Luke 15:1-10 (Listen)
One of the reasons I enjoy reading and preaching on Luke’s gospel stories is because the number of meals that take place in his telling the Jesus story. Jesus is either eating with the Pharisees at their invitation (SCREEN image of this) or he is eating with ‘tax collectors and sinners’ (SCREEN ADD image of this) or he is inviting himself to someone’s house like Zaccheus (SCREEN ADD image of this).
The meals always become teaching moments, during which Jesus tells parables to the various groups about various topics.
Luke seems to send a mixed message when he eats with the tax collectors and sinners-four times Jesus eats with them, telling them parables, laughing and enjoying their company. But Jesus never comments on their behavior. He never tells them to clean up their act, he never tells them to repent and sin no more, he never tells them to change their ways. The mixed message is: is he condoning their behavior or trying to love them into changing? We are not told!
In the gospel reading today there are two distinct groups. The tax collectors and sinners and the Pharisees and scribes. (SCREEN image of Pharisees and one of religious leaders of today)
Too often Pharisees are portrayed as the bad guys but that is not the case. The Pharisees were the good solid, moral religious leaders of their day. They kept the strict ritual laws which God gave his people. They worshipped regularly. In the Jewish communities they were looked upon as the leaders. The everyday kind of people sought out their advice. They were righteously trying to follow God’s ways.
The other group was also fairly easy to pick out, sinners and tax collectors. Tax collectors worked for Rome. Their job was to collect the taxes for the Roman government. There was a minimum amount set by Rome, anything over and above that was their salary. They constantly cheated the people in their communities. They were despised and hated by everyone.
The term ‘Sinners’ was used for those living on the outer edges of the culture (SCREEN image of homeless). They neither worshipped at the synagogue nor did they seek to live any kind of moral life.
To both those groups Jesus tells two parables. Both describe what kind of God Jesus came revealing to people.
But before we look at what kind of God we have, we need to look at the various characters in this reading.
(SCREEN Star Wars movie pic) Because like any good movie, novel, TV program, really good stories always have us identifying with at least one of the characters in the story.
(SCREEN Who do you identify with as we enter into this reading from Luke)
New Testament writer Fred Craddock says “the reader will want to take a moment to consider where he or she is sitting while receiving the stories. Is it beside Jesus with the tax collectors and sinners or are you seated among those to whom Jesus is addressing. It is a critical question for us.
Can you see yourself sitting with Jesus? Then you go on to see yourself publicly criticized for being a sinner.
Or are you the upstanding citizen, worshiping regularly, kind of anxious about this Jesus who seems to be blurring the lines of morality.
Besides it is KLW (SCREEN KLW image) Sunday, and the Pharisees have a valid point. “be careful of the company you keep”. Parents ‘birds of a feather do what? Stick together. Any good parent worries about their children’s friends.
So who do you identify in the story?
Take a look at the list you can choose from: (SCREEN LIST VERTICALLY Jesus, Pharisees, tax collectors and sinners, the shepherd, the lost sheep, the 99 other sheep, the woman who lost the coin
1) Jesus-who tries to teach the religious leaders, reaches out and graciously loves the unlovable
2) Pharisees-trying to please God by keeping God’s Law and rules
3) sinners and tax collectors-people who seem to lack the basics of morality and doing right
4) the shepherd-seeking out people who are lost and in need to being loved
5) the lost sheep-straying, realizing their lost-ness
6) the 99 sheep, left to wander for themselves, did not do anything wrong
7) the woman who lost the coin-how organized is your house?
Interesting, isn’t it?
Probably you selected more than one.
And yet there is a bit of a problem.
Sometimes the persons we identify with can blind us to the fact that someone else sees us totally differently than we see ourselves.
Perhaps you identify yourself with the shepherd, caring and compassionate while your spouse would identify you with the Pharisees, always trying to please God and do the right thing.
In 1955 (SCREEN Johari window) two men developed what they called the Johari window-to assist people in understanding who they are.
Four quadrants, each one a part of one’s person-it is divided into that which is known to self, that which is unknown to self, and also that which is known to other and that which is not known to other.
When we ask who you identify with and who others identify you with in the story-the upper right quadrant shows your blind spot-that which is known to others but not to yourself.
So some people see themselves as part of the 99 sheep who were obedient while others see you as the one sheep who was lost. Perhaps you are lost and you did not even know it.
Ralph Milton tells of a teacher who one day asked her class this question.
(SCREEN “If all the bad children were painted with red faces and all the good children were painted with green, what color would you be?”)
Think about it. What color would you be?
One insightful young child raised his hand, the teacher called on him and he said “striped”.
That is the way all of us are-striped, lost and found, Pharisee and tax collector, we are hybrids.
Dr. C. John Miller once said this: (SCREEN “Cheer up! You’re a much worse sinner than you think you are, but Christ is a far greater Savior than you could dare to imagine”)
Having looked at who we are in relationship to the story we turn our thoughts to what this story tells us about the kind of God we have.
So Jesus tells the story of the shepherd who has 100 sheep. He begins by saying (SCREEN “which one of you, having a 100 sheep and losing one of them does not leave the 99 IN THE WILDERNESS and goes after the one that is lost until he finds it?)
He leaves 99 sheep to fend for themselves in a wilderness and off he goes.
With the question framed that way, Jesus saying which one of you, the obvious answer to Jesus question would be NOBODY.
No body would be that stupid, that careless, that reckless to do such a thing. The sheep got lost-that is just the cost of being a shepherd. Any shepherd would know that, economics says you don’t leave the 99 untended for and look for the one who is lost.
Then we look at the second parable, if you had ten coins and lost one, you would search too. But the woman upon finding the coin invites her friends and neighbors to celebrate with her. Obviously when you ask people over, a meal is involved so she probably spent at least two coins for the food to celebrate the finding of one coin.
That makes no sense either.
That is just the point Jesus wants to make about what kind of God we have.
When it comes to you and to me, God’s children, (SCREEN God has no common sense. God would risk everything to find someone who has lost their way in life and God would give everything to celebrate when a lost one is found.)
Someone once said a parent is only as happy as his/her least happy child.
Put that in the context of our heavenly father and you can begin to understand how deep and desperate God’s love is for you.
Charles Cousar writes God is meticulously pursuing confused and rebellious creatures. His searching gives a value to those who are being sought.
They are become treasured and significant because they are made objects of divine concern.
Christian writer Henri Nouwen stated it more clearly (SCREEN we are not loved because we are precious but we are precious because we are loved).
What kind of God do we have?
God is like the woman looking for the coin, like a shepherd looking for the sheep. God is searching but also (SCREEN God is grieving the one that is lost). Just like a parent who has lost a child to death, God’s heart hurts and is nearly broken until everyone that is lost is safely returned.
What kind of God do we have?
Jesus said there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.
A God who (SCREEN prefers repentance more than righteousness). As Pastor John Neucthlein writes: when you find a lost sheep you find more than what was lost.
It is the lostness and the being found that is the source of joy for God and his angels.
What kind of God do we have? A God who desperately loves the people who have seemingly lost their way in life. To God everyone is important and everyone is deeply loved. (SCREEN “No one is excluded, not even those who do not want to be found, not even those who do not even know they are lost”.)
I love the poem by Francis Thompson entitled the Hound of Heaven. Francis Thompson was an atheist who wanted nothing to do with God but God kept hounding after him. It describes what kind of God we have.
In part it reads:
I fled from God down the nights and down the days; I fled from God down the arches of the years, I fled from God down the labyrinth of my own mind.
In the midst of tears, I hid.
Under running laughter I hid.
But those strong feet of God came after . . .with unhurrying chase and unperturbed pace, with constant speed and divine instancy.
(SCREEN And a voice more persistent than the feet spoke and said “You are precious one I will not let you go”-)
That is the kind of God we have. Amen.
