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Boy Scout Tr #240

Scripture: Luke 15:1-10

Barbara Brown Taylor says that the fifteenth chapter of Luke could be called “the gospel within the gospel.” It begins with the two parables read today about the lost sheep and the lost coin and ends with the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Chapter 15 is about good news. Everything that was lost was found: the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son. And the result of the lost being found was so much joy that the partying goes on all night long. The good news in these stories is that God’s talent for finding us is much greater than our talent for getting lost, and this brings joy in heaven as well as on earth. It is the “gospel within the gospel;” good news within the good news.

I love these stories because not only do I lose things regularly, but I can imagine myself as the one who is lost. I am the poor, frightened, tired lamb draped across my dear redeemer’s shoulders so full of gratitude and relief that I vow never to wander away again. I am the precious coin that was dropped in some dark corner of the universe until the good woman who will not give up on me sweeps me into the light. These are stories about me, and I treasure them. Maybe you do, too, because they are stories about you.

However, in their original, historical context, I do not imagine these stories sounding like good news at all. Jesus was being criticized again, for the third time in Luke, by the Pharisees for spending time with sinners—you know, those people with leprosy, those tax collectors and women of ill repute. He not only talked with those sinners; he ate with them. Sharing the table with such people was in open defiance of Jewish dietary laws. He dined in their unclean houses. He responded to their hospitality. So, those sinners, needless to say, were fascinated by his treatment of them. Whatever Jesus had to say, they wanted to hear more. They drew near to him, while the Scribes and Pharisees are seething with rage.

Now, I think we modern, or should I say, post-modern people have a difficult time seeing what all the fuss was about. Jesus was being a good shepherd. Jesus was being a good home-maker—making sure every corner was swept and every one in his flock was accounted for. My compassionate heart goes out to all the unfortunate souls whose lives he touched. Besides, what is so terrible about a tax collector, or someone with a skin disease, or a woman on the street with a heart of gold? Nothing, if this is a nostalgic story about the past. But what if we dare to bring it to the present, to today’s world with real live people of today in it.

These stories need real characters—real Pharisees and real sinners brought face to face with a real Jesus. I can imagine Jesus with the homeless people on the streets of downtown Portland. I can imagine him in migrant worker camps. I can imagine him sitting eating breakfast at Elmers with a youth with baggy pants and a face pierced in several places, a young mother with tattoos showing, and a transvestite. I can also imagine that while they are having a good time, in walks a clergy coffee group. They sit down a couple of booths away from Jesus and his motley crew. Can you imagine the conversation at that booth?

“Is that who I think that is?” And they look around Elmers to see if any of their parishioners are there. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking.” “Yeah, I’m surprised they let them in here to eat.” “Gosh, what if he brings them to my church!” “Oh my gosh, I’m sure the offering would go down and I would lose members.” The booth Jesus is sitting at bursts out with laughter. “I wish he wouldn’t encourage them,” one of the clergy says. “I’m just glad I don’t have my kids with me today. How would I explain to them why Jesus is sitting over there and not with us? Sure, I could tell them that they need him more than we do. But, I would be afraid that they might get the message: that to be lost is to be precious in the sight of God, and that good behavior rates less joy in heaven than the so-called repentance going on at that booth over there. How do I tell my kids something like that? It would be like telling them to get lost.”

That was how it seemed to the Pharisee and scribes. They were God-fearing believers, devoted disciples who not only talked about their faith, they lived it. They gave God’s law their full respect. They were obedient, good people, choosing to live a life that was not easy. By example, they showed the people a way of life that was an alternative to the ways of the world. By example, they showed the people that it was possible and pleasing to live according to God’s will.

It’s not that they were uninterested in sinners. They believed they loved the sinner and hated the sin. And the way they showed that was to hold up a high standard, inviting sinners to live that high standard as well, and letting them know where they had fallen short. They challenged people to become the best they could be. Some people were able to rise to the challenge, and some weren’t. But there was nothing to be gained by mixing the two. The message was an appealing one. It made the rules clear. The righteous knew that they gave heaven much reason to rejoice. The sinners knew that they grieved the heart of God, that is, if God knew or cared who they were at all.

Then along came Jesus to mess up that nice, tidy, orderly system. Jesus started treating sinners like special cases, making them think that they were as important as other people. He socialized with them which was as good as condoning their behavior. He was stealing them of their motivation to do better. Why should they buy anything from the Pharisees that Jesus was giving away for free? All they had to do was wander aimlessly away from the flock, pursue their own whims, and the good shepherd would go off after them, leaving the ninety-nine to fend for themselves. That’s bad shepherding. In fact, that’s bad pastoral care. Worse yet, that’s bad theology! If you receive sinners and admonish the righteous—when the system is clearly set up to work the other way around—then, what will happen to the community of faith? What about the good people? What about the church? What about us?

So, are you starting to see that these two nice little parables about the lost and found are full of problems? According to Jesus, they are about heaven’s joy over one repentant sinner, but the lost sheep does not repent as far as I can tell and the lost coin certainly doesn’t. They are both simply found—not because either of them does anything right, but because someone is determined to find them and does. They are restored, thanks to God’s action, not their own. So, the question is, the question a Pharisee would ask is: where and when does repentance come into the equation?

Just what was Jesus up to? Was he just making it all up as he went along and got his wires a little crossed? Do his stories mean what he says they mean and we should not get hung up on the details? Did Jesus tell the stories exactly as we have them? Was Jesus content to let us figure them out for ourselves? Did editors come along who were so anxious about their open-endedness of these stories they added explanations so we would not misunderstand them? Or, are these parables not about the lost sheep and the lost coin at all, but parables about good shepherds and diligent sweepers?

Jesus said, “Which of you having a hundred sheep…..” He is not asking the Pharisees to imagine themselves as sheep. He is telling them to be the shepherd in the story, to leave their carefully tended flock in order to chase one, only one stray through the wilderness. Isn’t it interesting the way we listen to parables? Isn’t it interesting how we can find some way to wind up on the sheep’s end of things instead of the shepherd’s?

Are we willing to be the shepherd in the story? Because if we are, then the story begins to sound different. The accent on what Jesus said falls on a different syllable. Repentance is no longer the issue, rejoicing is. The plot is not about changing our evil ways but about seeking, sweeping, finding, rejoicing. The invitation is not about being rescued by Jesus over and over again, but about joining him in rounding up God’s herd and recovering God’s treasure. It is about questioning the idea that there are certain conditions the lost must meet before they are eligible to be found, or that there are certain qualities they must exhibit before we will seek them out. It is about trading in our high standards on a strong flashlight and swapping our “good examples” for a good broom. It is about discovering the joy of finding!

Margie Boule knows what I’m talking about, I’m sure. I read her column somewhat regularly in The Oregonian. Thursday’s column caught my attention, “Danny Hunt remembered more than just in passing,” the headline read. Danny Hunt was a homeless man who was killed because of a head injury from a bike collision. He had no obituary, just a brief news story. He was 56 years old and a transient. Danny was lost to his family and to the world. And it was clear that Danny wanted it that way. His death changed that. His family got word that he had died and attended his funeral. There were more than 75 people who attended. They brought flowers, the newspaper sports section because Danny loved sports, and their stories, wonderful stories of how Danny helped other homeless people and returned a purse he and his friend found in a dumpster that had $5,000 in it. Danny was a happy person, loved to smile, ride his bicycle, and be outdoors. Danny was on an errand for St. Francis church when he had his bike accident. His hospital room was filled with friends who prayed for him. He was a homeless person, but he was also a son, brother, grandson, nephew, cousin, uncle, and a friend who made a difference on this Earth. He was lost but now has been found. Danny Hunt was someone the good shepherd and deligent sweeper would have been seen looking for, someone Jesus would have been seen dining with.

Maybe some of us are destined to be shepherds and others of us to be lost sheep. Some of us work hard to find and stay found. Others seem to capitalize on staying lost. However, it is not up to us found people to judge those who are lost. Sometimes we who are sitting in the pews or standing up in front Sunday after Sunday would rather believe that the lost are not merely lost, but that they are bad people, because then we could write them off and save ourselves quite a bit of grief. It is so much easier to concentrate on the good people, the ones who want to be found, or who are busy finding others. I think about heaven ignoring those good, hard-working folks in favor of one sinner who finally says, “I’m sorry,” and I want to sue God for mercy.

Then I hear someone behind me who calls me by my name, whose big brown broom sweeps me into the light, who grabs me by the scruff of the neck, hauling me through the air and laying me across a pair of shoulders that smell of sweet grass and sunshine and home, and I am so surprised, and so relieved to be found that my heart feels like it is being broken into, broken open, while way off somewhere in the distance I hear the wild sound of angels rejoicing. Amen.

Amen.