A Sermon inspired by Luke 15:1-10
"Lost Sheep - Lost Coin" by Kazakhstan Artist Nelly Bube
Like a sheep and coin that have gone missing, I imagine we
all might feel a bit lost this week. We aren’t able to meet together in our
church for worship. Schools have closed. The lobbies of many fast food joints
and local restaurants have closed. Grocery stores had bare shelves at times,
and more and more of us are following the government’s requests to stay at home.
New information emerges each day about this novel coronavirus and the disease
it causes, COVID-19. The numbers of cases in Tennessee more than tripled this
week, and just on Friday, March 20, Hardin County announced its first confirmed
case. For the foreseeable future, life is going to be different and business will
not be as usual for all of us, in one way or another. This is hard. This is
sad. This is painful. Our normal has been disrupted, and, so, it is normal to
feel lost.
Today, in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells us a story about two
things that are lost. Well, more than a story…Jesus tells us a parable. In her
book Short Stories by Jesus, Biblical scholar and my professor from divinity
school Amy-Jill Levine tells us this about parables:
“Jesus was requiring that [his disciples] do
more than listen; he was asking them to think as well….What makes the parables
mysterious, or difficult, is that they challenge us to look into the hidden
aspects of our own values, our own lives. They bring to the surface unasked
questions, and they reveal the answers we have always known, but refuse to
acknowledge.”[1]
In a conversation with my friend Bettie this week, we talked
about how this crisis in our nation is opening up all sorts of new experiences
for many of us as Americans. We are used to being able to go where we want when
we want, buy what we want when we want, and so on and so forth. But this week
was different. As panic set in this past week, some people, certainly acting
out of fear, rushed to the stores and snapped up hoards of hand sanitizer,
toilet paper, and pantry stables, like milk, eggs, bread, and meat. And when
some bought too much, store managers and employees did their best to set household
limits but, still, some went to buy just a little of what they desperately needed
and found out they were too late – it was gone! If this past week was a
parable, the question that it might bring to the surface for us who call ourselves
Christians could be, “Did I buy more than I needed this week because I was
worried there wouldn’t be enough or did I choose to trust in God’s promise of abundance
that God would provide?” Or, the question might be put a little more directly, “Did
I cause a shortage for someone in need because I was scared?”
Ouch! That question stings a little for some of us. There is
an oft-quoted statement repeated so many times by pastors and Bible teachers
that I’m not sure anyone knows who said it first. It goes something like this: “Faith
is meant to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” Certainly, this
is true of Jesus’ teaching, perhaps especially his parables.
But, this past week, at least for me, these categories of comfortable
and afflicted, they overlap, they bleed together, it gets messy. What I do
think is true is this – there is a word of comfort and a word of challenge for
each of us as we consider how Jesus is trying to turn the way we see our world
upside down even as the world around us feels turned inside out.
After the week we’ve all had, I think we desperately need to
hear God’s words of comfort. If one of the questions that this parable of a
week has unearthed for you is, “Where is God in all of this?” then hear these
words of comfort…God is right here! God has not abandoned us! If you feel lost during
these strange and confusing days, know that God will always go looking for you.
When we are lost, there is always some One who is searching, who is seeking us.
The comfort of these parables is this – God is like a shepherd who values each individual
sheep in his fold. God is like a woman who takes care to account for every silver
coin in her purse. You, dear child, are treasured by God!
One of the things I learned this week is that sheep are
highly social animals, and they develop
strong, instinctual bonds within their flocks. So when one sheep is separated from
its flock, it is a severely stressful event that causes panic.[2]
Sound familiar? We, too, under stress, might like a solitary sheep lost and cut
off from our flock, curl up, lie down, and try to hide from the awfulness of
everything happening in the world. But, when you feel lost, trust this – you
are loved by a God will go beating through the bramble bush to pull you out of
the hole you are hiding in. That doesn’t mean that the awful stuff going on around
us will disappear. But what it does mean is that through it all, we are not
alone!
In fact, just as the shepherd and the woman call their friends
and neighbors together to rejoice in the parable, God can use this terrible
situation for good. Now, hear me right. God did not cause this virus. God does
not delight in the isolation, hardship, depression, disease, or death that the
world and its people are facing. Yet, we are promised in Romans 8:28 that “All
things work together for good for those who love God,” and I would add for
those whom God loves. One question we might start to ask is, “What is God revealing
to me through this experience? What am I noticing now that I didn’t before? How
can I make my heart ready to hear what the Spirit is sharing?”
At the beginning of this year, we spent six weeks together focusing
on some basic spiritual practices that help us grow in our walk with Jesus. If
there was ever a time that we needed to go deeper and wider in our faith, this
is it! When we are feeling lost, actively engaging in our faith opens our
hearts to the voice, presence, and peace of God, and we realize that we were
always found!
Later this week, I plan on sharing with you all some thoughts
on how we can continue to strengthen our faith through the spiritual practices
of worship, study, service, giving, and sharing even in this season of social
distancing. But today, I’d like to invite you to join me and others in our
congregations in a shared practice while we are worshipping in our own homes. I
first saw this idea shared by Rev, Jathaniel Cavitt, who is the senior pastor
of Colonial Park UMC in Memphis, and as we here at Mt. Vinson and Adamsville have
been focusing on the story of Jesus through the eyes of different Gospel
writers this Lent, I thought this would be a perfect way for us to stay connected
while we are physically distant. Beginning Monday, March 23, I invite you to
read with me and our churches one chapter of the Gospel of John every day. By
reading one chapter every day, together we will finish John’s Gospel, reading
the final chapter on Easter Sunday, April 12. What might we learn from God’s
Spirit as we walk with Jesus through John’s Gospel and anticipate the promise
of resurrection?
The good news of these parables is the comfort that we are
never truly lost when it comes to God! But what if the even greater news is
found in the challenge from these stories of Jesus? Luke tells us that the
crowds are pressing in on Jesus. His disciples are eager for his teaching. The religious
insiders like the Pharisees and legal experts are keeping an eye on this radical
rabbi. And crowds of people who don’t really belong anywhere else, who are used
to living life on the fringe, the tax collectors and others who had been written
off as sinners and, therefore, who don’t really count in the eyes of the respectable,
upstanding folk…they are there, too. When the religious inside crowd questions Jesus’
habit for hanging out with the riffraff, these people who don’t count, who don’t
matter in their eyes, Jesus launches into a story about repentance. And, you
and I, we just assume that Jesus is talking about how heaven rejoices when one
of those tax collectors or garden variety sinners sees the error of their ways
and comes home to God…because those are the folk who need to repent, right,
Jesus?
But, what if, the sinner Jesus is speaking to is the
religious insider, the preacher, the church member who needs to repent? The person
who has “found God” but who still thinks that they get to say who is in and who’s
out, who does and who does not count? Who thinks there are people who don’t
really matter because, you know, Jesus, they’re sinners?
Amy-Jill Levine helps us see the challenge of Jesus’ parable about
who counts with God in this reflection:
“We need to take count not only
of our blessings, but also of those in our families, and in our communities. And
once we count, we need to act. Finding the lost, whether they are sheep, coins,
or people, takes work. It also requires our efforts, and from those efforts
there is the potential for wholeness and joy.”[3]
The question God might be asking our congregations right now is
“Who’s gone missing?” These past few days of crisis have certainly exposed who
has been forgotten and who is most at risk in our nation. The children who
depend on school meals to eat each day . The senior citizens and people with
compromised immune systems who have already been isolated at home this flu
season many times because the rest of us don’t stay home when we are sick. The
dollar store and grocery chain workers who risk losing a job if they stay home with
their families. The people barely scraping by from week to week who have and
will continue to get laid off as business grinds to a halt. The truck drivers
who transport the food we eat and the toilet paper we use. The first
responders, nurses, doctors, and medical staff who show up on the front lines
even in the face of great danger. The janitors and custodians who keep things
clean and help contain the spread even with little thanks and recognition.
What we are learning is that we belong to each other. We
always have. We just haven’t always seen it as clearly as we do right now! When
someone in our community is lost, is alone, is afraid…we are all affected. And
when someone is found, is restored, is welcomed in, we are all better off. That’s
how it is in the family of God.
While this past week has been tremendously difficult, I have
also been proud to witness how we are continuing to be the church outside of
our walls and go searching for those who feel lost. As I spoke with members of
Mt. Vinson church this week, I heard how they were checking in on each other
and their neighbors, making sure everyone had what they needed, offering to run
errands for one another, grateful for the community that can be experienced
even over a phone call. At Adamsville First Church, I witnessed church members
rally together, while standing six feet apart, to feed people in our community
who are hurting or alone, passing out meals safely at the Drive Thru Soup Kitchen
or delivering to the porches of homebound individuals and senior citizens. Our
churches know…every person counts in the kingdom of God.
Last Sunday was a hard day for me. Out of an abundance of
caution and concern for our congregations and our neighbors, I suspended
worship when not many other faith communities in our area did. I believed it was
the right call, but it didn’t make it any easier to not gather with my people,
to see your face in the pews, to hear your voice as we prayed together. But, then
on Sunday, one by one, the text messages from church members began to roll in sharing,
“May the peace of Christ be with you.” And I felt a little less lost. And I
began to believe the words I wrote to you all last week even more. We can be
the church. In the midst of this crisis, we can be the church for each other
and for our neighbors.
And we will.
With or without walls.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
[1]
Levine, Amy-Jill. Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a
Controversial Rabbi. New York: Harper Collins, 2014.
[2]
Landsberg, Gary M. “Social Behavior of Sheep.” https://www.merckvetmanual.com/behavior/normal-social-behavior-and-behavioral-problems-of-domestic-animals/social-behavior-of-sheep.
[3]
Levine, Short Stories.
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