16th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 19C

The 16th Sunday after Pentecost--Proper 19C
September 12, 2010
Our gospel lesson for today is 2 out of a series of three parables that Jesus tells in Luke’s chapter 15. Luke starts off by setting the scene saying that “the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus.” As a result of this, the Scribes and Pharisees, the religious insiders, begin grumbling… “What kind of person is this Jesus of Nazareth who’s willing to consort with such a disreputable bunch?…”
When Jesus hears them, he tells the two parables that we heard today and then upon their heels, he tells the parable of the prodigal son, which we don’t get to hear today.
“Which one of you…” Jesus says, wouldn’t go after a lost sheep or search for a lost coin? So, I’m going to need a little help with this part from the kids… We have, somewhere in our nave, a little lost sheep and one lone lost coin, and I need you to walk around quietly and see if you can find them….
(Jeopardy music…)
(When they find it, have a bit of the Hallelujah chorus sung or get crowd to cheer)
Now in just a few moments, we will have a banquet of bread and wine to celebrate the recovery of the lost…
You know, the temptation of this parable for some of us may be to associate with God who searches out the lost, as we in the church are called to do—seek out the lost. (Or some of us may even associate with the lost that are found by God.)
But I bet few of us naturally associate with the Scribes and Pharisees who were grumbling about being included with such riff raff.
But listen to what Jesus says: “Which one of you” would leave 99 safe, healthy sheep to go into the wilderness to find one lost sheep, and then have a party when you found it? “And which one of you” would spend all this time and effort and energy turning your house inside out to find a lost coin and then spend money to throw a party to celebrate?
Not me! It doesn’t make any sense! It seems at the best extravagant and wasteful and at the worst, foolish.
In these parables, Jesus is very clearly telling us (and the Scribes and Pharisees): God’s economy and your economy are very different; God’s priorities and yours are not the same.
But I think the most important issue today is that God calls the righteous, the religious insiders, the older brothers who have never strayed, but who have always been where we were supposed to be and done what we were supposed to do, god calls us to come to the celebration, even though we may not approve of God’s ways, of God’s extravagance, of God’s mercy.
Because these parables are not just about the lengths to which God will go to save the lost. They are also about how the righteous, the religious, the faithful respond to God’s gift of mercy to other people.
Remember just a few moments ago when we were all so happy, so relieved that the children found a fake coin and a stuffed sheep?
How do we respond in real life, in our church, in the world when we see God finding the lost? When we see God’s mercy at work in the life of one whom we don’t judge to be worthy of God’s mercy? What will we say when God says to us: “Come to my feast and rejoice with me, for I have found my child who was lost?”