September 12, 2010

Let’s set the scene. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem. In the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus’ ministry takes place first in Galilee, which is north of Jerusalem, and the territory of Jesus’ hometown of Nazareth. At some point in the narrative, Jesus switches from wandering around Galilee and begins a journey with a destination. He is on his way to Jerusalem. Luke says, “Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem.” As he goes, he teaches. Luke, following Mark and Matthew, puts much of Jesus’ teaching about discipleship, about what it means to be following him on this journey, in the context of this journey. Along the way, Luke also includes most of the parables that Jesus told.

So the two parables we heard were told during that journey to Jerusalem. But Luke places them in a more immediate context that provides the setting for the stories. Luke says that “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’.”

To understand what’s going on, it’s helpful to know what these categories meant in first century Palestine. Tax collectors were not employees of the IRS. There were no payroll deductions, tax tables, and 1040 forms. Instead, Rome determined what each province or administrative district needed to submit; the let the tax collecting contracts out to bid, and sold them to the highest bidder. In turn, the tax collector might further subcontract the work. You weren’t paid by the Roman administration. Rather, you made money by extracting more from the people whose taxes you were collecting than you needed to send up the hierarchy. As the money went up towards Rome, everyone took their cut. People were very much at the tax collector’s mercy. They were hated, especially in Palestine, where they were seen as collaborators with the Roman government. And it wasn’t a Tea Party kind of hate; it was more like what we see in Iraq or Afghanistan, where people who are perceived as cozying up to the occupation pay with their lives.

Sinners, too, were much more than what we think of when we identify ourselves as sinners in need of God’s grace. For Luke, sinners were habitual. It wasn’t the occasional peccadillo that was in question—it was a lifestyle. We see something of that distinction when in v. 7 where Jesus says “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.” So these sinners with whom Jesus was hanging out were not folks like you and me, they were the most reviled, hated, despised in society, or in a way outside of society. So, too, the tax collectors.

No, if there were people like us in this little interchange with Jesus it was the Pharisees and scribes. Not that the Pharisees were “hypocrites” as we often perceive them. The scribes and the Pharisees were the ones in first-century Palestine who took their religion seriously. They volunteered at the synagogue; they studied their bibles, prayed, tried to live out their faith. They also organized the synagogues. They were the clergy, the vestry, the volunteers who made the church work and did the outreach, in other words, all of those people you will meet in a few minutes when you go to the Ministries Fair. And they complained, because Jesus didn’t hang out with them, he spent time with tax collectors and sinners.

So now we come to the parables. The Pharisees and scribes were grumbling about Jesus’ outrageous behavior and in response he tells them two stories. To get what these parables are about you have to shift your focus. We are inclined to put ourselves in the story—as the sheep or the coin that was lost. But that’s exactly the wrong place to begin. Instead, we need to begin with Jesus’ question to the scribes and Pharisees: “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?” Which one of you would do that? None of us would. We would do a cost/benefit analysis and cut our losses, leaving the one to die while making sure the 99 were safe.

And the second story—about the coin? We can imagine losing something precious and search diligently for it, high and low, systematically. Corrie and I have been doing a good bit of that in the last month. If you’ve had to move, you know what I’m talking about. We can’t find anything because we haven’t unpacked all of our boxes and we don’t know where we’ve put the things we have unpacked. It’s enormously frustrating and rarely ends in success. Usually we just give up.

The parable describes in great detail the woman’s actions, she lights a lamp, sweeps the floor. The narrative almost stops for a moment, heightening tension, so that the discovery becomes even more dramatic. But then what happens? She throws a party, invites her friends, spends what, as much or double the worth of the coin she had lost? We can see ourselves searching for something, but throwing a party, and throwing what we found away in rejoicing? Who of us would do that?

Two people behaving completely unexpectedly, in ways that make utterly no sense by any rational analysis. They were so overjoyed by the finding that it’s almost as if they lost their bearings. Nothing else mattered but that joy, and offering others the opportunity to share in that joy.

It’s clear that Luke wants us to see the point of the story to be God’s extravagant joy in welcoming a repentant sinner. So be it. No doubt it fills us with love and gratitude toward God to imagine ourselves welcomed in such a way. But how do we respond? Do we show forth our gratitude as extravagantly as God shows forth God’s love? Is our joy so great that we show it by sharing it as lavishly as the shepherd or the woman shared their joy?

It may be that those feelings of joy are long-forgotten, submerged under the reality of daily life, all of the struggles we have. It may also be that sometimes we may come to feel the joy we once felt was not real, but induced or the product of youthful exuberance. It may be that the joy we should feel is tempered by the responsibilities we have, the concerns and commitments that are in the forefront of our minds, the obligations that church seems to burden us with. Perhaps some of you right now have made plans to sneak out the back after the service. Oh visitors of course, but many longer-term members as well. You’re not going to coffee hour today, because when you get there, you will be surrounded by sign-up sheets and people urging you to join this or that activity, to volunteer your precious time and energy on what is some thankless task. The last thing you need in your busy life is another commitment, another thing to do.

It’s easy for us at a church like Grace to feel that everything we do is a burden. We’ve got this building to maintain; there are so many tasks and ministries that need doing and it often seems like we’re on a downhill slide. Those of you who have been around a long time can remember how things were very different, at least in some ways, thirty years ago. You remember too our more recent struggles, the pain many of you have endured. We worry what might happen down the road.

But wait a second—Where’s the joy? If you’re here because you’ve experienced God’s love and grace and continue to experience it, there’s nothing that you need to do out of obligation or responsibility in response to God. The sheep and the coin that once were lost had been found. The ones searching for them rejoiced and celebrated at their rediscovery. Our gratitude to God should explode in as much joy and celebration. Our gratitude should express itself in all that we do, in all that we are. We should express our joy, share our gratitude in our worship, as we volunteer, in our giving.