Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

Luke 15:1-10

1 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." 3 So he told them this parable:

4 "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? 5 When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

8 "Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 9 When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, "Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

A while back the New York Times travel section published this story on pubs. it said that “a good pub is a ready made party, a home away from home, a club anyone join.”  It’s not hard to imagine the Jesus of our bible story today sitting in this kind of pub and eating and drinking with whoever was there. In the case of the bible story we just head, this would be Jesus sitting and eating with tax collectors and sinners.  The fact that Jesus—a religious leader of the day—was sitting and eating with folks like that was enraging and embarrassing to the other religious leaders who were present.  And they start to grumble, the story says. Can you believe who he’s eating with!  Tax collectors and sinners!  This is outrage!

In response to their grumbling, Jesus responds with three little stories: the first about the lost sheep, the second about a lost coin, and then a third, which doesn’t make it into our reading today, is known as the prodigal son, or the lost son.

Some a you know these stories, but to sum them up:  One way to look at these parables is to imagine that God is like a shepherd with 100 sheep.  He loses one, leaves the 99 and scours the wilderness till he finds the lost sheep.  Then He throws a huge party to celebrate that he found it. 

Then, God is like a woman who has lost a precious coin.  God turns Her house upside down, digging through drawers and sweeping every crevice until She finds her precious coin.  She’s totally stoked when she finds it, and decides to invite all her ladies over for a big party (you know, the Greek actually specifies that this is a party just for the ladies).

Not hard to see what Jesus is up to here, right?:  that foolish lost lamb and little lost coin were the sinners who had wandered off!  They’ve strayed out beyond the fold, wandered away from the home, and left the secure haven where God is. They have wandered outside the realm of Christianity!  And now God is leading a massive search and rescue to try and find them and bring them home! And we should too!!

Hmmm…Or wait.  Maybe this story is about Jesus is teaching all those self-righteous religious leaders a lesson.  You know the ones who are gossiping and grumbling and salty about Jesus hanging out with the wrong crowd? Obviously, those religious leaders of the day had it wrong—don’t they get it? (duh!) God loves the sinners and we’re supposed to hang out with them and bring them back into the fold! Just like Jesus did.  You know, the last shall be first…

One can almost imagine the scene rolling out with Jesus at the pub with the sinners, and religious leaders and the disciples, he’s spelling it out, and everyone’s getting all hyped up about who is right and who is lost. And people pointing their fingers and getting all resentful about who deserves to be sought out who doesn’t. (Polarization is a heck of a drug…)

But then right there, in the midst of the finger pointing and the grumbling and chest-thumping, and all the sinning, Jesus looks out and says: y’all it doesn’t matter who you are (religious leaders, fishermen, sinners, disciples).  Because you all share a common experience. You’re all lost. All y’all. Something about the 99 is lost incomplete without that missing sheep.

Lost.

One would think that after hearing these bible stories today in church that being lost is bad.  We have this way of talking about lost:  “Yeah, after college, she was a little lost.”  Or, “when his marriage fell apart he was totally lost.”

I mean, the title of the parables doesn’t really put the coin or the sheep in a good light:  “The lost sheep.” What about: “The parable of irresponsible shepherd who let his sheep wander off!”  

“The lost coin.” What about: “The woman who spaced on where she left her purse!”

Somehow, being lost seems like the sheep’s fault or the coin’s fault in these parables.  They got lost. Dumb sheep.

But I don’t think lost is bad. We’ve all been there. 

Lost: When we lose the feeling that we belong or the feeling that we’re valuable.  Maybe we’re lost when life has been on a predictable course and suddenly we’re thrown a total curveball.  Some of us get lost when a loved one dies or when we lose a job.  Some of us are lost in our marriages or lost in the feeling that no one really quite knows us.  We get lost in wanting our lives to mean something.  A friend once told me that after she stopped drinking, she felt oddly lost as a sober person.

I’ll admit it that I have been thinking a lot this week of a time in my life when I felt deeply lost as a member of my own church years ago.  Like lost, even when I was sitting there in the pew.  The music grated against me, the prayers felt irrelevant, scripture seemed thin, I felt misunderstood. I was bitter and bored.  I think I was lost and longing for God right there in church. 

We get lost. And then we get lost again, and again.

Our story tells us that God seeks what is lost.  God scours the wilderness and She sweeps the house.  And that means, as Debie Thomas puts it, that “God isn’t [back] in the fold with the ninety-nine insiders.  God isn’t curled up on her couch polishing her nine coins she’s already sure of.  God is where the lost things are. God,” she writes, “is in the darkness of the wilderness,  God is in the remotest corners of the house, God is where the search is at its fiercest,” she ends. 

And this means that when everything has been undone and we have completely lost our bearings, when we see that we are all lost in some way or another and we recognize it, we will be found.  There are all kinda lost people out there in the wilderness, after all.  And all it takes is the grace of one to find you, to hear you, to see you, to know you, to show you the love of Jesus, and you will be found. 

The word grace comes from the latin word gratia, which came from the Greek word charis.  Grace was this idea of “favor” or kindness that someone shows another.  Grace was like an offering.  In her book, “The art of Grace,” Sarah Kaufman explains that “there’s a sense of physically reaching out and leaning toward other people that’s embedded in the word ‘grace.’” 

When Jesus tells these parables that afternoon at the pub (or wherever he was) he was talking with some of his greatest critiques.  And he is calling them, as disciples, to reach out.

Grace is being known. It is trying to step into another’s shoes.  It is compassionately listening.  To each other. It is forgetting ourselves and searching, sweeping the house from top to bottom, searching the craggy wilderness, reaching out and offering who we are in order to find the lost. And in order be found.   This is the grace of God.

This is holy work.

Finding and being found is an act of community making.  About 350 years after Christ, it was Basil of Caesarea who said that if religion is just a private matter, “Whose feet will you wash?”

Our call as disciples is to search for one another and share of our hearts (here at church, in our work, in our families) and to find each other. And then, Jesus says, to throw a joyous party with all our girlfriends, or a party with all the bro-mance, or a party with just all of it, and rejoice!

Amazing Grace, How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found
T'was blind but now I see

T'was Grace that taught my heart to fear
And Grace, my fears relieved
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed

Through many dangers, toils and snares
We have already come.
T'was grace that brought us safe thus far
And grace will lead us home.

A message for Rally Sunday: On the Cost of Discipleship, the Potter and the clay

Jeremiah 18:1-7

1 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 "Come, go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words." 3 So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. 4 The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. 5 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 6 Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 And I work on you. (NRSV, NLT combined)

Luke 14:25-35 ²⁵ 

Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, ²⁶ “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. ²⁷ Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 

²⁸ For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? ²⁹ Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, ³⁰ saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ ³¹ 

Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? ³² If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. ³³ 

So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; they throw it away. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!

The Good News…of our Lord!?

Happy Rally Day!

We thought we would jump hook, line and sinker into the new program year with some very intense words from Jesus in the gospel of Luke—phew!  No peace, love and sunshine readings for us this Rally Day Sunday morning!

Truthfully, when I was a kid, this bible story kind of terrified me.  I’m all about being a disciple of Jesus—but this business about hating my mother, father, siblings and husband and hating life itself did not impart the peace that passes all understanding on my heart.  Nor did this insistence on giving up all of my possessions. It still doesn’t.  My first response is bah! how do I just soften story this so we can go outside and eat some ribs and play some games and be together and keep it easy? But softening the gospel is not really my jam.

A logical look at the gospel of Luke reminds us that clearly not all of Jesus’ beloved disciples are on the hate-your family/ hate-life train, or abject-vow-of-poverty train. Look at Mary, Martha and Lazarus who minister from their home.   Look at Susanna and Mary Magdalene who follow Jesus with Joanna, a member of the wealthy King Herod’s family. Or Joseph of Arimathea who has the resources God needs to provide a tomb when Jesus needs to be buried.  Look at all the festive meals and banquets that Jesus hosts with all sorts of people in the gospels.   

As I grew older, I began to understand that the extreme language that Jesus uses has a little bit of exaggerating zing in it.  It’s meant to snap us to attention.  It’s meant to offend us with its’ harshness.  But offend us about what?

So, I think it’s fair to say that many of us are busy folks.  Teachers and families with students are feeling it. I know my September is suddenly very full.  Some of us here this morning are career-minded people who put in long hours on the job sometimes with significant travel. We sacrifice and work hard in order to secure a certain future, keep the business afloat, or advance in the field. Some of us here give up a lot of time for kids’ traveling sports or dance teams or activities.  Others of us sacrifice hard-earned money to join a gym or get a personal trainer. Please know that I don’t criticize these choices.  I sacrifice a ridiculous amount of everything for my own two children (they basically function like little gods in my life)… I mention these choices and commitments of ours because they point to the things that are priorities for us.  And in our bible reading for today, Jesus is explaining that Loving God and our neighbor should be a priority. Actually, Jesus says, it should be the priority that grounds the way we live our lives.  Jesus is so emphatic, so passionate about it, that it’s offensive.

You know? (I want to say to Jesus) Jesus: The whole “hate your family,” “hate life,” “give up everything” is not really your best marketing campaign to get people into the faith. But Jesus making a point with these words. He’s asking for our commitment to life of discipleship. He’s asking for us to be all in.

More and more psychological research indicates that we sacrifice for the things we really value highly. And Jesus is calling us to place a high value, a high cost on following him as disciples. A life of discipleship is more than a set of beliefs that we learn in confirmation class or attending church on Sundays. Being a disciple is subscribing to a lifestyle that impacts every part of our lives: how we spend our money; how we interact on social media, how we treat our family, friends, neighbors and coworkers, and how we use our time.  Living as Christian disciples impacts how we treat the environment and how we treat people on the margins.  Over the long arc of our lives, it shapes our character, ethics and values.  Living as disciples means opening our lives to be used by God to transform the world and that is no small thing.

Like any healthy relationship—for example, a marriage, a friendship, a connection with a sibling—Our relationship with God should be challenging us to grow, change, and reach our roots deep down into the earth.  But we have to be open to how God is leading us to grow.

A friend of mine told me that sometimes, when a comedian is doing warm-ups, the crowd will literally just be sitting there with their hands folded across their chests and their responses guarded, kind of like they’re saying to the comedian, “C’mon, prove yourself,” or “entertain me.” This makes the comedian’s job super hard, if not impossible.  This is the actual “tough crowd.”  The comedian will then say to the people, “Look. We’re here so you can have a fun night, work with me. You see, the comedian needs an attentive, responsive audience for their act to work. 

I can’t help but think about all the ways that we sit there with our arms crossed only mildly attentive, and unable to receive from God or other people.  We hold on to things that keep us from growing as disciples.  How can we give up everything that we possess, everything that possesses us—our pride, our pace, our greed, arrogance and privilege so that we can be open to the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the world?

Melissa Meyers tells the story of being at the state fair this summer and seeing a potter throw a pot on her wheel.  She watched as the potter molded and worked the clay and after some time, she had created this beautiful piece. Someone asked the potter when she was going to fire it saying they might like to buy it.  The potter looked at the piece and smiled and said, “well this piece isn’t going to be fired, it’s not good.” And she crushed it. Some folks were angry and frustrated that they had stayed to watch something be created only to see it destroyed. Some laughed at the absurdity of it.  As the crowd dispersed, Melissa went up and asked the potter about it. The potter responded: “oh the clay just wasn’t cooperating tonight. If I’d fired that piece, it would have shattered. So, since it didn’t want to work with me. I’ll leave it for now and I’ll come back and work it again later.”

“So the clay has a mind of it’s own?” Melissa asked the potter.

And the potter responded: “Oh sometime it does. Sometimes I want it to be a bowl and it wants to be a plate.  Sometimes I want a large mug and it wants to be a small mug.  Sometimes it doesn’t want to do anything at all.  You just have to listen to it as you’re working it. You have to be patient. You have to love the clay into what it needs to be,” she said.

In the reading from Jeremiah I shared with our kids earlier, God says, Go to the potter’s house…Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? …Just like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, and I work on you, O house of Israel. 

When the clay and the potter come together and work together, something beautiful can be created for the sake of healing, for the sake of the kingdom, needed in our world.

We are in God’s hand, alive with the power of the Holy Spirit, called into a transformative journey of discipleship.  Where is God leading you?

Blessed be the journey.