"L" Words

14 Pentecost, Proper 19

11 Sept 2022

Based on Luke 15:1-10

It would be so easy to make today’s readings into a diatribe against sin and state how important it is we are found by, or find, Jesus. That, my friends, dummies down Christianity to a simplistic equation or formula for salvation. On the other hand, you do not need to master differential or integral calculus to understand Jesus and what he was teaching. That is good, because I never studied either form of calculus.

OK, forget math other than the whole is the sum of all its parts. ALL its parts! In the reign of God, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

How do we become whole? How do we, as individuals and as a society, become greater than the sum of our parts?

Easy, we remember the “L” words: listen and lost.

Jesus puts great stock in listening. He understands that often the one who hears and listens, as opposed to one who merely hears, is the one whom society rejects or who rejects society. Those who are oppressed understand their oppressors far better than the oppressor knows the oppressed. When he says, “those who have ears, listen…” he may be asking all of us to set aside our preconceived notions about lots of things and to abandon the certainty that we are right and understand the mind of God. It gets to the heart of why Jesus may have told these stories. Each of us has a mindset; we operate on a set of beliefs we consider right. Do we consider people with a different set of believes outside the pale? (Incidentally, the Pale was the area of Ireland controlled by England, so outside the Pale meant outside civilization! Literally it means outside the stake or fence.) So we set up barriers socially, religiously, politically, racially and ethnically, geographically and on and on. When it comes to religion, we many times set up barriers based on some litmus test of belief or behavior. Jesus was looking at people who set up litmus tests based on how Judaism should be practiced and how one interacted with Roman society. Let’s just lump those Jewish rejects as the tax collectors and the sinners. In our time we could call the groups mainline and evangelical or protestant and catholic. Divide things any way you want but divide them. He knew that one group was not listening to the other and that none were listening to God.

Then there is the whole thing about being lost. Lost is relative. I love getting lost in a book or losing track of time (as long as it doesn’t mean I disrespect someone else’s time) or getting lost in a project. I sometimes wonder if that sheep that disappeared hadn’t been enticed by the most wonderful pasture and the finest grass! Maybe that sheep was like me when I was kid playing outside and was nowhere to be found when it was time for lunch. Or my daughter when she would head off to the woods near our house and, as she was only two or three, I would start a frantic search for her. That is one kind of lost; it can be a halcyon sort of lost. You are in your own world and being separated is not dangerous or even wrong. Yet at some point you need to be part of the greater whole. Even Jesus could be said to have been lost at age 12 when his family realized they left him at the temple in Jerusalem.

There are other kinds of lost and these are the ones that concern Jesus. Lost as “sin” means lost be separating yourself from God. That, good people, takes in a whole lot of losses. You can be lost when you are in some way othered. We love to categorize folks. I think of all the ethnic terms, slurs actually, I heard when I was younger. Such an act is an easy way to place folks in the category of unworthy, not good like us. Those folks drink too much, laugh too much, eat strange food, are dirty, are the wrong religion, want to take over the world, and so on and so on. There are the sinners who conspire with the enemy. QAnon, Freemasons, all Catholics and, of course, the Jewish Space Laser Corps.

How about those who are abused to the point they truly feel lost? Or those who have committed wrongs against God or their fellow humans? The last group may be the first group we think about when we say “sin.”

I would like you to expand your idea of sin!! Now I had better explain myself. I think we often have too narrow a definition of sin and that it centers around personal moral behavior. When Jesus says sin, I think he means everything I just named. The entire ministry of Jesus was centered in the restoration of the reign of God to what was it was meant to be in the creation story. The lost are to be found and restored.

Each of us has a story of being lost. Ponder for a moment the times and the ways you have felt lost or alienated. I spent most of my 20’s not feeling the need or the presence of God in my life. Let’s just say I didn’t know I needed to be found. I was pretty happy in my own little world, but when an invitation to come to a worship service was extended, I took it and started on a gradual road to wherever it was that I was supposed to go. I still see myself as being on that road; not lost, but not yet there. I have a vision of many people walking down a road. Truth be told, it is not just people but others in God’s creation as well. Can’t see the end of the road; maybe there is no end. Like Dorothy heading to Oz, you stop along the way and pick up others who need to go to Oz, or wherever the road leads you. Like Holden Caulfield you want to be the catcher in the rye and save the children.

Our job, though, is not so much to save the Scarecrow and the Tin Man or the children, but rather to be there to embrace them. Our job is not to be God, but to be the heart and hands of God. We are here to embrace each other, to hold up each other and yet to be willing to venture beyond our comfortable place and embrace those whom we would rather not. If amazing grace saved wretches like us, should we not rejoice and celebrate the salvation of others? And should we not do all in our power, with the help of God, to keep others from the harms and perils of the world, as much as is in our power?

Jesus makes it abundantly clear it is God who saves: God the shepherd, God the woman with the coins. And we are the saved, but so much more.

Gods wants all of us, and I do mean all, to be part of the realm of God. So our job is to make sure the gate is not closed until the last sheep is in the fold.