Sermon: “Found People Find People," Lent, March 23, 2025
Luke’s Gospel: Jesus and the Outsiders, Outcasts, and Outlaws
Scripture: Luke 15:1-32
Preacher: Rev. Ryan Slifka
Title: “Found People Find People”
Here we are, continuing in Luke’s gospel, this week with chapter 15. This week returns a familiar theme:
“Now,” begins our reading. “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus]. And when they did, “the Pharisees and scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Now, of course we modern folks can hear this and wonder what’s the big deal. I mean, I don’t like paying my taxes but I’d never cut someone out of my life just for working for the CRA.
But we miss the shock value. Remember tax collectors are traitors, local people who lined their own pockets by squeezing God’s people for cash on behalf of the Roman occupiers to send back to Rome. The equivalent of Nazi collaborators during World War II. And sinners—these are folks who had become outcasts based on the ways that they had transgressed God’s Law. Sub in the word “sex offender” or “drug dealer” and the shock value is apparent. I mean, just think of people you would not want leading the church youth group, and there’s them and Jesus sharing a box of Lucky Lager in the church parking lot.
And the Pharisees—they kind of have a point. Remember, the Pharisees and scribes are some of Jesus’ chief opponents. We think of them as moustache twirling villains. But they are pious religious folk. People who take the scriptures and the law seriously. People who yearn to do right and seek God’s will in everything they do. They are good and righteous people. They are the Rotarians of the year, secretaries of the chamber of commerce, the life-long anti-poverty activists, the Elders on church Council. Your Ned Flanders to your Homer Simpson. We’d call them disciples that not only talk the talk, they walk the walk of faith. They are exactly the type of people we do want running the church youth group.
And it’s not that they don’t care for the lost. What they believe is that the best way to help the lost is to shine a light for them. To set a high standard, to be a good example. It’s not that they don’t want to help, but that their form of help is to point out where they have faltered and failed so they can change their behavior, to challenge them to become the best they can be. To make their kind of life attractive enough for the lost to return home. And do something with their lives.[1]
That’s what they’re grumbling about. Jesus appears to be doing is condoning their behaviour. And removing their incentive to change. I don’t know about you, but based in my own experience with people on the margins, I kind of get it.
In response, though, Jesus unloads a string of three parables all with a very familiar theme:
Parable number one: Shepherd has 100 sheep, one wanders away. So the shepherd leaves the 99 to go after the missing one. And when you brought that sheep home wouldn’t celebrate? Like the shepherd, Jesus is searching after the lost sheep of God’s people, going to where they are. Not to chill out with them in their lostness, but to bring them home to the other 99, which are the Pharisees and scribes. “Which one of you,” he asks, “wouldn’t do the same?”
Same thing with parable #2. This time a poor woman has ten coins, she’s poor so each is precious. One rolls off into the heat register, so she turns the whole house upside-down trying to find it. And when she does she lets all her friends know. Same deal, here Jesus is the old woman, who is searching relentlessly for the lost coins—which are the lost sinners, until these coins go back in the purse with the other 9. The other nine being, again, the Pharisees and scribes. Again, he asks “Which one of you wouldn’t do the same?”
Now the first two parables set us up for the third. Which sounds remarkably like the preceding ones. At least at first.
A father has two sons. The younger one tells the old man “give me my inheritance” and he does. And he proceeds to get lost. Hops on the first flight to Vegas, blows it all on wine, women and song. Loses it all, wanders the street. So desperate he basically ends up a slave cleaning out pig sties. So hungry he’d even eat their slop.
This is where the third parable differs from the other two. The other two set us up to expect someone to go out looking for this guy, like the shepherd leaving the ninety nine, or the woman who searches every nook and cranny for the coin. But it doesn’t happen.
Instead, we’re told, the lost son comes to his senses. He journeys home, and rehearses his apology, willing to sleep on the dirt floor in his Father’s tool shed, if necessary. But when he gets off the bus at the family estate his dad rushes out to meet him, has the family robe and rings put on his fingers again, brings him inside and throws a party. Slaughter the fatted calf, he says. Spare no expense.
At this point, the parable kind of contradicts the other two. I mean, clearly the younger son is meant to fill in for the tax collectors and sinners, and the welcoming Father is God. So maybe, like the younger son, things’ll get so bad that that these folks’ll just return home.
But the parable doesn’t end there. Remember, there are two sons.
While the beer kegs are getting unloaded, the older brother is where he’s supposed to be. Out in the field, taking care of the farm. He follows the music to the house where he flags down one of the farm hands carrying a huge cut of meat over his shoulder. “Your brother’s home safe and sound,” he tells him. “And so your dad says we’re having veal.”
This sets the elder brother off, he refuses to go inside. So the father comes out, tries to convince him to join the party. But the elder brother isn’t having it. “I’ve been taking care of the farm, doing what you’ve told me day in day out. You’ve never given me so much as a goat to party with my friends, and this son of yours comes waltzing in after dropping all your money in brothels and here we’re having the best beef. You can have your little ridiculous shindig,” he grumbles. “But you can count me out.”
The late pastor and writer Timothy Keller points out that this is where the third parable reconnects to the other two. Jesus is setting us up to wonder who should have gone searching for the younger brother? The answer is the older one.
“This is what the elder brother in the parable should have done;” Keller says. And, “this is what a true elder brother would have done.” [2] But, instead, the Elder brother was so focussed on his own goodness and righteousness that it wouldn’t have occurred to him to take the risk. Instead, like Cain in the book of Genesis, who killed his brother Abel, the older brother’s answer is “am I my brother’s keeper?”[3]
If the younger brother’s the tax collectors and sinners, and the Father is God, can you guess at this point, who the older brother might be? The Pharisees and scribes. They’re so focussed on their own righteousness, goodness, and moral purity, that it would never occur to them to do anything but wait for the lost to wander home! And even then! Even if they did wander home on their own they’d be jealous at the Lord himself for rolling out the red carpet!
And here’s the crucial point. Remember how the older son is so resentful that he won’t attend the father’s party? Jesus says—same this with the Pharisees and scribes. Except the party Jesus is talking about is the kingdom of God. God’s royal rule on earth as it is in heaven. Their judgment, their self-righteousness, their concern for their deservedness over the un-deservedness of others… it’s not only kept them from doing their job searching for lost sheep to bring home, and retrieving missing precious coins in the form of God’s children. It’s going to shut them out of the joy of God’s future altogether.
Make no mistake, these guys are as good as it comes. But the crucial point is that the Pharisees and scribes may see themselves as “found.” But by virtue of their own attitudes towards others, they are just as lost as anybody else.
Now, what are we supposed of make of all this? Three mini-sermons:
Mini-sermon #1 is for all of us out there who, like the younger brother, feel lost. You’ve failed, you’ve sinned, you’re ashamed, guilty or even purposeless. The good news for you is that Jesus goes searching before the tax collectors and sinners do anything to change their lives. This is who God is for you, and for me. God, Jesus, is not waiting for you to get your life together to come looking for you, to be with you, or to love you. You do not need to understand the ins and outs of theology, or the Bible to know this. You do not have to be good, or even have faith for this to be true. Because the Lord is the true older brother. The one who will not stop searching for you until he brings you home. There are no conditions, other than knowing you’re lost. And wanting to come home. In fact, this Word I am uttering to you right now is him saying to you that you are home. Right here right now. Because I am here with you. The ring of belonging, and the robe of forgiveness—all yours. Worship every Sunday is that party in the parable, that home away from our ultimate home which is in God.
That’s mini-sermon #1. For those who are lost, there is grace. The Father’s arms are open.
Mini-sermon # 2. This one is for all the older brothers in the crowd—even if you’re a sister. Those of you who have done your best to love God with all you’ve got and your neighbour as yourself. Those of you who have had successful careers, those of you who’ve done right, are generally generous, kind, compassionate. Sheep who’ve never wandered from the flock, coins who’ve never spilled out of the purse. This one pinches a little bit, doesn’t it? It says that the prime danger of goodness, righteousness, is that you look around and wonder why can’t everybody be as righteous as me? It says that all of your righteousness and goodness is worthless when it spawns self-righteousness. In the words of Isaiah, it makes even your good works tainted “like filthy rags.”[4] It makes you as lost as anybody.
And yet… the good news is that the same Lord has come for you, too. I mean, I love these parables, because Jesus is not only like the shepherd, the searching woman, and the true elder brother. In this conversation with the Pharisees he’s like the gentle Father at the end, too. Like the father in the parable reminding him that what he has is already his, Jesus says to us his kingdom is already yours. You can stop thinking that your worth in life is based on your achievements, or your performance. The Good News is that the door is already open, the cork is popped, the table’s already set. Your resentments are forgiven, you can drop your self-righteousness, because joy awaits through the door outside of your ego.
That’s mini-sermon #2. There’s grace for older brothers, too.
Which leads me to finally, mini-sermon #3. This one’s for all of us. The church.
The truth is that the church is not made up of only younger brothers, or elder brothers. The church is a mixture of both, often in the same person, even at different times. We are people lost in our own sins and failures one day, lost in our own self-righteousness the next. Regardless, what holds us together as individuals and a community is that we know somebody was searching for us, and somebody found us, and brought us to the party. Newcomers and old-timers are all on the same footing before God. There’s this radical, surprising equality in the church. Nobody is better than the other. We’re all sheep lost in one way or another, found by God, brought home by Jesus, the good shepherd. That’s worth a weekly celebration! One called worship!
Now, the question is, what kind of guests would we be if we kept the party to ourselves? Like, we’re constantly sharing stuff we love on TikTok and Instagram. Raving about our favourite restaurants, rating our favourite brands. But that about the joy that makes life worth living? So many people out there feel so lost. And the last thing we’re willing to share? The delight that makes depression bearable? The hope that makes justice possible? The light that cast out all our darknesses? Not over and against other people—again, we’re no better than anybody. That’s the mistake Jesus burns the Pharisees for. But it’s more like the words attributed to the great Reformer Martin Luther: we’re just beggars telling other beggars where to find bread.[5] Helping fellow lost brothers and sisters find the home we’ve found. In the waiting arms of a loving Father.
That’s sermon #3: found people find people. Because it’s the kind of good thing we can’t keep to ourselves.
And I pray that we won’t keep it to ourselves. In the same way Jesus, the true older brother comes searching for us, I pray that the Holy Spirit gives each of us the courage to search. To give an account of the hope that is within us to our friends and neighbours, to a world in such need of it. I hope that you and I are given the invitational voice of the shepherd to join the party.
Three sermons is probably enough.
So I offer this to you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. AMEN.
[1] See Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Lost and Found Department,” in The Preaching Life (Cambridge: Cowley Publications, 1993), 148.
[2] Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith (New York: Dutton, 2008), 80-81.
[3] Genesis 4:9.
[4] Isaiah 64:6.
[5] I have heard Luther quoted on this many times, and it fits with his thinking, but there is no clear citation.