Sunday: 16th Sunday after Pentecost 19C
Reading: Luke 15:1-10
Preacher: Peter C. Lane

The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost [19C]
Peter C. Lane
Luke 15:1-10

"Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost." "Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost." Jesus is once again eating with sinners, offending the scribes and the Pharisees. So Jesus tells them the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. He tells how a shepherd, foolishly it seems, leaves the 99 sheep to search for that one that was lost. His imprudence pays off and he throws the sheep over his shoulders in joy. The shepherd gets so happy, he invites all his friends and neighbors over, probably slaughters the very sheep he went searching for and has a great feast of lamb and mint jelly. In the second parable, a woman searches every crevice of her house for a lost coin. Then in celebration for having found it, she uses the money to buy pizza and beer celebrating with her friends and neighbors. These parables of Jesus speak to the foolish generosity, the overabundant love, the profuse benevolence of God. Our God seeks high and low for each of us, throws caution to the wind to find us in our waywardness, throws inaugural balls for every single one of us, even the tax collectors and sinners. Our youngest children start their Christian formation today in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd-what a wonderful place to start! Teach them early about a God who goes all out for the lost, who puts every effort into reuniting, whose radical hospitality seems almost frivolous to the uninitiated. It really is reason to rejoice.

The parables do not stand on their own however. Luke has Jesus give one-sentence explanations after both parables. After the sheep is found and the rejoicing is over, Jesus says, "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." After the coin is found and the party has ended, Jesus says, "Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." What is this talk of sinners and repenting? How does a foolishly generous God go together with the reality of sin? In this passage, famous for its exquisite picture of a loving and generous God, the word sinner shows up four times. Hmmm.

I'm a sinner. And by that I mean that I miss the mark. I am not all that God created me to be. It means that I don't use my freedom "to love, to create, to reason, and to live in harmony with creation and with God." Because of that I distort relationships. That is the wages of sin-distorted relationships. My sinfulness, my waywardness means that my relationship with myself, my body, my family, my community, my earth, and my God are all bent, all deformed in some way. All of us must be aware of this disjointed character of our lives. Examples abound. Our relationship with the earth is so broken, it's hard to go sledding anymore. Our relationship with our bodies is messed up- we either overfeed them or over glamorize them. Our relationships with ourselves?! As part of the process of being ordained, I was asked to see a psychologist to work through the disorientation within myself. And we all know that our most intimate relationships, our marriages and partnerships take a lot of work. Our seeking after our own wills distorts relationships. The sheep that the shepherd was searching for was lost, was disoriented, was wayward. Is that not true about parts of ourselves?

C.S. Lewis, in his great little book "The Screwtape Letters" imagines a correspondence between two rather erudite little devils. The older and wiser Screwtape advices the young Wormwood, "Do remember that you are there to fuddle him." Fuddle! That's what sin does. Sin is not a list of moral rights and wrongs. No dancing, no smoking, no illegally downloading Elton John's ‘Candle in the Wind.' No. Sin is being fuddled, it is a waywardness from the lives we were created to live. But sin is not the last word. We talk of sin only in the context of God's forgiveness. Talking about sin can open our eyes to God's searching and the possibility of transformation. For God is working to reorient the world towards more abundant possibilities.

Those possibilities do need some work on our part. For there is joy when one sinner repents. Repentance. It's funny, because the sheep didn't repent, did it? Certainly the coin didn't repent. It only makes sense when we know that the repentance theme looks forward to the next 22 verses in Luke-the story of the prodigal son. That son who treated his father like dirt did have to consider repentance before returning to an amazing reception of love. For us to enjoy that reception, for us to live the full lives that God intends, we must open our eyes, we must repent.

We do that here. Each week we show our awareness of the gap between the broken relationships we have and the even more life giving relationships we might have. We do our repenting in a number of ways in the liturgy, but one place where it is so clear is in the Eucharistic prayer. Let me summarize the portion of our Eucharistic prayer that comes immediately after the Holy, Holy, Holy. Then, when we get there in the service you can pay close attention. The prayer says:

A Gracious God formed us in her own image and calls us to dwell in her infinite love. But we fail to honor God's image in one another and in ourselves; we will not see God's goodness in the world around us; and so we violate the created order, abuse one another, and reject God's love. Yet God never ceases to care for us.
God's history proves this. Through Abraham and Sarah God called God's people into covenant. God delivered from slavery, sustained in the wilderness, and raised up prophets to renew the promise of salvation. Then, God sent Jesus. Jesus revealed God's glory. When Jesus gave himself freely to death on the cross, he triumphed over evil, and opened the way of freedom and life.

Can you imagine the rejoicing in heaven, the joy in the presence of the angels of God when we pray that together? The whole lot of us, acknowledging our waywardness, opening ourselves to the foolish generosity, the overabundant love, the profuse benevolence of God. Turning from disorientation and seeing with new eyes, we will perceive the brokenness of our relationships with ourselves, our communities, the earth and God. Realizing that we have missed the mark, we can strive to live in harmony with humanity and God. When Jesus ate with sinners, this must have been what he hoped for. "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost." "Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost."
AMEN.