Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28 | Psalm 14 | 1 Timothy 1:12-17 | Luke 15:1-10
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It is good to be with you all here this morning. I drove down from Hendersonville, where I live, bright and early. I got on 64, came across the top of a hill, and was able to see that the fog had settled in over some of the hills there, with the sun coming up. It was a beautiful, beautiful way to begin the morning.
It was good to be with the folks at the earlier service, and I’m glad to be here with you today to reflect upon these Gospel texts, these two parables, which are more than likely familiar to you—particularly the first of the set, the parable of the lost sheep.
This is a parable that reinforces the imagery of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. Jesus, the shepherd, asks in response to the grumbling of the Pharisees: Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and having lost one, would not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness to go and search for the one?
Jesus is responding to the frustrations and concerns of some of the religious people of the day, who see his ministry as not taking properly into account the character of the people with whom he associates. He eats with tax collectors and sinners. Their concern is about the fact that someone who claims to be a teacher of the faith, someone whom people are saying is sent from God, would act in this way. And it makes them unhappy.
And Jesus hears their grumbling, and in response, as he often does, he tells a parable.
Now, just to clearly identify what a parable is: some academics will say that a parable is defined as a story that has one point. And the folks who hold this view tend to discourage us from trying to look at a parable as an analogy or a metaphor, and from trying to find different things and look at it in different ways.
I’m actually not completely convinced that a parable is only a story with one point. I think parables have one motivation, and they’re trying to get across one main point, but I think that we can fruitfully examine the facets of parables in Scripture, just as we can fruitfully examine other parts of Scripture and come away with a renewed sense of what it is God is communicating to us and who God is calling us to be.
And I think that’s something that’s going on in these two parables.
They both have, I think, a direct message, which is about the value of each one of us to God. But they have some assumptions that underlie them as well—assumptions that are important for us to understand if we’re to really get the full force of those main points.
So one of the assumptions, I would say, is revealed at the end of the first parable, the parable of the lost sheep. That is when Jesus says there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who have no need of repentance.
So those who would say that there’s only one point to a parable, and don’t reflect on it further, might stop at the sense that the Good Shepherd—God in the flesh, Jesus—is actually embodying this parable. Jesus is seeking out the lost sheep.
But they might stop there. And there’s another important aspect.
I wonder how many of you, in the course of your lives, have ever met a representative of this obscure group of people represented by the ninety-nine—the folks who have no need of repentance. Have you all ever met anyone who has no need of repentance?
I can’t say that I’ve met one, let alone ninety-nine.
And I’ve met some holy people, some people that I greatly respect. And one of the aspects, actually, of their holiness, I think, is their readiness to admit wrongdoing, sin; their willingness to admit that they have reacted too harshly, too quickly, that they maybe have not listened to others the way they should.
In fact, I would say that sort of humility is part and parcel of holiness.
I think Jesus may be having a little bit of fun with the Pharisees who are talking about the fact that he eats with sinners. And, of course, they’re not thinking about the meals that they throw at their houses when they say this—the meals that Jesus may have attended. They’re thinking about those other folks, the tax collectors and whatever other lists they would make.
And Jesus, I think in a kind way, in a positive way, is highlighting for them and for us the love that God has for God’s people, for all people.
Jesus wants us to understand that the actions of a shepherd who would leave ninety-nine sheep in the wilderness in search of one who has gone astray—and as the prophet Isaiah reminds us, “all we like sheep have gone astray”—that the actions of that sort of shepherd are illustrative of the love that God has for us.
And I think it’s funny the way Jesus phrases the question to the Pharisees: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and having lost one, would not do this?”
Well, when you think about it, actually, there are a number of scholars who think that probably not many shepherds would act this way. Jesus doesn’t say anything about putting the ninety-nine in a pen, or calling your buddy over to watch them so nothing happens to the ninety-nine. He doesn’t say anything about that.
The focus is on the unreasonable and simply overflowing love of the shepherd for the sheep that’s lost.
Now again, we’ve already said that these ninety-nine sheep, or these ninety-nine people who have no need of repentance, are a mythical group. But even supposing they were not, we consider that a human shepherd might have to leave one place to go somewhere else.
God certainly does not need to do that. God is not bound by the same constraints.
And so what I would say to you is that there’s actually only one group of sheep, and those are the sheep that the shepherd seeks—sheep who have gone astray, but whom the shepherd, Jesus, God in the flesh, has come to restore and to bring back home.
And then we have the second parable that Jesus tells, the parable of the lost coin.
What woman, having ten silver coins and having lost one, doesn’t start cleaning the whole house?
And I’m sure, again, this is a very common human experience. I’m sure many of you have lost something: keys, money, wallet, driver’s license, something. And the only way you could find it, the only way you could hope to find it, is to say, “Well, I’ve got to pick everything up because I’m not going to find it the way things are.”
So Jesus describes this very human action of this person who’s lost something valuable.
And the interesting thing here is that sheep have some volition. Sheep can go wandering off. But a coin doesn’t. The coin is just lost.
And so, while the main point of the story is the joy and the celebration that happens when someone who has been lost and disconnected from God has been brought back into a relationship with God, I think we can helpfully reflect on the fact that, just as the coin sort of found itself to be lost—a coin can’t make a choice, a coin doesn’t take any actions—there are times when we can find ourselves separate from God and separated from one another, alienated, and we look back and say, “How did this happen? How could this have happened?”
The comfort for us is to know that even when we are in those dark places, even when we can’t trace the path that brought us to this negative situation, this painful situation, God has not left us.
Instead, like this woman who’s searching so energetically, God is seeking us out. And in fact, because God is God and has never left us, God is already there and has already found us.
The key act is for us to recognize that we have been found, that we have been brought back.
And that is the key ministry that Jesus is involved in: in reaching out to people, in eating with folks that the Pharisees think he shouldn’t. Jesus is reaching out to those who don’t know or believe that God loves them, and is showing them that God in fact does.
And Jesus is even reaching out to those who believe that, of course, God loves them, and reminding them that they too need to be humble and to give thanks. Because while their pride may not result in God not loving them, their pride can result in them not growing more deeply in their faith.
So our collect that we started today with says:
O God, because without you we are not able to please you, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts.
The core of this collect is this understanding that in order for us to grow in faith and be who we are called to be, we need the presence of God in our lives.
But the mystery of it all is that God is in our lives. God does love us, and God is working in our hearts through the Holy Spirit so that, through the power of God, we can become who God has called us to be.
In the Rite One Communion service, there are some words and Scripture passages that are read following confession. They’re called the Comfortable Words, which in the old English way of speaking means that they’re comforting—comforting phrases, comfortable words.
And there are two of them I want to share with you.
One was actually paraphrased from our epistle reading this morning, and it says:
This is a true saying and worthy of all men to be received, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
And:
If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the perfect offering for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world.
So the ninety-nine people that don’t need repentance are a myth.
One of the most powerful ways I heard this represented was back in about 2004. I met a man named Emmanuel Kolini, who was Archbishop of the Church in Rwanda. He was the first Archbishop post-Rwandan genocide.
And he said that as he traveled around the country to try to bring healing, and he talked to his clergy and people, he had two points that he made to them all when they gathered.
The first point, he said, was: “I don’t love you because you’re lovable. I love you because God loves you, and how can I hate what God loves?”
That was the first point.
The second point that he made to them was: “You say you don’t need to repent. Well, that’s good if that’s the case. But Jesus then is not for you, because Jesus came for sinners.”
His point there was to highlight to them the fact that we all need to repent.
This ninety-nine is a myth. But the flip side of that is that Jesus is for us.
And that is wonderful news.
Amen.
