Preached on September 15 2013 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC.
Scripture: Luke
15:1-10
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to
listen to him. 2And the Pharisees and the scribes were
grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” 3So he told them this parable: 4“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? 5When
he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 6And 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.’ 7Just
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.
8“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? 9When 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.’ 10Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the
presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Sermon
We're
talking about sinners today. If you've been waiting for a sermon on sinners,
this is it. We need to talk about sinners because they are...we are...sinners
are the topic of these parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin and the
parable that Jesus will tell next about the lost prodigal son. Sinners are the
reason he told them. Or, more specifically, the grumbling of the religious
leaders about Jesus welcoming sinners is the reason he told these parables.
Sinners. Jesus welcomed them; Jesus ate with them; and this upset the religious leaders
of his day. Now, given that this is what Jesus does, you would think that the
religion of Jesus, the religion of Christians would not have the reputation of
being petty and judgmental about sins. And yet that's just what people think of
the Christian church. You who are here know better. You know that the church is
not petty and judgmental, not holier-than-thou or self-righteous. Well, maybe
we are those things sometimes, but that's our sin, and I pray that God is saving
us from that sin more and more. In general, I don't think that we deserve the
reputation we have. But there it is. Polls of people who do not have a
religious affiliation show that many of them perceive the Christian church as
petty, judgmental, prejudiced, and unwelcoming. Just exactly the opposite of
what Jesus was doing when he was criticized by the religious leaders.
They
thought that he should be more judgmental - that he should have some higher
standards. How will people known right from wrong if there are no consequences
for sin? Sinners must be held
responsible.
But
how do you hold someone responsible for being lost? And what good does it do to
complain that the lost shouldn't be found?
When
they complain that Jesus has welcomed sinners and has made the important
symbolic gesture of sharing meals with them, Jesus tells these parables to help
them, and to help us, reconsider our idea of what sin is all about.
What
if you were a shepherd and one of your sheep got lost? Would you blame the
sheep for getting lost? Or would you, as the shepherd, go after it and search
until you had found it, and then rejoice because the sheep is found, rejoice
because this lost sheep will be reunited with the flock where you can lead it
to green meadows and still water and protect it from predators? Should the lost
sheep receive scorn and blame, or should it receive the care of a shepherd who
will find it and bring it back?
Well,
maybe you would blame the sheep. “That animal should have stayed in line. It'll
get what it deserves, better not bring it back or it might give bad ideas to
the others.” I can almost see Jesus anticipating that someone will think that
blaming the sheep and punishing it is still the way to go. So he tells a second
parable, about a woman who has lost one of her ten coins. The coin is lost. You
can't blame the coin, can you? Does it do any good to blame the coin and let it
stay lost? Can we get the message now that blame has no use here?
There
are real sins in our lives: harm that we do or good that we fail to do. Some
sins are choices, some sins are committed without even being aware of what we
do. Some are individual and some are done simply by our participation in an
unjust system that is much bigger than ourselves. We live in a sinful, broken
world. But I never saw people become good from being told how bad they are. I
don't believe that we sin because we like it. I believe we sin because we are
lost: lost in fear, lost in hopelessness, lost in poverty, lost in old hurts
that have damaged our minds and twisted our emotions. We are lost. We need to
be found.
Jesus
is working to reform his religion. Like
the prophets before him, he has a problem with the religious leaders of his day
because the Godly work for those who are lost is not to assign blame but to
lift them out of lostness.
Victor
Hugo described the lives of the poor in his great novel Les Miserables. In response to people who wanted to blame the poor
for their desperate immoral or criminal behavior, Hugo shows us the wise
Bishop, who says “this soul is full of darkness, and sin is committed, but the
guilty person is not the man who commits the sin, but he who produces the
darkness.” And then the narrator says “he had a strange and peculiar way of
judging things. I suspect that he acquired it from the Gospel.”[1]
The
Gospel, in which Jesus searches for all the lost coins and lost sheep and lost
people, especially those who have been lost in the darkness of sin.
If
you have ever taken an introduction to psychology, you have probably heard of
the Fundamental Attribution Error. It is a recognized problem with our
understanding of the world, in which we tend to attribute other people’s
actions too much to individual character and not enough to the situation. But
for our own actions, we do the opposite. What I mean is that when the light
turns red and someone who had plenty of time to stop comes sailing through it,
we attribute that action to the person’s character. That person is a bad
driver, selfish, dangerous, and not very smart. But if I do the very same
thing, I attribute it to the situation: I need to get someone to the hospital,
or I’ve been overburdened today and I’m terribly behind, or I was distracted by
the horrible news I just received, or that yellow light really should be longer
at this intersection. But that other person – what a jerk!
Fundamental
Attribution Error is why you might think that racists are, in general, foul,
heartless people, while at the same time be forgiving of your racist uncle. The
way he thinks is absolutely wrong and hurtful, but you also understand the
place and era that he comes from, and you know the contradictory ways in which
he is also kind and benevolent. The racism is sin, to be sure, but the sin is
of one who got lost. He doesn’t need to be written off as evil. He needs to be
found.
It
is easy to say that other people sin because they are innately bad people who
make bad choices. It allows us to judge them, and it frees us from any
responsibility to address the systematic, structural problems that made it so
easy for them to get lost.
The
religious leaders grumble about Jesus welcoming sinners, sharing meals with
them, spending time with them. And when they grumble, tells three parables: the
parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin, and the parable of the
prodigal son, which is the grand finale of his response. These should really be
called the found parables: the found sheep, the found coin, the found son.
Together, they turn the whole discussion of sin on its head.
Yes,
sin is harmful and terrible, and we will resist it. But the way of resistance
is not to cut off people when they are lost - it’s too easy to do that. The way
of resistance to sin is to find them and bring them back. That’s the work of
reconciliation. It isn’t as easy, but it’s where the full power of almighty God
is at work, and that will surely be enough to find every lost coin, every lost
sheep, every lost child, and restore them to God’s family.
And
every time the lost is found, there is rejoicing, there is calling together of
friends and neighbors and a party is held. And at the very end of these
parables, there is the elder brother of the prodigal son, who sees the party
for his found brother, and grumbles about it. I can just picture Jesus weaving
this part of the story as the religious leaders listen. Are you grumbling
because I welcome sinners and eat with them? Don’t you see that these are your
brothers and sisters who are being found? Don’t you see that we’re having a
party here? Won’t you join us?
The
truth is that we are all lost, at different times and by varying degrees we are
all of us lost. The church isn't a place to look down on sinners, it's a place
for sinners who are lost and who are being found, again and again, by the
tenacious efforts of God who searches after us like a shepherd going after a
lost sheep, like a woman who lights all the lamps and turns the house upside
down. There are no 99 righteous persons with no need of repentance. We are all
that lost sheep, that lost coin, the lost child who doesn't think it possible
to deserve our Godly parent's love but gets it anyway.
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