Luke 15:1-10
“Lost and Joyful”
September 11, 2022 Rally Sunday
We want fairness. We yearn for fairness. We admire those parents and teachers and supervisors and even politicians who we perceive as being fair.
In the midst of all this joy, why does Jesus seem so unfair?
So much of my early religious education was about how to be the best person I could be.
In Catholic School and CCD classes that meant following the rules, staying away from the kids who were “trouble,” and not taking any unnecessary risks.
It was expected that I would be a good girl – and for the most part I was.
In fact, I often exaggerated my sins in the confessional because how many times can you say
“I was mean to my brothers” or “I talked back to my mom” or “I said a bad word” (we’re talking about saying “hell” instead of the more acceptable h-e-double toothpicks or “damn” when the only appropriate time to say that was when singing the song lyrics “Amster-Amster-Dam-Dam-Dam.”)
This lesson is about being lost and then being found and then being joyful.
First though, Jesus had to be getting pretty tired of the grumbling and complaining from the Pharisees and the scribes, don’t you think?
This is the third time he gets grief for spending time with sinners – whether they be tax collectors or women of the night.
Not only does he talk to them, and he eats with them, defying Jewish laws but then he offers them hospitality – he welcomes them.
Think about how much the sinners, mind you, must have been so moved to have someone stand up for them and take their side.
If we are to find ourselves and our 21st century world in this story, imagine where and with whom Jesus would be spending his time hanging out with.
He might be in the room at SVMC devoted to helping folks get through mental health emergencies.
We might find him sitting in at Turning Point on Main Street in Bennington with a 12-step group.
He could be riding in the Arlington Rescue Squad ambulance, prepared to rush Narcan to one of our neighbors who has overdosed.
Or visiting every week at the prison in Springfield.
And then I remember that all of the people I was warned to stay away from as a child are the ones that Jesus was always drawn to.
Somehow that doesn’t seem fair because our definition of fair is usually based on the idea that we reap what we sow.
If we act badly, bad things will happen, and we will be considered a bad person.
But then the fairness issue raises its head again when we see how much joy and celebration Jesus calls for the lost ones and how precious the lost are in God’s sight.
Is Jesus saying we have to make a mess of our lives in order to get the party with the angels?
That had to be how it sounded to the Pharisees and scribes, right?
Here they’ve chosen to live lives respectful of and obedient to God, making sacrifices and demonstrating to the world that it can be done.
They’ve held themselves to a high standard and expect others to follow their example.
All this time they felt that they were giving God reason to rejoice and those who couldn’t or wouldn’t live by the rules would have to keep trying harder to win God’s approval.
At first glance it is really tempting to figure out if we’re supposed to be a sheep or a coin in these parables but they’re not humans who can repent.
Remember that what Jesus says to the Pharisees is “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep?”
He’s not talking about repentance or atoning for our sins.
Jesus is talking about seeking and finding and ultimately – rejoicing.
We are not loved by God because we picked ourselves up by the proverbial bootstraps.
God is not rewarding us because we did life right.
What Jesus is saying is that God loves us even if we’ve lost our way.
Ours is a merciful God who takes joy in the finding.
God loves us without strings attached and that is reason enough to celebrate.
In this world some of us will be shepherds and some of us will be sheep or maybe the way it works is that all of us at one time or another is one who finds and welcomes back to the fold the lost one and then there are the times we are the ones lost that somebody finds.
A lot of us work really hard, as Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, “to find and stay found.”
And it is a lifelong effort to not judge those who seem determined to stay lost.
And maybe that’s where I’m lost.
Spending any amount of a precious lifetime judging the lost instead of welcoming them into the fold might just be where I get lost myself.
If the tax collector is able to see that with God, they might turn their life around and not take advantage of their position to rip off people who are barely getting by, is it better for me to pout and be angry and second guess God’s mercy being wasted?
No, here’s our invitation to the party.
Rather than resentment at the choices those other people have made that now feel like they don’t matter at all and that seems really unfair, I can remember that mercy is not about fairness.
God’s love is merciful.
God is always waiting with open arms because we, every one of us matters to God – just like the lost sheep and just like the lost coin.
Let us offer then this prayer from the Rev. Ashley Renée Johnson:
We are never given up on.
God,
what a gift it is to feel;
to feel your love,
your strength,
your hope
reaching out to us
when we are lost
and feeling alone.
As we continue to
find our way forward,
as we continue to find our way
together,
as we continue to find our way
back towards one another,
help us to welcome
change.
The kind of change
that creates a space
where
all people
can be certain that
their presence in this world
matters. Amen.