Until the lost is found

Proper 19C
The Rev. Linda Campbell
Jeremiah 4: 11 – 12, 22-28; Psalm 14; 1 Timothy 1: 12- 17; Luke 15: 1 - 10
“Until the lost is found..”

A childhood friend of mine had a picture hanging in her room that is imprinted in my memory. It was a picture of Jesus walking through rugged countryside, off any pathway, with a lamb around his shoulders. The lamb looked so content and safe. My friend and I never talked about this picture – so I don’t know what she thought of it. But I thought that this lamb was one of the luckiest lambs in the world. Not really knowing this parable I didn’t realize that there were 99 other lambs probably wondering where Jesus went to!

When one child heard this morning’s gospel story and was "Would you go after the one lost sheep or stay with the ninety-nine?" the boy quickly responded, "I'd go after the one lost sheep, but I'd take the other ninety-nine with me."

I viscerally understand what this boy was feeling. Am I one of the 99? Am I the lost sheep? Which ever one I am, I want Jesus looking after me. And I don’t know about you, but for me, I really don’t think, 40 years later, that I’ve ever grown out of this feeling.

The little word “until” is enormous. The shepherd continues looking for the lost sheep until the sheep is located and rescued. The woman turns her house inside out until she locates the coin. The non-stop rescue effort, the non-stop searching is all out of proportion to any economic interest in the one sheep or the one coin. Until says that something else is operating here that has nothing to do with cost, or effort. What that something else is – is the absolute value that the shepherd places on that sheep; that the woman places on that coin; that God places on you and me and every other creature on this earth.

You and I are of infinite worth. You and I are worthy of non stop effort to locate us, each one of us, and find us, and carry us home. That is the heart and soul of the Gospel right there. Christ did not stay safe in heaven in infinite glory and beauty and loveliness, but in eternal creativity and generative liveliness, stepped out of heaven, into human form, and came to seek the lost, the lonely, the out of place. There is no falling through the cracks with God.

Of course it is not just you and I that God does this for. It is everyone else as well. Everyone else.

This was highly offensive in Jesus’ day, and it still is in ours. Jesus often concluded his teaching with let those who have ears to hear, hear. Now we find out who had the ears to hear. Not the regular folk, but the people who knew they were on the outside and who knew they had done wrong. Tax collectors were often greedy traitors to their own people, working for the Romans and skimming profit from their impoverished neighbors. “Sinners” cover a wide range of people – from the handicapped and ill and poor, to prostitutes and addicts. The good Pharisees grumbled not because Jesus was present at a dinner with these people. Feeding the hungry was not unknown in Jesus’ day. Giving a dinner for the fringe crowd was an act of mercy. No, the Pharisees grumbled because this holy man didn’t just bless the food and them as charitable folk. He sat down and ate and drank and laughed and talked with the entertainers, the serving women who were there to serve more than food, the hunched over people who drooled…. The people who were supposed to be the objects of charity were instead his friends and companions, and they listened to him eagerly, stretching their meager resources even thinner so that they could take the time off to be wherever he was.

The biblical scholars who pore over the gospels attempting to figure out what Jesus’ actual words were and what was added on later are one hundred percent positive that this open fellowship, this eating and drinking and partying and companionship that went across all social boundaries, was utterly characteristic of Jesus. And that whether or not Jesus told these stories in precisely this way or not, they are entirely accurate about how Jesus lived and what he was about.

The early church might have begun with this kind of ethic, but it didn’t take long for the ways of the world to creep in and begin to alter the characteristics of church life. And I would say, just looking around this morning, that while you and I might have quite a few hidden sins in our background, we are, for the most part, fairly upstanding citizens. Maybe not! Nevertheless, Jesus’ openness and love of all kinds of people is still a challenge. I don’t know about you, but there are some people for whom I have a hard time wondering why Jesus would plow through canyons and brambles and into the cold dark of night to find. But not just that – that all of heaven would party when they were found!

A Jewish story tells of the good fortune of a hardworking farmer. The Lord appeared to this farmer and granted him three wishes, but with the condition that whatever the Lord did for the farmer would be given double to his neighbor. The farmer, scarcely believing his good fortune, wished for a hundred cattle. Immediately he received a hundred cattle, and he was overjoyed until he saw that his neighbor had two hundred. So he wished for a hundred acres of land, and again he was filled with joy until he saw that his neighbor had two hundred acres of land. Rather than celebrating God's goodness, the farmer could not escape feeling jealous and slighted because his neighbor had received more than he. Finally, he stated his third wish: that God would strike him blind in one eye. And God wept.

The truth is that only those who can celebrate God's grace to others can experience that mercy themselves.

But before moving on to others, I want to talk about you and me. Do you really know that all of heaven parties for you? If not, I invite you to let yourself try that on. For some of us that is very hard. All the messages we received were that happiness was not for us. That there was, in fact, something suspect about joy. That hard work and sad repentance were the appropriate things to feel and do in God’s presence. And while Luke does gloss this story with words about repentance, the truth is the lamb knew nothing about repentance. The lost sheep really had nothing to do with being found. Well, maybe some bleating and calling out. Maybe getting so turned around that he eventually got tired and laid down. But the work of repentance is really just about stopping long enough that the shepherd can reach down and pick you up. Can find you and bring you back home. So try on the heaven parties for you idea.

Then I invite you to think of three other people whom you deeply desire to know God’s love and mercy and grace. Picture now, in your mind’s eye and in the warmth of your heart, several people for whom you would love to blow up the balloons and bake the cakes and break out the best champagne and sparkling waters. Pray for them without ceasing. Without giving up. Without ever giving up.

And now I invite you to think of someone for whom you would not want to bake a cake for, or blow up balloons, or in any active way celebrate the fact that God is utterly in love with them too. Ask God’s help to accept that eternal, heavenly and earthly fact of mercy and grace and love for everyone. That you both are feted by the angels. That infinite worth extends to every single human being.

And finally, I invite you to picture yourself, equipped with a strong flashlight and a sturdy broom. Because that’s what entry into the kingdom of heaven gets you! A party. A flashlight for finding the lost in the dark and the gloom. And a broom for sweeping out the cobwebs and the dirt and recovering God’s treasured souls.

You and I aren’t called to be the lost sheep found over and over again. Jesus’ challenge, in Barbara Brown Taylor’s words, *"is to join him in rounding up God’s herd and recovering God’s treasure. Our calling is to discover the joy of finding. We are called to the exquisite care of searching out and the infinite joy of finding. After we have been the lost and the found, we ourselves are to discover the joy of being good shepherds and diligent sweepers."

Resource:
*Barbara Brown Taylor