"FORWARD INTO FALL"

Rev. Jim Petersen

First Congregational UCC; Great Falls, Montana

9-9-07

Text: Luke 15:1-10; I Timothy 1:12-17

We are in the gospel of Luke this morning, as we have been on most of the Sundays I have preached this summer.  Luke is our lectionary gospel for this season. 

This morning's readings are actually our lectionary texts for next Sunday.  Next Sunday for us is "Homecoming Sunday," so we will do something else next week.  Don't forget, if you traveled this summer and remembered to pick up a stone or some water, bring it to church and we will build an altar as a way of saying farewell to summer and adding blessings to our fall.

In Luke, chapter fifteen, we have a series of three parables, the first of which you heard read this morning, the parable of the lost sheep.  It is followed by the parable of the woman with the lost coin, and concluded with one of Jesus' best known parables, the parable of the lost or Prodigal Son.   As you can tell, all three are lost and found stories.

We will only focus on the first story this morning; for I know you are anxious to get to the block party.  So I present to you the lost sheep, fear not, to be found in the next twenty minutes.

As you know, Jesus taught in parables.  Uniquely so.  A parable is a certain kind of story that engages us.  It often starts with familiarity, inviting us in and disarming us as we say "Oh, ya, we know this; been there, done that, yadda, yadda."

Then the parable takes a turn, if ever so subtly, the parable turns as it draws us to a conclusion that startles us, that sneaks up on us and surprises us, shakes us up and sets us down in a different place, where we are left wondering, well, if this be so, maybe that can be so, or if this is true, maybe that which we always assumed is not true.

In other words, the parable was Jesus' way of getting us to rethink the world in which we live, to step outside the box and reexamine our assumptions.  On Jesus' lips the parable was the Word of God breaking in upon us, surprising us and enlarging our world view, that we might see things and believe things we never thought possible, like the Kingdom of God at hand even in the midst of a sinful world.

Our parable this morning introduces us to the shepherds' theme.  Ho, hum, the people back then knew about shepherds.  For those of us who have been around church for a while, the shepherd theme is familiar as well.  We grew up with it pictured on the walls of our Sunday School rooms, even those of us who grew up in the suburbs far away from farms.

It is a comforting image, the "Good Shepherd," presented in our favorite 23^rd Psalm, and later identified with Jesus in the Gospel of John, who doesn't give us many parables, but who does quote Jesus as saying, "I am the good shepherd."(10:11) Nothing new here.  Ho, hum.

But for Jesus' original audience the way he uses the image of the shepherd is not comforting, as parables tend not to comfort.  Parables tend to prick, not pacify.  No, the shepherd image is disturbing for the disciples of Jesus' day.

We can see this in the preface to the parable in Luke.  It begins, "The Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ?This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.'"

You see, the good people back then were shocked at Jesus behavior.  Those who attended Temple were mortified at the people with whom Jesus' associated and ate.  After all, there were laws.  Reams of laws, called the Holiness Code.  It defined everything, clean and unclean.  It divided everyone, good people and bad.

They even had names.  The good people were called "righteous."  And the bad people were called - ? -  "sinners."  The Law forbade any righteous person from associating with a sinner.      "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." Tut, tut.  Jesus is breaking the Law.

Lest we relegate this reaction to the Temple crowd and our Hebrew forbears alone, let's realize this is a well-established tradition in the historic church.  Indeed, there are churches today that still practice "shunning." The person who has done wrong is excluded from the community, if not identified by a scarlet letter.  The righteous have no dealings with the shunned one, not one word. 

We lighten up and call it ex-communication, meaning "no-communication," "to take away (out of) community."   Shunning.  Same difference.

I am sometimes asked if the UCC practices ex-communication.  One wonders why they ask. Perhaps they know things I don't.  I tell them, yes, the UCC does have a procedure for ex-communication, though it is rarely practiced.  I'm not sure if this comforts the inquirer or not.

But it is and has been a practice of the historic church to shun the sinner.  Like the  scene in Alan Paton's novel, Too Late the Phalarope (phalarope = aquatic bird, sandpiper family, lobed toes for swimming, male attends eggs/young), which is set in a stern Dutch Calvinist community in South Africa around 1900, where the church goers make the Pharisees seem warm and fuzzy.

The father of the family receives the news that his son has had an affair with an African woman.  Understand, Dutch Calvinist, as in white.  African woman, as in black.  Shoot, the kid had grown up there.  He didn't know the difference.  The father did.  That was his job - to enforce the differences, to maintain the divisions.

So upon hearing this news, the father arises, goes to the family Bible, takes a pen, dips it in the ink well, and scratches the name of his son from the list of family members in the front of the Bible.  Then he takes some boards, and nails them across the front door of the house as a not very subtle way to say to his son he is banned from ever entering his home again.

For the son is now a sinner, and the righteous has no dealings with sinners.  Excommunicated.

The world into which Jesus came preaching was this kind of world.  It was divided between the righteous and the sinner.  And it was very clear who was who.  It was written boldly in the book.

So the Pharisees and the scribes, i.e., the righteous ones, are murmuring, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."  In turn Jesus tells them a 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.  (Ya, sure, they're thinking, basic shepherd stuff, we know this).  When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices (one of the enduring pictures we have from Sunday School.)  And when he comes home, he calls his friends and neighbors together, saying, "Rejoice with me.  For I have found my sheep that was lost." (Ya, you betcha, we'd do the same thing, right?  Makes sense to us.)

Just so, I tell you (and you can begin to hear the parable turn), there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who is found than over ninety-nine righteous persons who have never been lost .

Whoa!  Where did we go astray here?  I thought we were talking about sheep and shepherds, not sinners and the righteous.  You see, in this parable Jesus is slamming the Pharisees and scribes in the face, saying in God's eyes the sinner, you know, the outcast, the lost, the lame, the leper, is just as precious to God as the righteous one.

And furthermore, let me tell you, even presuming to separate God's children into sheep and goats, as the righteous readily do, is as sinful as going astray.

Later, when the gospels identify Jesus as the Good Shepherd, the gospel message is that God in Jesus will never cease to seek the lost, never.  That's the message.  And God through Jesus is coming to each of us, however we have gone astray, to call us back home, to a new community,

to a new family, where the boards that bar the door are broken down, and righteous ones and sinners mix and mingle such that we are all one family of grace under God.  Call it the church.

So, let's be clear about this, Jesus is communicating in the parable, if you are building walls which separate God's family, then you are working against God.

God is not happy with righteous people who divide God's children into winners and losers.  God is not happy with parents who cross the names of their children out of God's Holy Book.  God is not happy with "the haves" who build walls to keep out the "have nots."  And establish laws and rules which favor themselves while shutting others out.

This is not the heart of God.  For in God's heart, "there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who is found than over ninety-nine righteous persons who have never been lost."

We pray, it is not "too late the phalarope," where the father's role is to nurture the young, not shun the young.

This did not warm the hearts of the Pharisees and scribes.  Oh, let's not be too hard on the Pharisees & scribes.  They were willing to let the sinner back in, of a fashion.  That is, only after satisfying certain rigorous conditions, and only after a lengthy period of repentance. They certainly were not about to kill the fatted calf and throw a party upon the sinner's first return.

For the Pharisees the prickly point of the parable is what Paul later preached with passion to the Romans, "Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man - though perhaps for a good man one will dare to die.  But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:7-8) One of the  most salvific sentences in all of sacred scriptures.

Paul couldn't get over this, as he later wrote to his disciple, Timothy, in this morning's other reading.  Paul, who referred to himself as a "pharisee of Pharisees," couldn't get over the unmerited grace of the shepherd who "came into the world to save sinners," least of all Paul. Paul, who once was lost, was found; who once was blind, could see.  So with genuine gusto Paul preached amazing grace.

I tell you, this is not what the Pharisees wanted to hear.  Jesus is challenging their unbending world.  The role of the righteous is not to stand in judgment, because they are right and everyone else is wrong.  The role of the righteous is not to stand in smugness, because no one else has done what they have done.  The role of the righteous is not to stand in pride, because they do things well and everyone else makes dumb mistakes, so they are therefore better and more deserving than others.

Goodness, there is already enough of this in the world.  No, Jesus presents something new as he turns the parable.  And that is, in God's world, God seeks the lost.  God takes the initiative, "while we are yet sinners," and reaches out to save us.

Do you hear how revolutionary this is? Before the Prodigal ever delivers his prepared repentant speech, the father embraces him and lavishes his love upon him. 

This, my friends, is how God works. And this is how God heals.  God's goal is not to banish the losers.  How can we expect the lost to turn it around then?  They need help.  Not walls that divide, but hands that reach out.  Jesus did not die for the old divisions of the world.  He died that we might have a new world, a world of reconciliation and redemption, a world of forgiveness and full of grace.

It begins with Jesus.  Which means, get this, forgiveness precedes repentance.  Jesus is the answer to the question, which comes first, forgiveness or repentance?  God first forgives, "while they were yet sinners," that the sinner might then say "I'm sorry."  It is not that the sinner first repents and then God gets around to forgiving, which we prefer.  You know, he's got to first show remorse.

It's like the couple in counseling.  The guys messed up, but want to come home.  The counselor asks her, "Can you forgive him?"  She answers, "Not yet, he hasn't suffered enough."  Well, that's a very human and understandable response.

The good news is God is not human, and this is not God's response.

God first forgives that we (the lost) might come home. And now you know why the Pharisees don't like Jesus.  And why Luke lines up this trio of parables about the lost and found, beginning with the lost sheep, who does not turn it around.  He's lost.  The shepherd goes out and     finds him.  And concludes with the Prodigal Son, who is received back without a word of repentance, ticking off the older brother who, of course, wants to write him off and shun him.  You see, with God in Christ, it is not about payback, it is about love.  And this is tough stuff to swallow.  If we are to follow Jesus, then we must take big gulps, and go there.

We are to take the initiative to seek out those who are estranged, who have no voice, who are marginalized, even including those who have done wrong and offended us. Yes, as God loves us, so are we to love others.  We are to be the good shepherds reaching out as God's partners in renewal.  It begins with us.  And forgiveness.

How do we do this?  Well, I'm out of time.  You'll figure it out.  God will guide you.  I'm just giving you the biblical basis and a boot in the butt.  And don't whine about it being risky.  Of course it is risky! Welcome to the world.  Get over it!   If you don't want risk, climb into a coffin.

But I do know this means at the personal level if someone has offended you, you are to go to that person and offer them forgiveness.  This is how it starts.  I'm sure of this.  After this, the offender can choose to repent or stay lost.  We cannot control this, but it is worth the shot.

I say, what better way to move forward into the fall. By forgiving others, as Christ first forgave us, Father, forgive them..."

"And I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven..."

AMEN.