Luke’s Gospel has an overarching theme, the lost need to be found. Whether it is a sheep, a coin or a son, what have drifted or stomped away needs to be sought. We are as a church are in the rescue business. Today’s sermon is not about the prodigal son, a tale many of us can relate to first hand and one that makes many families angry. Of all the Biblical stories I have heard read in church none elicits the negative, almost hostile, reaction as that one. I remember one oldest daughter standing at the back of the church, after everyone had long since left for the Hall, ranting and raving, “How dare that father give a party for that no-good ingrate of a son when the good son, the eldest son, who worked hard and played by the rules, he got nothing!” Would it surprise you to know that woman was the eldest of three adult children?
But I am happy this morning to be focused on the first two examples of loss in Luke’s 15th chapter. It is one thing to loss a family member to disagreements, hurt feelings and bitter arguments but it’s another thing to lose a sheep or a coin. It’s less personal, even if the shepherd does love her sheep, there can be no comparison between losing a sheep in one’s flock and losing a family member. But what I like about this story is the lack of a specific relationship that triggers the search. A sheep is missing, a coin is lost, we need to look and we need to travel wherever necessary, get down on our knees, and desperately search. But the requirement is not all laid upon the father or the parent. The call to rescue is laid at our feet as a church.
I remember a funeral I was asked to help plan in Toronto. The funeral director called, he explained this one would be “a little different”. He explained there was no immediate family, not that he knew of anyway. No relations had contacted him when the obituary was published. But several persons did drop in, buddies this man had made while living on the streets. They wanted to tell the director about their friend. They called themselves family. I met this band of buddies at a local coffee shop. They described how they had met their friend many years ago, he was alone, and they all decided he needed some sisters and brothers. I remember one woman who said, “He looked like one of those match book covers, all crumpled up on the ground. I just felt I needed to walk over and pick him up.”
Sometimes we as a church need to do that. Sometimes when we meet someone, not necessarily someone down and out, maybe even someone quite affluent in terms of income and possessions, but someone alone and drifting, we need to “walk over and pick them up.”
Note that in the previous chapter 14 Luke’s Gospel Jesus describes the kingdom of God as a banquet where the invitations keep extending beyond the original guest list: to the “poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” (14:1-24). Note that in all three examples of rescuing the lost in Luke 15 events conclude with feasts.
The shepherd and the woman in these stories evoke images of a God who not only actively seeks out individuals who are lost -- note the emphasis on the “one” out of the ninety-nine and the ten -- but also rejoices when they are found. This God is not a tyrant who demands subservience to impossible demands, but rather a God who actively seeks restoration. In these stories, the drama centres on something that was lost. So what happens when the sheep or the lost coin are found? Note that the verb here has to do not with forgiving but with finding. The Greek word for “find” (eurisko) occurs seven times in the chapter. When the sheep or lost coin is found, no comment is made on any sinful behavior (as in the stories of Levi, Zaccheus, and the sinful woman), but a connection is made between God’s finding and rejoicing over what was lost. There is clear sense of priority here, find the one who is lost first, rejoice second, feast third. Confession and repentance are important part of the Christian story but in these stories they take a back seat to the searching and the rejoicing.
Luke does not laud the behavior of sinners. Tax collectors were corrupt, dishonest, and had colluded with the Roman Empire. By contrast, the Pharisees and scribes who are agitated with the company Jesus keeps, are the “not lost” of the story. At issue here are two different types of responses to Jesus and God’s reign. Sinners repent because they know they are lost and thus can avail themselves of the transformation that comes with God’s finding them. By contrast, the righteous do not need to repent (or change their ways) presumably because they don’t think they are lost. They don’t need God to find them; they are justified either in their own eyes or in the eyes of others. Jesus seems to judge these leaders less for their conduct or righteousness but rather for their indifference to those whom are lost.
Note one aspect of the setting: "All the tax collectors and sinners were drawing near in order to hear him" (15:1). Sage preachers will ask, "Why? What is it about Jesus that attracts tax collectors and sinners to him?" Here we want to avoid vain romanticism about Jesus' winsome personality and follow Luke's lead instead. Luke provides a mixed message: Jesus seeks to bring sinners to repentance (5:32), but not once does Jesus actually scold or correct a sinner.
Finally, let us attend to the role of meals. If we take on the risk of naming today's "sinners" and then welcoming them, words alone do not suffice. There is the matter of setting a table -- literally, not figuratively. Table hospitality reveals and breaks down the boundaries of human relationships.
What is described is not their “repentance” at all, but the absolute commitment of the person to finding them again. Action verbs predominate for the shepherd, and not the sheep: leave, go after, finds, lays it on his shoulders, rejoices, comes home, and calls together his friends. The same holds for the woman: light a lamp, sweep the house, search carefully, finds, and calls together her friends. The parallels here show that the emphasis is on the finding and the one committed to find the otherwise hapless lost sheep and passive lost coin. As near as I can tell, neither lost sheep or lost coins can really repent.
I firmly believe a church cannot live out its mission unless it knows what its mission is. I remember one Elder in a former church telling me his definition of the church’s mission, “to make good people better people…” I suspect he speaks for many in the mainline church. There are times when the evangelical Christian is trying to convert me to believe exactly what s/he believes. I tire of these interactions, it is clearly less about saving or rescuing and more about one person’s experience and certainty and the need to compel others into agreement. Most often I discover in these conversations the evangelical is not trying to tell me about the Good News of Jesus, s/he just wants me to agree with her/him. But one thing I do admire about this ethos, it is a mission based on reaching out to others and inviting them “home”. I wish we in the mainline church were less about making good people better and more about bringing those who are alone into our community of faith.
For me the mission of the church is to search and find. We need not be like the father who waits for the son, we can be like a shepherd who finds a lost sheep from another flock or a woman who finds a coin lost by someone else who lives nearby. It is not up to kin or close friends or the government to find, it is also up to the church. I know you are good but my passion every day I come to Bethany is not to make you better but to work with you to find the lost and invite them home.
And here’s the thing. With every lost brother and sister who calls our church home Bethany changes and changes for the better. Every new person makes us different, more welcoming, more diverse, more interesting, and more able to welcome the next new brother and sister. And don’t wait on me or the Elders or the ushers to be that searching woman, that searching shepherd. The mission to find the lost and invite them home belongs to all of us!
Praise be to God who invites us to the Table, who invites us to invite others and who is present most fully when the Table is full of invited guests whom we now call family. Amen.