Worship > Sermon Archive

>The Reverend James Derkits
September 16, 2007

We Were Lost, But Now Are Found

Proper 19, C
(Stewardship @ St Mary's)
Exodus 32. 1, 7-14
Luke 15. 1-10

Perhaps the Gospel reading from Luke and our reading from Exodus are set next to one another to remind us of both our ongoing, and real tendency to wander, and God's ongoing and real tendency to search us out, welcome us back and even celebrate our return. In our reading from Exodus, takes about 40 days for the Israelites to decide they have had enough of waiting on Moses. They know he has gone up Mt Saini to speak to God and that he gave them instructions for while he is away and yet they beg Aaron to make gods for them; they remember that it was Moses who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, but they just don't know what has become of him…this Moses is seemingly lost from them, so they go looking for a new god to follow. And while it takes some convincing in the story, God does not wipe out the stiff necked people, but receives them once again, and goes on to make a covenant with them, something they can even carry with them, so that they may remember that God is with them always.

In the parables from Luke's Gospel, we have more insight into how God deals with the wayward, as reveled through Jesus. Once again the people who are supposed to know God, the clergy of his time, are grumbling. They are criticizing and grumbling against Jesus. They watch him and his habits and decide that he is less than an exemplary religious person. Their major complaint is, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." …This is far from just a casual observation, they are attacking his character. They see who he is eating with, and remember that breaking bread with someone is a sign and seal of full acceptance of that person or those people. Jesus' breaking bread with sinners is identifying himself with those sinners, birds of a feather, and such. Their understanding of holiness is that he is somehow contaminated by associating with them so intimately. He is an affront to them not only because of his own behaviors, but because as we have read before, he has also broken bread with those Pharisees, and their own reputation could be at stake here. They are scandalized by his seemingly unclean, unworthy actions.

In response to their grumblings he tells three parables explaining God's understanding of the wayward, the third is the familiar parable of the prodigal son, where the young son squanders his inheiritance, is broke, and returns to his father's household to seek work as a slave; instead his father runs to him with arms open, dresses him up, and throws a party. That one we didn't hear today. We did heard about sheep and coins.

In both of these parables, someone has lost something valuable and does all in their power to find it. The shepherd leaves behind the 99 other sheep to seek out the one lost sheep. When he finds it he picks it up on his shoulders to bring it back. The woman who lost the coin sweeps her whole house until she finds the coin which she lost.

In all three parables we end with a party. The shepherd, the woman who lost the coin, and the father who receives his son back all throw a party. Their joy is so great that they cannot celebrate by themselves, but they gather the entire community around them to help in the celebration.

This is Jesus' answer to the criticism of the Pharisees: Stop grumbling and let's celebrate! These "sinners" Jesus sits down with, the unclean, the wayward, the unholy, those the Pharisees avoid for fear of unsanctioned association, are like that lost coin, or sheep, or son to God and are worth gathering the community together for a celebration. Jesus understating of holiness isn't that the holy can be contaminated by the unpure, but that the ordinary wayward sinners are instead made holy by their association with God.

These parables remind us of how Jesus welcomes us into the family of God when we are baptized and when we come to be fed in the Eucharist. We are not turned away as unworthy, we are transformed into holy people by eating at God's table. And God is here, with the gathered community to celebrate our homecoming, our being found. We are the lost coin, the wandering sheep, the prodigal son, and the sinner with whom Jesus is already sitting down at table. We are the ones for whom God calls a celebration!

The radical table fellowship of Jesus is to welcome us as sinners, and it is not repayable, but it is life changing, which brings us to our money stewardship. Unlike many of our financial transactions in life, pledging to our church, or making any sort of contribution is not about paying for something, it is an expression of our transformed life. God cannot be paid back as the divine host who welcomes us to eat even when we are ordinary, wayward people. God's hospitality transforms us into a holy community, transforms us from people lost and searching for an idol to worship, into people who have been given covenant which bonds us and protects us. God promises to be with us, just as she was with us leading us out of Israel, just as he does whatever it takes to seek us out when we are lost, and sits down to eat with us whatever our state may be to make us holy and worthy to be table fellows of with God.

God welcomes us to his table to eat and be made holy. Our whole life can be a response and an expression of that: the way we care for others, the way we welcome those who we know to be wayward, and invite them also to come to the table. We can also pledge our money, a symbol of ourselves to St Mary's, trusting that God will be with us, and sharing the financial gifts God has already given us, so that others may be sought out and found, and welcomed into this holy presence of God.

AMEN

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