Year C
September 15, 2019
Luke 15:1-10
Our Gospel text today is likely familiar to most of us. As I get older and I’ve reencountered this text – seemingly a million times, I find myself questioning the text (and myself) a bit more. Would I really abandon 99 sheep do go find one lost one? The way Jesus tells the story and asks the question, it sounds like the answer is an obvious yes. However, well, sheep aren’t known as the smartest creatures on the planet. If I leave the 99 to find the one, what will the 99 do? Unlike my beloved Ginger pup, sheep are not likely to just stand there and anxiously await my return. (And, the text doesn’t say what happens to the 99 – just that the shepherd threw the sheep over his shoulders, rejoices. When he goes home, he celebrates with his family and friends). So said another way, if I go to look for the one lost sheep, how many more lost sheep would I return to? A “smart” and logical shepherd would take his losses and protect the 99.
And how in the world, does a shepherd, know that one sheep is missing in a crowd of 100 sheep? There’s a reason, I don’t typically count how many of you all join us on a given weekend. First, I’m leading worship. But in a crowd, I easily lose track of my count. Oh, no, I think I counted Bonnie twice. Did I get Avery in my count? She kinda pops in and out of my view. (I’m very grateful to our wonderful ushers who do get a good count of who is here each week!) Then, how did the sheep get lost in the first place? Again, sheep aren’t known as the smartest creatures, did it just wander off? Did someone or something chase it off? There’s a cartoon, that I love, that goes around social media periodically from David Hayward, known as the Naked Pastor (I think I even shared it a few months back on my own FB page). In the cartoon, Jesus is walking back to his flock with the lost sheep, painted with beautiful rainbow stripes. One of the 99 responds, “Woah! Woah! Woah! Hold it right there! He wasn’t lost. We kicked him out.” A coin… How does it get lost? It only gets lost if I misplace it. It doesn’t jump out of my purse or my coin jar and make its way under my couch.
Recently, I read a book, One Coin Found: How God’s Love Stretches to the Margins, written by the Rev. Emmy Kegler. This book changed how I interact with and hear today’s Gospel reading. Pastor Emmy is an ELCA pastor in Minneapolis, MN, a young adult, and a part of the LGBTQIA+ community. Just a brief statement about the book, in general, it is a powerful read; Pastor Emmy has this way of weaving in her story and the Gospel of Jesus that has been such a part of her life in moving and empowering ways. Her writing immediately pulled me in, almost as if she was talking directly to me. The book, as indicated by the title, draws from and centers itself on the Gospel readings for this Sunday – what many call the “lost” chapter of the Bible. We get the parable of the lost sheep, followed by the parable of the lost coin, followed by the parable of the lost (or prodigal) son – which was left out of today’s gospel reading. It is her story of being found and the God who found her and loved her for who she is.
Pastor Emmy writes:
“This story is for us. We are the prodigal son. But too we are lost and hungry sheep. We have gone unfed, walked without rest, been chased by wolves, and our friends and leaders did not see our pain…We too are lost and dusty coins. We have gone unnoticed, rusted from others’ indifference, misspent and misused, and our friends and leaders did not see our neglect” (Kegler, 8).
Her point is: we all likely have been like the lost sheep or a dusty coin from time to time. Whether we find ourselves away from the fold because we wondered off, whether we find ourselves away from the fold because we were hungering for something and went off looking for whatever might satisfy that hunger, whether we find ourselves away from the fold because a predator chased us out and we fled in fear, in self-preservation, whether we find ourselves away from the fold because the very people that were supposed to love and nurture us kicked us out, deeming us unworthy. Whether we find ourselves lost after years of feeling invisible, unappreciated, used. This story is for us.
Pastor Emmy continues:
“But God, in big and little ways has donned a shepherd’s cloak and come running after us. God, in big and little ways, has clambered over rocks and climbed down cliffs. God has found us, hungrier and more hurt and terrified, and cradled us close to say: no matter why you left of where you went, you are mine… But God, in big and little ways, has picked up a woman’s broom and swept every corner of creation. God, in big and little ways, has tucked up her skirts and flattened herself on the floor, dug through dust bunnies and checked every dress pocket. God has found us, dustier and without any luster, and held us up to the light to say: No matter how you rolled away or what corner you were dropped in, you are mine” (Kegler, 8)
This is the good news of the passage today. What the parables actually describe isn’t “repentance.” The sheep don’t realize that they’re lost and turn around and return to the fold. The coin doesn’t jump back where the woman keeps her coins. No. Instead, the parables describe the unrelenting, stubborn act of a God who is not willing to give up on even one of God’s beloved children. So, contrary to logic and good sense, God goes after the one lost sheep, and does whatever it takes to bring that one sheep back. If God returns, carrying the lost sheep home, and finds that another has run off, God will search for that one too. God’s love, God’s mercy, God’s grace keeps searching for each person who is lost. God goes to the darkest, dirtiest, most dangerous places, searching and searching to bring people home. In Jesus, we meet a God that is absolutely committed to doing whatever it takes – even experience death on a cross – to have relationship and reconciliation with each and every one of us – and each and every one of God’s beloved children.
Today, God says to each one of us who were lost – you are mine. Nothing, not the things that make you who you are – your relationship status, your sexuality, your gender orientation, the color of your skin –, nor the things that the society around do to try to convince you that you don’t belong or are less than others, nor the voices inside that may try to tell you that you aren’t enough, not your mistakes, not your wanderings – none of these things can separate you from the love of God that we’ve found in Christ Jesus. God loves you – as you are – because of who God is. This God is one that we have met in Jesus, the one who risks even death on a cross for the world that God so loves. And today, the Gospel is that in the best and the worst times of life, God will keep searching for you.
We are found. We are found by the love of God. This love is for you. This love is for me. This love is for all people. Our God is one that knows you (and knows me) better than we can know ourselves – knows our joys and our hurts, our successes and our failures, what we choose to show the world about ourselves, and the things that we keep deep inside. This is a God that knows our sin. And this is a God that loves us anyway. Fully, completely, unconditionally. God cherishes you and treasures you. It is a love that says: you are worthy of being found. We don’t earn it. But yet this is a love that is close, that does not abandon us, but searches for us, walks beside us, envelops us, carries us. It is a love that we can place our trust in. It is a love that invites us to see ourselves as God sees us – as beloved children of God; and a love that invites us to see all the people (in their wonderful diversity) around us as God sees them – as beloved children of God. It is a love that invites us to live into the people God intends us to be: loved people who love other people. We have a God, who in the words of my beloved Hebrew Bible seminary prof, God’s answer to God’s people is always a loud and resounding yes. An affirmation of both who we are (as we are) and whose we are.It is a love that invites us into an imperfect yet holy community that forms the body of Christ in this world. A community that, at its best, reminds us and shows us that we are beloved (even when we struggle to see that ourselves). It is a community that, at its best, reminds us that we are not alone. It is a community that, at its best, rejoices along with Jesus, and welcomes people into the fold – exactly as they are. It is a community that comes around the font and the table – receiving God’s gifts and hearing God’s word of forgiveness, splashing in the water that unites us with Christ’s death and resurrection, feasting on the bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ – together. And it is a community that, at its best, lives out the love and forgiveness that we first received from God.
This story is for us. But this story is for others too – others who are wandering, who are hungering, who have fled, who have been kicked out, who have been told that they’re unworthy, who have gone unnoticed – by society, by the church, or perhaps even by us. Who might be lost – in this community, in society, in the wider church? Who might need to hear the Gospel that they are loved, they are redeemed, as they are? Who might need to hear God’s resounding yes for them? Because we are found, we get to find others. Because we are loved, we get to share that love with others. Walter Brueggemann puts it this way, “hope in God’s promises is not passive but demandingly active… Hope is not optimism or a wish or a good idea. It is a way of living differently in the world.” It is about living into the world that we know God intends for us. It is a call to see others as God sees us – as broken yet beloved children of God. It is a call to pick up the rocks, to sweep away the dust – hatred, homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, poverty, – whatever harms our neighbors and pushes them away. Today, we live into the hope of God’s promises, trusting that we are found by the Grace and love of God through Jesus, by being part of God’s search party and finding others, and rejoicing with God when we are all found.
Amen
Kegler, Emmy. One Coin Found: How God's Love Stretches to the Margins. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2019.
Brueggemann, Walter. "The Company of the Unafraid: Ten ways God's peculiar hope keeps fear from overpowering us." Sojourners. July 2019. https://sojo.net/magazine/july-2019/company-unafraid.
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