Luke 15:1-10
Forty-years later…in an essay in The Boston Globe…Kim Costigan recently wrote of the days she spent with her friend Kathy and her family.
- I felt lucky…part of something special.
- There was a type of freedom and little worry about teenage mischief.
- The daily presence of parents and dinner on the table.
- It gave me a feeling that this was a safe place where no one would be judged.
- Kathy’s parents let their kids be themselves and make mistakes.
- They loved them unconditionally.
- I was drawn to this family…which felt like the opposite of mine.
The friends of Kathy’s siblings would peel off as dinnertime approached.
- But I would stay.
- Kathy’s mom and dad and whichever kids were not away at their jobs would sit at the table.
- And we would eat as a family.
- I had not had that feeling of warmth around a dinner table before.
- And it nourished me just as much as the food they served.
Kathy’s family had always taken in stray dogs and cats…
- And my favorite was a yellow Labrador mix with a missing leg.
- He ran right alongside his four-legged counterparts with no problem.
- And was loved and cared for just like the rest of the dogs and cats that lived there.
It was not until many years later…as an adult…
- That I realized I was another one of the strays who was lost…
- And then was found…
- Finding my way to this refuge.
- The Lord be with you.
I thought of Kim and her friend Kathy…
- When I read this passage in Luke’s Gospel about the lost sheep and the lost coin.
- These two parables define Christ’s mission in the world.
- Jesus came to save that which is lost.
- That is the heart of the Gospel.
Earlier in Luke’s Gospel Jesus sees a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth.
- “Follow me” Jesus said to him and Levi got up…
- Left everything and followed him.
Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house…
- And a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them.
- But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law complained to Jesus’ disciples about Jesus’ conduct.
- They asked: “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
- Jesus answered them:
- It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick.
- I have not come to call the righteous…but sinners to repentance.
- We are Jesus’ target audience…
- Because we have all at one time or another gone astray.
St. Paul writes in his letter to Timothy:
- Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.
- This is good news because we are all sinners.
- At heart we have a flaw…a weakness.
- At heart we are all broken.
St. Paul described his own situation:
- I do not understand my own actions… he wrote.
- For I do not do what I want but I do the very thing I hate (Romans 7:15).
- He is describing us.
The Bible is very realistic about the nature of humanity:
- Abraham was the father of the Hebrew nation but he was far from perfect.
- Read the story and you will find him willing to give his wife to Pharaoh to save his own skin.
Jacob found favor with God and his name was changed to Israel.
- That’s good because his earlier name meant conniver …
- And he lived up to it or down to it.
David was a man after God’s own heart and yet David was an adulterous murderer…
- Psalm 51: Create in me a clean heart.
Peter was Jesus’ closest disciple and most outspoken friend…
- Yet Peter denied him with a curse.
- Even St. Paul…as he writes words of encouragement to Timothy…
- And gives God thanks for finding him worthy to serve God…
- Confesses to Timothy that he himself is the chief of sinners.
You and I…like all the above…are flawed creatures.
- We are so adept at justifying our basic nature that we may not be aware of it.
- The devil is an insidious creature.
- We are flawed…the Bible calls it sin.
I was once asked who gave me the most trouble in my congregation.
- I answered: “I’ve had more trouble with Pastor Chip than any other person alive.”
Someone once said:
- There is so much good in the worst of us…
- And so much bad in the best of us…
- That it hardly becomes any of us to talk about the rest of us.
Mildred…she was the self-appointed church gossip.
- She spread the word that George…a new member…
- Was an alcoholic after she saw his pickup truck parked in front of the town’s only bar one afternoon.
- George…a man of few words…didn’t explain…defend…or deny…
- He said nothing.
- Later that evening…George quietly parked his pickup in front of Mildred’s house . . . and left it there all night!
Kathy and her family make a place for Kim at an especially traumatic time in her life.
- Their love as a family makes them a place of refuge for all who come to their table.
Today’s Gospel of the lost challenges us to make places of refuge for those going through difficult times.
- To seek out the struggling and marginalized and help find their place in community.
- There are many lost sheep…lost coins…lost brothers and sisters among us.
- People who go unnoticed and unloved…who don’t seem to fit.
- Whose talents and gifts have no outlet.
- Christ asks us to seek out the lost.
- To see that they have their rightful place at our tables.
- In our churches.
- In our communities.
Listen again to how Jesus ends each of these parables:
- Rejoice with me…I have found my lost sheep…
- I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
- And again: Rejoice with me…I have found my lost coin. In the same way…I tell you…there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.