Episcopal Church of Our Savior

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The Rev. Ajung Sojwal Lost and found: cause to celebrate, Year C, Sunday September 16, 2007 Luke 15:1-10 Many ancient teachers used parables as a means of highlighting certain lessons or various viewpoints. Parables invite the hearers to see something in the light of the story and more importantly to see life differently than what the norm is. Jesus used parables extensively as a means of teaching people to question or sometimes to undermine conventional values. He also used them to critique the social and political order of the day, and to speak about the radically different nature of the Kingdom of God. If your remember last Sunday we meditated on the difficulty and the cost of becoming Jesus’ disciples, that it involves severing ourselves from all that keep us bound or tied to the familiar or comfortable, illustrated supremely by the ties we have with our biological families. Today, the telling of the parables is set in the center of Jesus’ controversial conduct not only as a faithful Jew but also as a teacher. Luke writes, “All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." The point of these lost and found parables is best seen if we look at all three parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son. The intention of these three stories is for everyone gathered around Jesus to hear and understand something about God’s nature and involvement in human life, and in particular to their personal lives. The description of the crowd around Jesus is to highlight the fact that there were two distinct groups of people gathered in one place who otherwise would never intentionally get together for socializing. One group of people deliberately shunned the other in order to preserve and protect their way of life and status in society, while the other group of so called sinners did not dare to assimilate themselves into mainstream society because they saw themselves as lost causes anyway. Now, you may be wondering why we need to know so much about the crowd and the setting of the parables? My hope is that by understanding the unlikely gathering of these two groups of people in the same place around Jesus we will be able to more fully understand God’s desire and purpose for His kingdom and for the inhabitants of His Kingdom. All three parables talk about loss and the subsequent search for the lost, the recovery of what was lost and ultimately the exuberance of joy at having found what was lost. The shepherd who lost a sheep, the woman who lost a coin, and the father who lost a son all bring to light God’s great pain in losing any of His children and His deep desire and purpose to seek out and find those that have strayed or are lost. All three parables also invite the listeners to think more on who or how they consider themselves in relation to God. Like the Pharisees and the Scribes who thought of themselves as the rightful and faithful children of God, there are many that would consider themselves the rightful children of God. And like the tax collectors and sinners there are also many who hold no hopes of becoming God’s children ever. The Shepherd, who went out to search for his one lost sheep from amongst his hundred, is by any reasonable standard quite foolish. Farmers or livestock owners constantly face the possibility of losing some of their assets, it is just part of the deal. The point is that the sheep was lost from a large herd, it was not one of two or three. Jesus’ question to the crowd is, "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?” The normally understood situation would be that the shepherd would not risk leaving the ninety-nine in the wilderness to search for one lost sheep. It would really be unusual and unheard of for a wealthy shepherd like this one to actually go out looking for one lost sheep. Humanly speaking, the economic cost of leaving 99% of your investment unattended in order to recover the 1% which you lose is quite unthinkable. The point is that God will and does go looking for the one lost sheep, and that the economy in God’s Kingdom does not play out in the way we see things. The question from the second parable “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?” on the other hand is touching on the very human nature of realizing and taking care of our economic interests. The emphasis is that of hard earned money being lost and how we feel the pain of losing any part of it. Similarly, God’s search for the lost is not the adding on of children to those that he already has but it is the recovery of those that he had before. In other words, since God is our creator, he is painfully aware of any of his creation or children who have strayed or are lost, and He will do whatever it takes to find his own. Like the shepherd, He risks everything in order to bring us back into his fold. Like the woman, He lights up the dark and cleans the dirt in order that we can be found. Like the father of the prodigal, He hopes and waits anxiously for the lost to find their way home. Along with the theme of searching and waiting for the lost, there is also the motif of celebration when the lost are found, which if you notice is in strong contrast to the complaints and grumbling of the Pharisees and the scribes about Jesus mingling with and allowing sinners and tax collectors to come to him. Far from complaining about sinners being the cause of contaminating the so-called righteous life of the religious leaders, Jesus points out that to seek out and find the lost or the sinners is the way of the one who is righteousness itself. It is because God is the righteous one that He can rejoice and celebrate in the finding of the sinner. Not only does he rejoice at the recovery, but also like the shepherd, like the woman and like the father, God clearly sees the occasion as one to be shared with friends and neighbors to celebrate together. However great the pain of God may be in losing one of his children, and however diligently and desperately God searches and waits for the lost, the most important point that comes across from all three parables about God’s nature is His eagerness to celebrate at what is found. Jesus reiterates this when he says to the crowd, “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.” And again he says, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." Which brings us to the very important element of repentance that precedes the celebration. It is all wonderful and politically correct to talk about and even do what is necessary to reach out to those considered lost for some reason or the other. It is a fact that we as a society has come a long way in opening our arms and embracing the other, we also deliberately seek out those that are in the margins. So, what is so distinctive about the message of these parables? The distinctiveness about these parables is the aspect of repentance. To seek and find the lost is the essence of God’s love. However, if the lost does not recognize that he or she has strayed far from God, there can be no celebration or joy. It is only in the act of repentance that we can truly understand God’s pain of losing his children, and it is only when we repent that we can truly take the journey back home to God. And finally, it is only at the repentance of the sinner that there is complete joy and celebration. Repentance implies the recognition of being in the wrong and the willingness to right that wrong. Like David realizing how far he had gone away from God’s love and righteousness when he committed adultery, which in turn led to murder, repentance brings to light our desperate need for God to redeem our rebellious ways. David in our appointed Psalm beautifully expresses the desperation of being lost without the recognition of God in our lives; he writes, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.” But it would be mistake to assume that repentance is only for the so-called sinners. There are also those that genuinely believe they are righteous who in God’s eyes need to repent. The Pharisees were one such group of people, and in Apostle Paul, we have the ultimate example of someone who lived and did what he thought was righteous only to be confronted by God about his erroneous understanding. In his zeal to protect and preserve what he thought was the truth of God, Paul prosecuted the Christians believing them to be blasphemers. However, when he met Jesus, he writes about his repentance, “I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost.” What a transformation! What joy and celebration there must have been in heaven on that day when Paul realized the deep and unfathomable love of God who had sent His only Son to save sinners. And the truth of the matter is that we all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. God sought us out long before we even realized we were lost and has already found us, but His joy in finding us will never be complete until we recognize the need to repent of our sinfulness, only then can we truly be free to receive the gift of a transformed life of love and joy. May God give us the grace to realize and repent of our waywardness. May our lives become the cause of celebration for God. Amen.

The Rev. Ajung Sojwal

Lost and found: cause to celebrate, Year C, Sunday September 16, 2007
Luke 15:1-10

Many ancient teachers used parables as a means of highlighting certain lessons or various viewpoints. Parables invite the hearers to see something in the light of the story and more importantly to see life differently than what the norm is. Jesus used parables extensively as a means of teaching people to question or sometimes to undermine conventional values. He also used them to critique the social and political order of the day, and to speak about the radically different nature of the Kingdom of God. If your remember last Sunday we meditated on the difficulty and the cost of becoming Jesus’ disciples, that it involves severing ourselves from all that keep us bound or tied to the familiar or comfortable, illustrated supremely by the ties we have with our biological families. Today, the telling of the parables is set in the center of Jesus’ controversial conduct not only as a faithful Jew but also as a teacher.
Luke writes, “All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." The point of these lost and found parables is best seen if we look at all three parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son. The intention of these three stories is for everyone gathered around Jesus to hear and understand something about God’s nature and involvement in human life, and in particular to their personal lives.

The description of the crowd around Jesus is to highlight the fact that there were two distinct groups of people gathered in one place who otherwise would never intentionally get together for socializing. One group of people deliberately shunned the other in order to preserve and protect their way of life and status in society, while the other group of so called sinners did not dare to assimilate themselves into mainstream society because they saw themselves as lost causes anyway. Now, you may be wondering why we need to know so much about the crowd and the setting of the parables? My hope is that by understanding the unlikely gathering of these two groups of people in the same place around Jesus we will be able to more fully understand God’s desire and purpose for His kingdom and for the inhabitants of His Kingdom.

All three parables talk about loss and the subsequent search for the lost, the recovery of what was lost and ultimately the exuberance of joy at having found what was lost. The shepherd who lost a sheep, the woman who lost a coin, and the father who lost a son all bring to light God’s great pain in losing any of His children and His deep desire and purpose to seek out and find those that have strayed or are lost. All three parables also invite the listeners to think more on who or how they consider themselves in relation to God. Like the Pharisees and the Scribes who thought of themselves as the rightful and faithful children of God, there are many that would consider themselves the rightful children of God. And like the tax collectors and sinners there are also many who hold no hopes of becoming God’s children ever.

The Shepherd, who went out to search for his one lost sheep from amongst his hundred, is by any reasonable standard quite foolish. Farmers or livestock owners constantly face the possibility of losing some of their assets, it is just part of the deal. The point is that the sheep was lost from a large herd, it was not one of two or three. Jesus’ question to the crowd is, "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?” The normally understood situation would be that the shepherd would not risk leaving the ninety-nine in the wilderness to search for one lost sheep. It would really be unusual and unheard of for a wealthy shepherd like this one to actually go out looking for one lost sheep. Humanly speaking, the economic cost of leaving 99% of your investment unattended in order to recover the 1% which you lose is quite unthinkable. The point is that God will and does go looking for the one lost sheep, and that the economy in God’s Kingdom does not play out in the way we see things. The question from the second parable “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?” on the other hand is touching on the very human nature of realizing and taking care of our economic interests. The emphasis is that of hard earned money being lost and how we feel the pain of losing any part of it. Similarly, God’s search for the lost is not the adding on of children to those that he already has but it is the recovery of those that he had before. In other words, since God is our creator, he is painfully aware of any of his creation or children who have strayed or are lost, and He will do whatever it takes to find his own. Like the shepherd, He risks everything in order to bring us back into his fold. Like the woman, He lights up the dark and cleans the dirt in order that we can be found. Like the father of the prodigal, He hopes and waits anxiously for the lost to find their way home.

Along with the theme of searching and waiting for the lost, there is also the motif of celebration when the lost are found, which if you notice is in strong contrast to the complaints and grumbling of the Pharisees and the scribes about Jesus mingling with and allowing sinners and tax collectors to come to him. Far from complaining about sinners being the cause of contaminating the so-called righteous life of the religious leaders, Jesus points out that to seek out and find the lost or the sinners is the way of the one who is righteousness itself. It is because God is the righteous one that He can rejoice and celebrate in the finding of the sinner. Not only does he rejoice at the recovery, but also like the shepherd, like the woman and like the father, God clearly sees the occasion as one to be shared with friends and neighbors to celebrate together. However great the pain of God may be in losing one of his children, and however diligently and desperately God searches and waits for the lost, the most important point that comes across from all three parables about God’s nature is His eagerness to celebrate at what is found. Jesus reiterates this when he says to the crowd, “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.” And again he says, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." Which brings us to the very important element of repentance that precedes the celebration.

It is all wonderful and politically correct to talk about and even do what is necessary to reach out to those considered lost for some reason or the other. It is a fact that we as a society has come a long way in opening our arms and embracing the other, we also deliberately seek out those that are in the margins. So, what is so distinctive about the message of these parables? The distinctiveness about these parables is the aspect of repentance. To seek and find the lost is the essence of God’s love. However, if the lost does not recognize that he or she has strayed far from God, there can be no celebration or joy. It is only in the act of repentance that we can truly understand God’s pain of losing his children, and it is only when we repent that we can truly take the journey back home to God. And finally, it is only at the repentance of the sinner that there is complete joy and celebration. Repentance implies the recognition of being in the wrong and the willingness to right that wrong. Like David realizing how far he had gone away from God’s love and righteousness when he committed adultery, which in turn led to murder, repentance brings to light our desperate need for God to redeem our rebellious ways.

David in our appointed Psalm beautifully expresses the desperation of being lost without the recognition of God in our lives; he writes, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.” But it would be mistake to assume that repentance is only for the so-called sinners. There are also those that genuinely believe they are righteous who in God’s eyes need to repent. The Pharisees were one such group of people, and in Apostle Paul, we have the ultimate example of someone who lived and did what he thought was righteous only to be confronted by God about his erroneous understanding. In his zeal to protect and preserve what he thought was the truth of God, Paul prosecuted the Christians believing them to be blasphemers. However, when he met Jesus, he writes about his repentance, “I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost.” What a transformation! What joy and celebration there must have been in heaven on that day when Paul realized the deep and unfathomable love of God who had sent His only Son to save sinners. And the truth of the matter is that we all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.

God sought us out long before we even realized we were lost and has already found us, but His joy in finding us will never be complete until we recognize the need to repent of our sinfulness, only then can we truly be free to receive the gift of a transformed life of love and joy. May God give us the grace to realize and repent of our waywardness. May our lives become the cause of celebration for God. Amen.