RESTORING THE COMMUNITY

 RESTORING THE COMMUNITY

Proper 19, 09/11/2022

The Rev. Keith Axberg, for St. Paul’s (Mount Vernon, WA)

Exodus 32:7-14, Psalm 51:1-11, 1 Tim 1:12-17, Luke 15:1-10

Exodus: Moses & the Golden Calf, God’s fierce anger, God repents

Psalm: Have mercy on me, O God … create in me a clean heart

1 Tim: I was a sinner, God had mercy, Jesus came to “save” sinners

Luke: Grumblers meet a dedicated shepherd and a diligent housewife.

If there is any one thing that binds us together, as human beings, what might that be? 

I ask because it seems we’re so easily divided. We’re divided into Haves and Have Nots; Right Wing or Left Wing; Rich or Poor; Straight, Gay, or Transgender; Adult or child; man or woman; employee or employer; the list goes on. 

There’s no shortage of things we can fight over or fight about, but there’s one thing we all have in common, and that is LOSS. Each of us knows LOSS. Some losses are small, like dropping the doo-dad that keeps your earring from falling out, or the sock that loses its partner to some parallel universe when you’re doing laundry. Other losses are more significant: the loss of health, or job, or a parent, sibling, spouse, or child.

We all have our stories of loss. Some of them we share openly. Others we hide, kept away from prying eyes. Some losses fill us with grief; others fill us with shame.

Some years ago a group of  seminarians were playing badminton out on the lawn behind the Iona Building. Suddenly, One of the ladies shouted, “Hold it!” She had popped a contact lens there on the lawn. 

These weren’t the disposable kind. They were expensive and she didn’t have a replacement lens to fall back on. She knew about where she had been when she lost her contact, so we only had about 15-20 square feet of lawn to search – and search we did. For 30 minutes we combed every inch of lawn until there, at the base of one blade of grass, we found it.

Everyone clapped and cheered, and as she went to put it back in, her long silky eyelashes flicked the lens off her finger and back into the lawn. Once again we went into search mode and once again, we found the lens and she put it into its case and wore her glasses for the rest of the picnic.

We all have our lost and found stories, which ties in with our Gospel lesson – the stories of the lost sheep and the lost coin, but I’d like to warn you. That’s NOT what those stories are about. It’s part of those stories, but there’s a lot more to them.

One of the challenges we have when we’re familiar with the parables of Jesus is that when we hear the title, we go, “Oh, that one,” and we set aside our listening ears. But Jesus didn’t give his parables titles. He wants us to listen closely. It’s not our lostness he’s talking about.

Go back to the first line: All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. Tax collectors. He’s not talking about IRS agents reviewing forms. He’s talking about people empowering Rome at YOUR expense. Tax collectors. That’s short-hand for enemies, traitors, turn-coats. Think of people you would apply those terms to (in your own life, your own experience, your own perspective) and let that sit on your belly for a moment or two.

Don’t worry about whether you’re thinking in terms of politics, religion, economic systems, history, or whatever. I just want you to imagine the worst people you can, and see them coming to listen to Jesus. Those are the tax collectors.

They aren’t alone, of course. In addition to traitors, you’ve got the rest of the world’s losers – those who don’t measure up; those who fall flat; those who bend the rules or act like the rules don’t apply to them; the narcissists, psychopaths, sociopaths, child abusers, thieves, card-cheats, and dirty dancers; the ones who toss litter out their car windows, who refuse to use their turn signals, who crowd your bumper when you’re in their lane.

Get an emotional picture of them in your mind. Don’t be shy. These are the losers. Traitors and losers. They’re coming to listen to Jesus, and instead of scolding them or tearing a “new one” into each of them, Jesus is having a wonderful time, eating, and drinking – and in so doing, he is showing to polite society that (in reality) he … is one … of … THEM! He’s a traitor to Israel. He’s a traitor to Torah. He is a traitor to holiness. He is a traitor to godliness. He is a traitor …  and a loser … and the worst of both kinds.

“Why do you hang with such losers?” That’s what the Pharisees (the good church people) want to know. That’s what the scribes (the scholars, the educators, the lawyers) want to know. Even in Jesus’ day they knew the old saying, “If you lie down with camels you’ll rise up with fleas.”

It’s a good question: Why does Jesus hang with losers? What’s worse: Why does he enjoy it?

They remind me of the old joke about the Puritans, whose greatest fear is that someone somewhere is somehow having fun!

What they’re doing, of course, is saying something about themselves. “We take God seriously. Why don’t you? We take our faith seriously. Why don’t you?”

They have an image of God that comes straight out of Torah, like the one in our first lesson, where God sees and hears the Children of Israel singing and dancing around a golden calf, and God says, “Moses, go tell those kids to KNOCK IT OFF!”

I resemble that remark! As a child, no matter how many times my Sunday school teacher told me how much God loves me, I always had the sight and smell of fire and brimstone wafting through the air of my imagination.  Yes, Jesus is love, but GOD has the final vote, and I see a charcoal pit in my future. I can’t help it. That’s the visceral image bubbling up in the pot of my soul. It’s always there.

Jesus knows that. He’s grown up with Pharisees and Sadducees and Zealots and Essenes, and separatists. And what they all have in common is this idea that WE’VE GOT IT, AND YOU DON’T; WE’RE IN, AND YOU’RE NOT!

Jesus doesn’t argue with them. That’s helpful because, believe it or not, I have a lot of opinions about a lot of things, and my instinct is to argue with all comers. But there’s a better way, and Jesus shares it with us. He doesn’t argue; he shares a story, because that’s how we communicate. We don’t communicate with words, but through stories. So Jesus shares three stories (the 2 we have today, and the 3rd one we generally hear in Lent – the story of the Prodigal).

Which of you, caring for a flock and losing one of your sheep, doesn’t leave the flock in the wilderness, and look for the one that was lost? You scan the fields, you climb to the top of the hills, you look in the wadis and behind boulders until you find the sheep that was lost. It’s too scared to move. It won’t come to the sound of your voice, even though you know her name and she knows your voice. She’s as good as dead. She is paralyzed with fear. So you pick her up, hoist her up onto your shoulders, and you carry her all the way home. And when you get there, you call together your friends and neighbors and you say, “Rejoice with me, because I FOUND THE SHEEP I HAD LOST.”

Did you hear that? “I found the sheep that I had lost.”

It’s not about the sheep getting lost. It’s not about blaming the sheep for being a sheep. It’s not about the sheep being found, either. It’s about a shepherd who looks, notices that BaaBaa is missing, and makes it his goal to go, look, search, and find that sheep – for 2 reasons. First, it’s to make  the flock whole again!  But secondly (and equally important), it is to restore the shepherd’s honor and reputation.

What kind of shepherd laughs off the loss of a sheep? If a shepherd cares for something as seemingly trivial as a sheep, HOW MUCH MORE does God care for US (as individuals), and for US (as a divine community)?

YOU see the insignificant sheep that was lost, but I see a flock that is incomplete (says Jesus). I see a flock that is not whole. You say these losers don’t belong, but I say GOD won’t rest until God’s flock is made whole! That’s the Gospel! That’s the Good News. Jesus doesn’t shame the sheep. Jesus doesn’t insult the shepherd.

You see winners and losers, those who belong and those who don’t, but God simply sees us. These people you put down see God at work, and this is giving them hope. Let me tell you another story – a little old lady story.

What woman discovering she has lost a coin – one of ten – doesn’t throw open the flap on her door, light a candle, and sweep around until she has found it? And finding it, what does she do? She yells out the window – “Hey Mable, hey Sally, hey Phyllis and Sylvia, Come here! Let’s have a party! The coin I lost has been found!”

It’s not about the coin. I mean, here’s the coin (the one pictured below is smaller than an American penny, quite tarnished, almost earth-colored in person): 

Can you see it? This is what she lost. It’s not as old; it isn’t a drachma, but it’s about the same size and shape of what she might have lost. You and I look at it and it’s so small, so insignificant, but here’s the point: To her, this is life. 

This is what she needs for her DAILY BREAD. You know that prayer we pray every now and then? Give us this day our daily bread? It’s not a coin, you see; it’s an answer to her prayer. And listen to her:

“Rejoice with me, for I found the Drachma that I had lost!”

Maybe you feel that God has dropped the ball on you. Sometimes we feel that way. Bad things happen to good people; it just doesn't seem fair; it just feels like we've been dropped, lost, and forgotten. That's an image Jesus wants to explore. 

I was watching the Cougars play football yesterday. Wisconsin was driving, and SUDDENLY, the ball was tipped and this big ol’ Cougar lineman caught the ball. He took a few steps and WHAM! He lost the ball as he was tackled and Wisconsin recovered.

“Oh no, there goes the game” went ‘round and ‘round this ol’ squirrel cage. But a play or two later, the Cougs came up with another interception and ate up the clock to win the game.

I’m not big into the Blame Game, but sometimes it just feels like God has dropped the ball on us. Now, we don’t want to get into trouble with the Big Guy, so we hold our tongues (which is kind of silly as God knows our hearts and minds anyway), but Jesus says, “Don’t worry. If this woman won’t rest until she has restored this coin to her purse, HOW MUCH MORE WILL GOD not rest until she has restored US to her treasury?"

"It is so easy to hate, like the Pharisees," says Jesus. "It is so easy to judge, like the Scribes." You don’t have to be much of a student of world history to see what hate produces. Twenty-one years ago today, we experienced 9/11. It unified the country, in a way. But as bad as the loss of 3,000 souls was, worse was the fear and paranoia that gripped the heart of our nation. Time has not healed those wounds; if anything, it has made them worse. 

Time cannot and will not heal those wounds – unless we use our time like Jesus. I cannot prove this, but I’ll bet Jesus built both tables and fences as a carpenter. Both have their place. It wasn’t either/or for him, but both/and. 

Healing and restoring the world means spending time with those who don’t look, think, speak, or act like us. Abraham Lincoln once said, “If we make our enemy our friend, have we not destroyed our enemy in the process?” 

You know, I have a wonderful knack for making enemies; making friends is harder. But if God is healing and restoring the world, then I really do want to be a recipient of, and participant in, that healing and restoration.

That means accepting God as my shepherd and my housekeeper – for God is both, whether I want it or not. 

For God, none of us is expendable. God has restored us. God is restoring us. God will restore us, and THAT is the greatest news of all --- for ALL of us --- isn’t it?