. It has no capability to roll out on its own. The coin’s only hope is that the woman is looking for it. The coin’s only hope is that there is someone who thinks it’s worth seeking.
As Lutherans, we confess with Martin Luther that it is the Holy Spirit who calls us to faith. Even when we think we’re doing something to get closer to God, it’s always the Holy Spirit doing the work.
We are saved by God’s grace, not anything we do. If you deserved it, it wouldn’t be grace. Grace is freely given, undeserved, given simply because God wants to give it.
Beloved of God, hear this promise: God’s grace is for you. God thinks you’re worth seeking and finding. God rejoices over finding you.
Once you were lost, and now you are found. There will be times in the future when you get lost again. There will be times when you go chasing after greener grass somewhere else and wander away, or perhaps when you feel like you’ve slipped and rolled away under a cabinet, and that’s ok.
Because you belong to Jesus, and Jesus never gets tired of seeking you. Jesus never gives up on you. And when one sinner repents, when the lost get found, there is joy in heaven.
Amen