Sunday Sermon Sep 12 2010
We are the sheep we are the coin. For some it is the question of what the Bible is about. Is the Bible about our humanity, is it the story of who we are as God’s created people or is the Bible fundamentally about God, and God’s actions in history on behalf of God’s people? Is today’s Gospel about our response, stop running away from God, hiding from God, and open our hearts to God who is searching for us always, who is looking for us all the time and who loves us with reckless abandon? God is the shepherd, God is the woman, searching for us, looking for us while we wait, hidden, and hoping to be found.
My hesitation with this interpretation of the Gospel comes in light of the Gospel we read weeks ago, about Jesus’ commissioning the disciples to go into towns before him, to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal, to me this sounds not unlike what this shepherd was doing, not unlike what this woman did to find her lost coin. We are called to be missionaries; we are called to heal the world, we are called to care for those we meet along our journeys of faith.
We are called by the Spirit to participate in God’s work in the world, work that is already happening. Sheep and coins can not repent, and that is where the rub is for me. Sheep and coins cannot do much at all in these stories when it comes to the repentance we are called to do. So that is why I wonder if we are not being told, in these parables to be the shepherd, to be the woman, to take on the character of Christ and reach out to those who are lost, to turn over every nook and cranny until we find those people who are desperately seeking community, seeking love, seeking to be returned to the heart of God. I am not so sure it is wise to wait for God to come to us.
I do believe, however, that the Bible is a story about God, in fact, I preach all the time, that at the center of who we are, at the core of our being lies God, God is at work in us, the Spirit is flowing and blowing through us and we are responding as Christ did, preaching and healing. Without God, we are nothing. But what I also believe is that we are partners with God, we are partners with God, and God desires our participation in the work God has been about for generations. We must search, we must go out and seek God’s hand, to be led and guided by God’s love for each of us.
Affirming this idea, I stumbled across a wonderful quote: “Neither sheep nor coins can repent, but the parable aims not at calling the “sinner” to repentance but at calling the “righteous” to join the celebration. Whether one will join the celebration is all-important because it reveals whether one’s relationships are based on merit or mercy.” That is what this Gospel is about, are we going to join in the celebration or are we going to sit on sidelines feeling self righteous and as if we didn’t get what we deserved?
Jesus was not asking the Pharisees in this Gospel to be a bit more generous with people, he was not asking them to be more nice, he was saying something along the lines of “There is a party at 2PM today and you’re invited, come join us, celebrate for what was once lost has been found.” Jesus was challenging the Pharisees, the authorities and therefore, all of us, are our relationships with others based on merit or mercy. Of course, if you were wondering, the answer should be: mercy.
Barbara Brown Taylor wrote, “In a culture that sanctions every individual's right to seek his or her own path to perfection, self-righteousness can seem only an irritating character flaw. One person decides that steaming vegetables is the responsible way to eat and turns pale when her friends order meat. Someone else discovers the aerobic benefits of running and begins to badger all his sedentary friends. We all do it on some level. We find something that gives us life and we want everyone else to have it too. We want to share the good we have found, whether it is as simple as a new way of losing weight or as profound as a new way of approaching God.” Jesus has a relatively easy time with sinners, as their hearts are already broken; it is the righteous, hearts like bank vaults, which are the trouble.
When I first came to Minneapolis, not knowing much about the city, I was looking up some good places to go for a drink. We play soccer, as many of you know, in the gym, and it is a good thing to go for a beer after three hours of soccer. I stumbled across a wonderful article in the New York Times, that for some reason had highlighted The Local and Brits Pub as part of some kind of nationwide Pub crawl. It said, “A good pub is a ready made party, a home away from home, a club anyone can join.” I believe we should substitute Church for pub.
A good Church is a ready made party, a home away from home, club anyone can join. It works, doesn’t it? Church is a place to celebrate, to experience joy, to experience the wonderful feeling of what it is to be found, to be loved, to be celebrated. If we say, “We don’t party, or we don’t party with a certain kind of people.” Then we have lost our livelihood, and lost our perspective on what it means to be a follower of Christ, a hearer of the Good News, the Gospel. I am not saying that Church should be all fun and happy clappy, on the contrary, as I have said the last few weeks, being a Christian is hard work.
The hard work of being a Christian was never made more clear to me than last night, watching, on the History Channel, raw footage of the World Trade Center attacks of 9 years ago. The first instinct for people with loved ones near the area of ground zero, for people with friends and colleagues in the buildings or near them, the first instinct, every time, was to go search for folks they could not find. To re-enter the danger, that horror, to search for those who were lost. Where barriers were set up preventing people from doing so, you could see hearts ripped out, tears flowing like rivers, mouths open in a constant yell or scream in the hopes for some kind of response.
At the core of our being is God, a God who desires to participate in life with us. Always. Not just when we feel like we want God to join us, but always, in the places where we search dangerously for those who are lost, in the places where we are refused the chance to search. God is constantly on the lookout for those who are lost, and asks us, people who have not yet been fully healed, and maybe not fully found, but found enough, people who can hear God’s saving voice in our souls, God is asking us all, gathered here today to reach out in love to those who are lost. Reach out not on anything based on merit, but rather entirely based on mercy. In mercy we see joy, in merit, we see only darkness and separation.
So what will it be, will it be? A celebration with a great feast, or a sulking, miserable dinner in the corner? Will it be a feast of joy or will it be ash in our mouths from jealousy and pride? Will it be simply good feelings remembering what has happened in the past, and the pride it gives, or will it be the seeking of a guiding hand, one that when found, fills our heart with rejoicing, with singing for what was once lost has been found.
My hesitation with this interpretation of the Gospel comes in light of the Gospel we read weeks ago, about Jesus’ commissioning the disciples to go into towns before him, to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal, to me this sounds not unlike what this shepherd was doing, not unlike what this woman did to find her lost coin. We are called to be missionaries; we are called to heal the world, we are called to care for those we meet along our journeys of faith.
We are called by the Spirit to participate in God’s work in the world, work that is already happening. Sheep and coins can not repent, and that is where the rub is for me. Sheep and coins cannot do much at all in these stories when it comes to the repentance we are called to do. So that is why I wonder if we are not being told, in these parables to be the shepherd, to be the woman, to take on the character of Christ and reach out to those who are lost, to turn over every nook and cranny until we find those people who are desperately seeking community, seeking love, seeking to be returned to the heart of God. I am not so sure it is wise to wait for God to come to us.
I do believe, however, that the Bible is a story about God, in fact, I preach all the time, that at the center of who we are, at the core of our being lies God, God is at work in us, the Spirit is flowing and blowing through us and we are responding as Christ did, preaching and healing. Without God, we are nothing. But what I also believe is that we are partners with God, we are partners with God, and God desires our participation in the work God has been about for generations. We must search, we must go out and seek God’s hand, to be led and guided by God’s love for each of us.
Affirming this idea, I stumbled across a wonderful quote: “Neither sheep nor coins can repent, but the parable aims not at calling the “sinner” to repentance but at calling the “righteous” to join the celebration. Whether one will join the celebration is all-important because it reveals whether one’s relationships are based on merit or mercy.” That is what this Gospel is about, are we going to join in the celebration or are we going to sit on sidelines feeling self righteous and as if we didn’t get what we deserved?
Jesus was not asking the Pharisees in this Gospel to be a bit more generous with people, he was not asking them to be more nice, he was saying something along the lines of “There is a party at 2PM today and you’re invited, come join us, celebrate for what was once lost has been found.” Jesus was challenging the Pharisees, the authorities and therefore, all of us, are our relationships with others based on merit or mercy. Of course, if you were wondering, the answer should be: mercy.
Barbara Brown Taylor wrote, “In a culture that sanctions every individual's right to seek his or her own path to perfection, self-righteousness can seem only an irritating character flaw. One person decides that steaming vegetables is the responsible way to eat and turns pale when her friends order meat. Someone else discovers the aerobic benefits of running and begins to badger all his sedentary friends. We all do it on some level. We find something that gives us life and we want everyone else to have it too. We want to share the good we have found, whether it is as simple as a new way of losing weight or as profound as a new way of approaching God.” Jesus has a relatively easy time with sinners, as their hearts are already broken; it is the righteous, hearts like bank vaults, which are the trouble.
When I first came to Minneapolis, not knowing much about the city, I was looking up some good places to go for a drink. We play soccer, as many of you know, in the gym, and it is a good thing to go for a beer after three hours of soccer. I stumbled across a wonderful article in the New York Times, that for some reason had highlighted The Local and Brits Pub as part of some kind of nationwide Pub crawl. It said, “A good pub is a ready made party, a home away from home, a club anyone can join.” I believe we should substitute Church for pub.
A good Church is a ready made party, a home away from home, club anyone can join. It works, doesn’t it? Church is a place to celebrate, to experience joy, to experience the wonderful feeling of what it is to be found, to be loved, to be celebrated. If we say, “We don’t party, or we don’t party with a certain kind of people.” Then we have lost our livelihood, and lost our perspective on what it means to be a follower of Christ, a hearer of the Good News, the Gospel. I am not saying that Church should be all fun and happy clappy, on the contrary, as I have said the last few weeks, being a Christian is hard work.
The hard work of being a Christian was never made more clear to me than last night, watching, on the History Channel, raw footage of the World Trade Center attacks of 9 years ago. The first instinct for people with loved ones near the area of ground zero, for people with friends and colleagues in the buildings or near them, the first instinct, every time, was to go search for folks they could not find. To re-enter the danger, that horror, to search for those who were lost. Where barriers were set up preventing people from doing so, you could see hearts ripped out, tears flowing like rivers, mouths open in a constant yell or scream in the hopes for some kind of response.
At the core of our being is God, a God who desires to participate in life with us. Always. Not just when we feel like we want God to join us, but always, in the places where we search dangerously for those who are lost, in the places where we are refused the chance to search. God is constantly on the lookout for those who are lost, and asks us, people who have not yet been fully healed, and maybe not fully found, but found enough, people who can hear God’s saving voice in our souls, God is asking us all, gathered here today to reach out in love to those who are lost. Reach out not on anything based on merit, but rather entirely based on mercy. In mercy we see joy, in merit, we see only darkness and separation.
So what will it be, will it be? A celebration with a great feast, or a sulking, miserable dinner in the corner? Will it be a feast of joy or will it be ash in our mouths from jealousy and pride? Will it be simply good feelings remembering what has happened in the past, and the pride it gives, or will it be the seeking of a guiding hand, one that when found, fills our heart with rejoicing, with singing for what was once lost has been found.
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