Pentecost 16, Year C

September 16, 2007

The Rev. Dena Cleaver-Bartholomew

In today’s Gospel reading we hear what happens as Jesus’ reputation and influence grow. He is drawing large crowds and some unsavory folks begin to turn up. Luke tells us “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.” This might be fine if he were responding as expected, chastising them and demanding their repentance. But there is no rousing chorus of hellfire and damnation for these overt sinners. Instead, “the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” What the heck was going on? To share table fellowship was to extend acceptance. The behavior of these people was, to Jesus’ audience, clearly unacceptable. So people talked.

Jesus, being astute, addressed the murmurings with two parables. In the first one he asks: “Which of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?” Listen carefully to the details here. If I have 100 sheep and ONE is lost, would I seriously leave all the others in the wilderness to go looking? No way! I’d have to herd them home, or get some help, or otherwise take care of them and then go looking for the lost one. Yet in the parable Jesus shows no plan to provide for the 99. All the focus is on searching for the one who is lost.

So what about those 99 sheep left to their own devices? Should I be worried about them? How about once Jesus makes it clear that the lost sheep represents a sinner who repents and the 99 stand for the righteous persons who need no repentance?

Well, before we get too worked up about those 99 neglected sheep—or righteous people, as the case may be—I have a question for you. When is the last time you met a righteous person who needed no repentance? You haven’t. That’s because there aren’t any. Paul even states that fact bluntly in his Letter to the Romans: “there is no one who is righteous, not even one….” That would be the point. Once we realize that we are all that lost sheep, how can we grumble about Jesus welcoming sinners? As Paul so pointedly reminds us in his letter to Timothy, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”

There is a story about a man who had just taken his new car through the car wash on his way to pick up his wife from work. He was spot drying the car while he waited in the parking lot for her. The man noticed what appeared to be a homeless man walking his way and sighed, anticipating a request for money. The homeless man came near and sat on the curb. “Nice car,” said the homeless man. “Thanks,” said the other man. A few minutes went by in uncomfortable silence. Finally, the first man decided he could ignore the homeless man no longer. “Do you need some help?” he asked. The reply was three humbling words: “Don’t we all?”

Oh my, yes. We all need some help. Some of us are just more clearly aware of it than others. It is only once we begin to realize that maybe, just maybe, Jesus is talking to us that we listen differently. We have to admit that something is wrong in us before we can try making it right. The Psalmist knew this when writing, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

God is inviting us to the celebration. Whether we are the lost sheep of the moment or not, there is rejoicing whenever someone who has been lost is found. God is calling us to table fellowship, to loving acceptance, not because we are in right relationship with God, but because God desires to be in right relationship with us. We have not earned it. We do not deserve it. Yet, because God has chosen mercy over judgment and compassion over exclusion, we are welcomed. God believes that we are each worth the effort of restored relationship. With Good News like that, how can we not rejoice?

Amen