The Responsibility of Being Found
by Jim Westmoreland
There's an old, old story, that I think is still funny. The phone rings and a little boy answers in a whisper: "Hello?" The caller says: "Hi, is your Mommy there? / "Yes!"
"Can I talk to her?" / "No!"
"Why not?" / "She's busy."
"What about your Daddy, can I talk to him?" / "No! He's busy."
"Well, is there anyone else there?" / "My little sister."
"Is there anyone else there? Another adult?" / "Uh, huh. The police."
"Can I talk to one of them?" / "No, they're busy."
"Is there anyone else there?" / "Yes, the firemen."
"Can I talk to one of them?" / "No, they're busy, too."
"Good heavens, your whole family's busy, the police and fire departments are there and they're busy! What's everybody doing?" / The little boy giggled and whispered: "They're looking for me."
Today's passage of Scripture is about searching and finding.
And that's an old story that illustrates the frantic nature of
people who have lost something and are in search of it.
Most all of us want to be respectable, mainstream kinds of
people. And so, it is hard for us to hear that trying hard to be
respectable can lead us in opposite directions of the Good News,
the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
It was the respectable, religious
people who criticized Jesus for eating and drinking with sinners.
He replied that He had come to seek and to save the lost. He
had come for sinners!
The church must learn and relearn the challenging, wonderful, saving truth–Jesus came to preach to, to receive, to love and to forgive sinners. Sinners. People like us, in need of forgiveness, direction and a new beginning.
Chapter 15 of the gospel of Luke contains the setting of three parallel parables which are actually three parts of one parable. The emphasis of the parables is on restoring relationships between God and others. Luke 15:1-10 highlights the motifs of sacrificial pursuit, restoration and rejoicing, which shows how God values each person and rejoices over our positive response to His love for us.
The beginning verses describe two groups: the tax collectors and sinners and the Pharisees and scribes. These groups are held in opposition to each other from the beginning as the tax collectors and sinners gather around Jesus in order to listen to him, while the Pharisees and scribes are not listening at all. Instead, they are "grumbling" or muttering that Jesus "welcomes sinners and eats with them."
The first two verses bring together two important themes that have been building throughout the gospel. First, the conclusion of the parables of chapter 14 ends with "Let anyone with ears to hear listen!" The continued emphasis on hearing what Jesus is saying (and by implication, acting upon it) is at least implied in Jesus' parables in chapter 15. As one who "welcomes sinners and eats with them," Jesus is also one who teaches those "sinners," and they "listen" to him, thus showing their role as disciples or followers of Jesus.
Second, the accusation of the Pharisees and the scribes, of Jesus both welcoming and eating with sinners, echoes a previous accusation in Luke (5:30-32) where the same group asks Jesus' disciples about these actions. There Jesus proclaims, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance". This conversation occurs immediately after Jesus has called Levi, the tax collector, to be his disciple (5:27-29) and Levi hosts a banquet in Jesus' honor.
By telling these parables in 15:1-10 Jesus re-emphasizes that the accusation that he eats with sinners is not anything that He wants to deny. In fact, it is a true statement which is at the heart of Jesus' ministry. As Luke narrates it, Jesus' purpose in this setting is to show the Pharisees and scribes that they, too, should listen to his parables and thus welcome sinners in table fellowship, accepting them.
Both scenes of the parable, the man who has 100 sheep and the woman who has 10 coins, have much in common. The format is the same: A person notices that something is gone, sacrifices time and energy to pursue and find what is lost, restores what is lost to its rightful place, and rejoices with others when what was lost has now been found.
Both narratives have two groups in them: those that are lost (the
sheep and the coin), and those which are found. The conclusion
is that the one that is lost is finally restored to wholeness by a
"seeker" who purposefully pursues that which is lost. Finding
what is lost is never a question and is not the focus; it is always
assumed. The pursuit of the sheep remains a mystery. Leaving
99 sheep to seek after one lost lamb appears to be illogical
unless somehow the 99 sheep were left in safety.
As one who
cares about the lives of these sheep, the man finds it worthwhile
to pursue even one which is lost, demonstrating the value of the
sheep to him.
Even more poignantly, the woman who has only 10 drachmas (silver coins, about a day's wage) turns her house upside down looking for this coin. Drachmas were worth very little, and this could have been her entire savings. Her pursuit of the lost coin, with details of lighting a lamp and sweeping the house, is more elaborately explained than the sheep owner's search for the sheep. Both parables demonstrate a strong emphasis on the One who is searching or pursuing what is lost.
When what is lost has been found by the pursuer, both stories
highlight the "rejoicing" and "joy" that take place as the lost
sheep or the lost coin is restored to the others.
Both the
restoration and the rejoicing are important emphases of Luke's
gospel. Both the man and the woman call together friends and
neighbors, saying "Rejoice with me!" The "seekers" do not
rejoice solely by themselves but find great joy in sharing their
joy of restoration with others.
This joy is in contrast to the Pharisees and the scribes, who are
grumbling at Jesus in his seeking of the lost (15:1-2).
The first story is not about a human shepherd. It's about a
divine shepherd. It is the Lord God who feels joy because he
has found a missing sheep, and he invites us to lay aside our
skepticism and rejoice along with him when he carries that lost
sheep home. Jesus says, "there will be more joy in heaven over
one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons
who need no repentance."
What has happened to our joy? What has happened to this sense of sharing in the pleasure of God when the brokenhearted are comforted, and when the weak are made whole?
Joy is also the message of the second story. This parable tells of
a woman who has 10 silver coins, each one worth about a day's
wage. It's not a huge amount of money, but it's quite precious to
her, so when she loses one of the coins she lights a lamp, sweeps
the house, and then searches carefully till she finds it.
In this
parable, it's not the searching that seems odd, it's the party that
follows. She calls together her friends and neighbors, saying,
"Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost."
Can you imagine getting an invitation to a "lost coin found" party? Only in the gospel.
The point of the story is the celebration. And Jesus nails this
down when he says, "Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the
presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." Do
we still know what repent means?
Confession is admitting our
faults and failures, both in what we have done and in what we
have not done. To know to do something and not do it is a sin.
Confession is not a broad-brush prayer of generality–“Forgive
me of all my sins. Amen.” But, confession is ultimately facing
our sins one by one and admitting how they hurt God, others
and ourselves.
To repent is to change direction. Forget about
confessing in general and repenting in general. Do both
specifically. Where is one area you struggle in forsaking a bad
habit or behavior? Confess and admit it. Then, do a 180 degree
turn to start doing better. Imagining a line with an “X” on it
when we confessed and repented of our sin. We may not be far
“distance” wise from when we started on some things, but we
are going in the opposite direction. So, day by day, as we give
our lives to Christ, we will be moving away from where we
were. Each day, we give as much of ourselves as we know to as
much of Jesus as we know.
There is Joy is heaven over one sinner who REPENTS, who changes direction. Jesus got excited about it. Heaven gets excited. The question for us is this: Are we willing to join the celebration?
Sometimes, even after we’ve give our lives to Christ to be His
disciple we feel lost. King Duncan, author and editor of
Dynamic Preaching, told a story years a go about an elderly
gentleman was out walking with his young grandson. "How far
are we from home?" he asked the boy. The boy answered, "I
don't know, Grandpa." Grandpa asked, "Well, where are we?"
Again the boy answered, "I don't know." Then grandpa kind of
laughed and said, "Sounds to me like you are lost." The young
boy looked up at his grandpa and said, "Nope, I can't be lost. I'm
with you."
There's a strange paradox about the Christian life. Often, it's more about being lost than found. It's more about feeling incomplete than whole. It's more about feeling excluded than included, because many of us live in those places most of the time.
But that's why we need redemption. That's why conversion, as an ongoing process or journey, is at the heart of who we are, because we all get lost in the desert, even when we're part of the fold. And we all need someone out there, willing to go looking for us. We're always in the process of trying to turn back, repent and find our way home again. And it's a struggle.
But it's a joyful struggle, because repentance is a joyous activity. It is our responsibility of being found. It's the endless way that we turn back toward the truth and wholeness. How great is that? And life becomes this journey of shouldering one another, of walking each other home. And sometimes we're the carrier, and sometimes we're being carried.
But all the time, it's a movement toward wholeness, toward
being included again, toward being under one roof again. A
sheep. A coin. Two sons. Us. And the joy of being found!
That’s what the mission of the church is about to seek the lost, not as snobby superiors, but as fellow strugglers. Then we are to join in the celebration when one person who was lost and struggling gives their life to Christ and begins to turn around in the direction they were going. Amen
Century Christian Church, September 16, 2007 - Sermon by Jim Westmoreland
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