Sermon 9/12

Sermon 16th Sunday after Pentecost September 12

Location: Immanuel Lutheran Church

Text: Luke 15:1-10, Exodus 32:7-14

A shepherd was out in the country watching over his sheep when a traveler stopped by. “Good morning, sir, I am wondering if I can guess the correct number of sheep in your herd, can I have one?” I guess, says the shepherd. The man looks around at the sheep for a little while, then says, 138. “Wow” says the shepherd, that’s correct! How did you do that?” “Well,” the man says, “I just count the legs and divide by 4.”

Anyone else like the readings that have shepherds in them? I always get warm fuzzies during shepherd stories. I think it may be my favorite image of God. I’m pretty sure that most of us have seen the paintings of a shepherd, usually named as Jesus, carrying the sheep over his shoulders. That image gives so much comfort in times when we may feel overwhelmed or fearful.

Our Gospel reading for today gives us the background of that image we so often see. We hear of a lost sheep, separated from the other 99 of the flock. It is interesting to think of what that sheep may be thinking. Is it aware that it is lost? Most likely not, it is just going on its business, eating some grass, looking around, chewing, walking a bit, eating some more grass, envisioning itself as a great lion. Ok, maybe not that last part. This sheep may realize that it is on its own, but it will probably just continue walking and eating and will not concern itself with the situation it is in.

How often are we like that? We, just in our daily life, turn ourselves further and a further away from God. The image of the sheep as sinner fits so well. We are distracted by our own concerns and fears that we wander from God, failing to see where God is leading us.

The image of the lost coin accents it even more. The coin of course cannot make any kind of decision. It simply gets lost, and falls into a crack somewhere. It did not choose to fall in that crack, it cannot know that it is in the crack. It is simply in the crack, with no way to know it is there and no way to know how it could get out.

In response to the parables we get a statement by Jesus on how to understand these texts. Both times Jesus refers to the task of a sinner repenting. Luke 15:7 “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents.” And Luke 15:10 “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

This causes us to ask the question, how can a sheep or a coin, who we are being compared with, repent? How can we repent if we do not know that we have sinned? Our confession and forgiveness does contain the line “We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.” Or if looking at the other version, “known and unknown, things we have done, and things we have failed to do.”

Is that really repentance though? Or is that simply asking for forgiveness? This is not to say that we are not completely forgiven for all our sins in those lines or in anytime that we ask God for forgiveness. But, most often repentance in the bible is understood as a completely turning around of action and no longer doing that thing. One translation of the verb we see as repent gives the literal translation of “change one’s mind.”

This leads to another question. If we are a sheep or a coin and do not know that we have sinned how can we repent? We can ask for forgiveness for what we have not done, but we cannot change our mind on what we do not know.

What then is Jesus talking about? Jesus is not reprimanding the sheep or the coin, they are simply found. And no where in the gospel of Luke does Jesus reprimand or scold the tax collectors or sinners, he simply eats and talks with them. What is the message of these parables? We need to look at the examples that Jesus gives to find this out. What does looking at the sheep found or the coin found tell us about repentance? Dr. Kenneth Bailey, one of the foremost scholars on this text and the prodigal son parable which follows it, gives this idea. “The only possible action in this story which could constitute repentance is the finding of the lost. Repentance, therefore, may be defined as our acceptance of being found.” “The sheep does nothing except to be found. The burden of restoration is not on the sheep but on the shepherd who went looking for the lamb." He then compares the idea of the shepherd looking for the lost sheep as an act of love. "The lover comes out in the costly demonstration of unexpected love, and we stop running away, and we accept that offer of love and in that acceptance is Jesus' definition of repentance.”

This turns the story around; we have been looking at it backwards. This story is not about a lost sheep, or a lost coin. Look at the image on the front of our bulletin. That may be the image that we need in our head as well as the sheep being carried. The woman overjoyed in finding her lost coin. These parables are not about lost sheep or lost coins, but of great shepherds and great sweepers. It is not about sinners repenting, but about the God who seeks us.

As usual Jesus’ parable is about God. God searches for us unrelentingly. For it is only through God that we can repent, without God’s love in searching for us, we cannot through our own power turn our ways.

And this leads us to the most revelatory aspect of this text. How did Jesus begin this exchange? Let’s hear it again. “Luke 15:1-3 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." 3 So he told them this parable.”

The sinners were coming to Jesus, and the leaders of the community grumbled about this. They grumbled about this because these sinners and tax collectors, were not just people like us who go about there daily lives and sin, but people actually labeled as sinners. They were in essence marked as sinners, as outsiders of the community. They were the ones which you were supposed to have absolutely no contact or association with.

And Jesus eats with them.

How often do we grumble when God searches and finds those who have been labeled as outsiders? How often do we label people as outsiders, unworthy of being a part of our church, of our community?

Jesus would eat with these.

We should eat with these. We need to recognize that all are children of God. In an article by a Catholic Deacon who works in prison ministries, he says, “People sometimes tell me that a person who has committed murder has lost not only his civil rights, but his rights as a child of God and no longer deserves to be treated with respect. When did God say that?”

When we send away people, make them outcasts, we create one more lost sheep or lost coin, and God seeks to bring them back. God loves these outcasts and sinners, even when we do not. But, God still most certainly loves us.

God loves all, simply because. In the joke I told at the beginning the man counts the feet of the sheep, God counts every hair on our head. God searches out the outcasts, and God most certainly searches us out. We have the promise in Christ Jesus that we are loved with abandon. God seeks us out, loving us, despite our constantly turning away.

And God finds us, and says “I love you.”

And when we turn because of that miraculous fact, we repent of being who we are and return. It is when we hear and respond to God’s act of love that we are found. That is repentance,

that is grace,

that is mercy.

Let us pray,

God of seeking,

We turn from you, we cast others away from ourselves.

We ask you to find us, transform us and protect us.

Without you we are lost, we are scared, we are fearful.

Be our shepherd, be our sweeper,

find us, and turn us.

In your Son’s name,

Amen