Sermon: "Lost and Found," September 15, 2019
14th Sunday After Pentecost
The Rev. Ryan Slifka
Series: “Jesus Uncensored: The Topsy- Turvy Teachings of Jesus According to Luke”
“Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 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 neighbours, 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 people 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 neighbours, 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.’”
John Prine, cover of his 1971 self-titled album
This past week I was listening to the great outlaw country musician John Prine. In his 1971 song “Spanish Pipedream,” Prine imagines himself as an American soldier on his way to Montreal to escape getting drafted. He stops at a bar, and there he catches the eye of an exotic dancer. During her routine, she leans into his ear, whispering these words:
Blow up your T.V.
Throw away your paper.
Move to the country, build you a home.
Plant a little garden, eat a lotta peaches.
Try and find Jesus, on your own.[i]
Later in the song Prine and the dancer end up running off and doing all of the above. And having a bunch of kids.
It’s a catchy tune. On one hand, it’s an anthem of the hippie dream. Of leaving all the trappings of modern civilization, rebuilding Eden.
On the other hand, though, what really jumped out at me hearing this song this this week is that last line: try and find Jesus—on your own.
The singer doesn’t have much of a problem with spirituality itself. Finding Jesus is good. Finding Jesus with other people, though, you don’t wanna do that. There are a lot of reason’s for that, of course. One’s the deep individualism of our culture. But mostly, people tend to shy away from church because of a bad experience with a faith community. Or they expect a bad experience. They expect judgment, holier-than-thou attitudes. Rigid dogma. So they prefer instead to “try and find Jesus… on their own.”
Now, as understandable as this may be, I also think it’s based on a misunderstanding. A misunderstanding by both church people and seekers, church people and non-church people alike, about the spiritual life. This misunderstanding’s build right into that wonderful last line: “try and find Jesus… on your own.” Because it makes the spiritual life primarily about our own individual searching for God. For those of us already in the church fold, we tend to think that it’s all about people coming to us. If we’re religious hardliners, we’ll find people, speak the hard truths, and hope they’ll find the error of their ways, clean up, and come to us for God’s mercy. And if we’re religious liberals, we hope if we’re good and nice people, maybe that’ll make people wanna visit us some day. Either way, the idea is that we’ve found Jesus, and we can help you find him, too.
It’s a misunderstanding. And today’s passage gets at the heart of the matter of this misunderstanding. It it we see that it’s a matter of direction. Of who is doing the seeking.
“Now,” our passage begins. “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus].’”
Last Supper image from NY artist David LaChappelle
Here it says “sinners and tax collectors” came to hear Jesus. By “sinners” it means some people who don’t follow the right religious practices. And some who don’t do the right things, or can’t get their lives together. And then we have “tax collectors.” I mean, who likes taxes? But they’re more than Canada Revenue. They’re traitors. They squeeze their own people to fill the treasuries of imperial Rome, the foreign occupiers. They’re collaborators getting rich on the backs of the poor and hungry. So we have sinners—the spiritually wandering. And we have tax collectors—the ethically blind and morally bankrupt. People who have done terrible things to themselves and other people.
[slide,
Whatever kind of seeker you are, whether you’re John Prine just tryin' to find Jesus or are living with immense guilt and shame or someone in between you’ll find yourself in there. Here we have religious searchers of all kinds seeking after Jesus. On their own, and in crowds. Drawn to him and his message.
But, it says, but “the Pharisees and the scribes [saw this, and] were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." Pharisees and Scribes. These are Jesus’ rivals. His New Testament nemeses. You can guess who they are. These are the aforementioned religious hardliners. They see Jesus with this gaggle of various different sinners. Which is fine. I mean, someone has to talk some sense into these people.
The problem they have with Jesus, though, is that he’s not doing any of that!]. He isn’t bringing the fire-and-brimstone. Like the great preacher Barbara Brown Taylor says: “[The Pharisees and Scribes] are not uninterested in sinners, but they believe that the best way to help them is to hold up a high standard, inviting them to achieve it and letting them know where they fall short. Until finally they are challenged to become the best that they can be.”i[ii] They think Jesus should be whipping these people into shape for their own good. But guy’s hanging out. He’s having a laugh. He’s slapping shoulders, raising his glass in a toast and saying “the next round’s on me.” It’s like he’s condoning their behavior or something.
But Jesus isn’t doing that either. He knows their spiritual longings, he knows their screw ups, and their secret sins. He knows it all. But here he’s showing the mysterious way of God in the world. A God who is not to be sought. But a God who is, instead, seeking us.
Christ as the good shepherd, Lucas Cranach circa 1586.
He tells these two parables. Imagine, he says. Imagine you’re a shepherd. Flock of a hundred sheep. One day one of those sheep go missing. I mean, it’s only one sheep, but wouldn’t you take the risk and leave the other ninety nine-behind to go after it? I mean, it was the sheep’s fault. But there’s no way they’d make their way back without you. Wouldn’t you track ‘em down, toss ‘em over your shoulders and throw a little shindig when you got back home?
“The Lost Coin,” James Jacques Joseph, 1836-1902
Or, he says—imagine there’s a woman with ten copper coins, and she loses one. I realize it’s only one coin, leaving her still with a solid ninety-percent. But that woman would shine a lamp in every corner, turn over every mattress, and sweep under every rug to find it. And like the found sheep, she’d call her friends over to celebrate saying, “remember that coin? I found it.”
In both these stories, Jesus says, the owner persistently and relentlessly searches out what was lost. Because it’s what God’s like. God doesn’t wait for lost people to find their way back to him. Nor is anyone too lost for God to find. She does what it takes, pays whatever cost—even death on a cross. And when that person’s found--It’s party time. Because the rescue of even one lost soul is enough for the angels to put up the streamers, to strike up the band, and fill all the balloons in heaven.
That’s what I’m up to here, Jesus says. A little shepherding here, coin collecting there. And look at all the odd-balls I’ve found and restored to life. Hell, I’ve even been known to find someone as hard-hearted as you. So might as well turn your frowns upside-down. Pull up a chair, put on a party-hat and join in on the fun. This is what God does. This is what I do. So relax. Cuz it’s all on my tab.
Just when we thought the spiritual life was about our seeking after God, Jesus flips it all on its head. God’s not only the one looking for us. God’s got our GPS, before we even knew we had the option to share our location.
Rev. Hugh Reid
Hugh Reid, a United Church Minister in Ontario tells this story about a man named Allan. Earlier in life Allen had left his family and home to find himself. Before he knew it, though, he ended up lost in a world of drugs, wandering the streets of Vancouver's downtown Eastside. One night he ended up in a shelter, staring at the ceiling among bunkfulls of strangers. He didn’t know where he was, he didn’t know who he was. But he did know he wanted his suffering to end.
He was determined to put himself out of his own misery. But there in that bunk, a voice called from another world. “Is Allan Roberts here?”
That was his name, but he hardly knew Allan Roberts anymore. It couldn’t be him being called.
“Is there anybody named Allan Roberts here?” the voice persisted.
No one else answered and so Allan took a risk. “I’m Allan Roberts.”
“Your mother’s on the phone.”
You’ve made a mistake, Allen said. “I don’t know where I am, how could my mother know where I am?”
“If you’re Allan Roberts, your mother’s on the phone.”
Unsure what to expect, he went to the desk in the hall and took the receiver. “Allan,” said his mother. “It’s time for you to come home.”
“Mom,” he said. “I don’t know where I am. I have no money, you don’t know what I’m like anymore. I can’t go home.”
“It’s time for you to come home,” she said. “There’s a Salvation Army officer who’s coming to you with a plane ticket. He’s going to take you to the airport to get you home.”
The thing is—she actually didn’t know where he was. She just called every shelter and hostel for months until she found him.
He went home to Ontario, supported and loved by his mother, who had never ceased to know him even though he had forgotten himself. And, inspired by the faith that had sustained his mother’s hope and love, he began attending church services at Hugh Reid’s Church. Allan had shown up that day asking to be baptized.
But Reid realized it wasn’t Allan who was doing the seeking. “Allan did not find his own way to my office . . .” he said. “A path, not of his own making, [was] made by the love that found him, that knew him better than he knew himself. And that love invited him to [be baptized]. To follow Jesus.”[iii]
Friends, the spiritual life, the Way of Jesus. It’s not about our searching, seeking, or finding. It’s not about earning, obtaining or figuring anything out. At least not ultimately. It’s about being found. The Good News is that Jesus is like the shepherd who leaves the 99, the woman who turns her house over for one coin. The mother who calls every shelter until she hits the right one. The good news is that no matter how lost we’ve become, no matter how we’ve screwed it up and strayed on life’s journey, God the Good Shepherd comes looking for us. God never stops seeking, never stops searching, until we’re deposited home, safe and sound. Fed, healed and made new. Even those of us who, like the Pharisees, thought we were already found, and managed to get ourselves lost without knowing it.
So, by all means. Take the exotic dancer’s advice in John Prine’s tune: Blow up your T.V. Throw away your paper (or smart phone). Move to the country, build you a home. Plant a little garden and stuff yourself full with all the peaches you can eat. But you can skip the last verse. Because before you even go looking for God, know that Jesus is already in hot pursuit, nipping at your heals. Not to scare you, or condemn you, or shame you into submission. But to rescue you and all of humanity from its trouble. To toss you, to toss us on his shoulders and bring us to the party. The never-ending celebration of God’s ever-flowing grace.
And by the power of that same grace, may this church more perfectly become a community where both the lost and the found are caught up in the never-ceasing joy of salvation. Because it’s not about finding Jesus. On our own or otherwise. It’s the joy of being found. And sharing in that found-ness together.
AMEN.
[i] John Prine, John Prine (New York: A&R Studios), 1971.
[ii] Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Lost and Found Department,” in The Preaching Life (Boston: Cowley Publications, 1993), 149.
[iii] Sermon by Hugh Reid quoted in Paul Scott Wilson, Setting Words on Fire: Putting God at the Center of the Sermon (Nashville: Abingdon, 2008), 159-60):