Luke 15:1-10
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus]. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable:
“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Who doesn’t love to find something that was lost? Like a sheep or a coin where this morning’s Gospel is concerned. But maybe we’d tell about the guy who found his wallet, which had been lost in the city, full of cash, but returned, intact, still full of money. Or maybe we’d tell about that woman who lost her Chihuahua a few weeks ago, right in our own back yard. She posted pictures and plea after plea on the New Pal Parents’ Facebook page. She hung signs around town. She set live traps in the woods and fields, even. And she begged for anyone and everyone to do the same.
And when the dog was found she rejoiced, just like the woman in Jesus’ parable, letting everybody – friends, neighbors and strangers – know the good news that what was lost; what was so loved and wanted and missed had been found, returned, and was home again, safe and sound.
These are some great stories about happy homecomings – sheep and Chihuahuas – or about found valuables – coins and wallets, as the case may be.
But we focus a lot on the words of Jesus that follow his parables, don’t we? That stuff about the joy in heaven that comes when a sinner repents. Tied to these examples of lost coins and lost sheep, I think it’s pretty easy and very common for most people to make intuitive leap that repentance is a pre-requisite to being found. Like, if you repent, then you’ll be found, redeemed, worthy, saved.
Like, if we extend the examples of sheep and coins and Chihuahuas and wallets to stand for people – for sinful people – as Jesus seems to do, then it’s pretty common, popular theology to presume that one leads to the other; that one’s repentance instigates their being found; that in order to be found there must first be repentance; that in order for that sinner to be saved or to earn the joy of those angels in heaven they must, first, necessarily repent.
But when was the last time you heard a sheep, or a coin, or a wallet, or a Chihuahua for that matter repent? They don’t. They won’t. They can’t. So, I wonder if there’s something more or better or different that we should be paying attention to because of that.
What I’m saying is, the things that get found in Jesus’ parable are found thanks to absolutely nothing they did to deserve it, to ask for it, to want it, or to know, even, that they needed to be found at all. I happen to believe – and hope and trust with all the faith I can find – that true repentance for many of us, sinners that we are, comes most fully after we realize that God came looking for us, long ago, in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and that we have already been found thanks to the reality of that kind of patient, loving, sacrificial grace.
In other words, grace promises us … the unearned love of God tells us … that our repentance – or any other good, righteous, faithful deed – does not facilitate our salvation. Rather, the fact of our “foundness” means to inspire our repentance and any other good, righteous, faithful deeds that may follow our understanding of this good news.
I had one of those profound pastoral care moments this week when I was asked to tend to and care for and pray with a family who was losing someone due to a tragic mix of bad health, bad luck, and a bad mix of cocaine and meth, too. There was an overdose and a coma and a loss of brain activity and a really hard choice to be made about turning off life support.
The family member who asked me to make the visit was struggling with what to tell the dying man’s children. There were lots of questions about the choices he’d made – and not just the choices that landed him in the hospital last week. And there were questions, too, about the state of his faith, about the prospect of his redemption, about “how lost was he?” and about how likely he was to be “found” in all of this, if you will.
And I found myself telling the dying man’s children something, as we gathered around him in the Intensive Care Unit to pray, that seems worth sharing with all of you, too. And that is that no matter what, there was about to be a miracle for him. That, on one hand, maybe as he lay there lifeless in the ICU, his test results would come back differently than anyone expected … that there would be brain activity … that he would survive what seemed unsurvivable … that he would defy all the odds that were suddenly stacked against him. That would be one kind of miracle, indeed.
But the other thing that would happen, should the first miracle not pan out, was that God would be waiting for him on the other side of heaven. In spite of his bad choices and bad luck; in spite of whatever faith he had or not; in spite of the repentance and change he could never seem to muster on this side of eternity … God’s grace would be looking for him and waiting to find him and ready to welcome him – like a shepherd searching for a lost sheep; like a woman, desperate to find her lost coin.
And since the first miracle didn’t come to pass and because none of the doctors nor all of the science in the whole wide world could save him, I’m certain the second miracle has come to pass for this man, just like it will come to pass for you, for me, and for all of God’s children – whether we deserve it, ask for it, want it, or know, even, from what it is that we need to be saved.
Because nothing can or will separate us from the love of God in Jesus for very long – not hardship or distress, persecution or famine, not nakedness, peril or sword. Not death or life or angels or things present or things to come. Not powers or height or depth or things present or things to come. Not cocaine or meth or lack of faith. Not heart attacks, strokes or cancer. Not bad choices or bad luck or anything else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And I think we’re meant to be changed by that – right here and now; to repent and be changed by this grace and good news right where we live on this side of heaven – not in order to be found, or so that we’ll be saved or because we want to be redeemed. But God wants the good news of what has already been done in Jesus to transform us in every way so that our lives are fulfilled, so that we’ll live as a blessing for the world around us, so that the joy of heaven will be alive and well in us and through us for the sake of the world.
So today let’s acknowledge just how lost we all are, have been, or can be – each of us lost sheep, coins, sinners, whatever. And let’s be grateful for the abundant grace of God that seeks us out in Jesus; that searches far and wide, in Jesus; that finds us and forgives us and loves us, in Jesus, no matter what; and that moves heaven and earth to bring us home – even if we haven’t moved a finger to help – by the grace of God in Jesus, crucified and risen for the sake of the world.
Amen
