Shepherd Malpractice
Notes
Transcript
Finn’s Grand Adventure
Finn’s Grand Adventure
It was a damp late summer evening, you know the type. Humid and muggy, but still somewhat refreshing after a day of being beaten down by the Florida sun for the past 10 hours or so. I returned home from a day of classes to an empty apartment. Which normally would have been a delight after a day of talking to other humans. But, I realized almost immediately that something was seriously wrong.
You see, for the past 6 months when I entered my little apartment in Tampa I was greeted by the joyful little kitten that I had adopted from the Hillsborough county pet resource center. Today I got no such greeting. Perplexed, I started down at the perfectly straight rows of lines in our carpet, breathed in, and had a startling realization just as the potent yet pleasant smell of carpet cleaner entered my nostrils.
The Property managers had come to clean the carpets! Of course. Once a year they did this. But this was the first year that I should have had any pause, any concern about when they would show up. This was the first year that I had a pet in the apartment.
My heart sunk and began to pound as I searched all over for what must be an absolutely terrified little cat. Under the bed, the couches, up high and down low in every closet, still I found no little kitty. He must be here right?
And then I felt the color drain from my face. What if they had left the door open while they cleaned? At this point Lexi had made her way home and we continued to search the house, and to look outside — to no avail. No kitten.
We had a commitment to get to. So we reluctantly left, went to it, hoping that the little guy had fallen asleep in a strange place in the house and would be waiting for us when we got back.
When we returned it was dark out. We entered — still no cat greeting. And so we went outside. It was quieter than earlier. The sounds of birds chirping and children playing and cars going down the busy neighboring road had subsided. We called his name. Walking all over the complex grounds.
When I was sure we’d never find him, we began to walk home along the tree line of the wooded area. When we got right behind the apartment we heard the softest, faintest little sound.
Meow?
Almost like a question. Then again.
Meow?
I lept into the wooded area following the sound that grew louder and louder until I found it’s source. My little cat. Sitting in low in a tree, not 50 feet from the house.
I emerged from the woods about as proud and relieved as I’ve ever been in my life, carrying my prized possession. The one who was lost, but now was found.
When I think of what Jesus must look like when one us reaches out our hand and says “God help me” I think he probably looks like I looked like in that moment — Beaming with joy and relief as I cradled that little ball of fur close to my heart.
I think we all have a similar story, both of finding something that we believed was lost and perhaps also a story of how we were found. The feeling of joy on both ends is one of the inexplicable delights in life. It restores hope and reminds us that not all that is lost will stay lost forever.
Which is really good news for us, because it means that if we have found ourselves in a bit of a jam, if we’ve wandered far from our faith or never had any faith at all, that perhaps maybe, just maybe we aren’t without the hope of God’s redeeming love.
Lost and Found
Lost and Found
Today’s text is going to come from Luke Chapter 15. Jesus has been doing a lot of teaching, catching the attention of everyone, particularly the religious leaders called Pharisees. Now you may recall from a few weeks ago that Pharisees were not fans of Jesus. They were constantly trying to find fault with him. So in Luke Chaper 15 this is what we see:
Now 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.”
Tax collectors were not cool people ok. They were folks that most people hated because they worked for Rome, and were known for taking a bit more than was actually owed to line their own pockets.
So that’s the set up. Jesus is hanging out with people that are seen as being far from model citizens. And the pharisees are upset about this and confront him. This is Jesus’s response.
So he told them this 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?
When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.
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.’
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.
This is a reckless kind of thing for a shepherd to do, is it not? To leave 99 sheep who are safe to go after 1 that is lost? It’s risky, but Jesus is telling this story because he wants these Pharisees to learn a lesson. So he reinforces that lesson here in the next verses:
“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?
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.’
Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
What Jesus is highlighting is the common sense here. A sheep has value, a lost coin has value. Remember what the controversy here is. These Pharisees are upset with Jesus for spending time and energy on the people that he’s spending time and energy on. Sinners and Tax Collectors.
So Jesus is like “listen, don’t you understand that I don’t see them as sinners and tax collectors? I see them as persons of deep value. You’d go after 1 out of 100 sheep wouldn’t you. You’d search for the 1%? Certainly you’d look far and wide for 10% of your money wouldn’t you? You’d expend your energy on these things, don’t you know how valuable the human soul is?”
Jesus’s message to them, and to us, and to everyone who has ever lived is that God is relentlessly seeking after you. No matter where you are, God wants you to be found. So I don’t know if you need to hear that today, but if you’re lost — God’s there, waiting for you to call out. God thinks that you are the most valuable and worthy, worthwhile thing in this whole world.
Not everyone was prepared to hear that message that Jesus had to give. Not everyone was willing to understand and believe that God actually really cares about the people that don’t fit the religious mold. The pharisees were certainly bothered by this fact, and that’s why they are coming after him, and accusing him of pretty serious things.
What Jesus is being accused of is Malpractice. Shepherd Malpractice if you will. The Pharisees aren’t really mad that Jesus is teaching people. What they are mad at is who Jesus is teaching. He’s teaching people who aren’t worthy of the Kingdom of God and the Gospel that he so adamantly teaches. They think that Jesus is wasting his time and endangering the purity of the religious structure in Israel.
And Jesus knows this. So he tells them one last story. So Jesus continues:
Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons.
The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them.
A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.
When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need.
So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs.
He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.
But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!
I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;
I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” ’
So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.
Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate;
for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.
“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.
He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on.
He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’
Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him.
But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.
But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’
Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.
But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’ ”
It’s a wonderful story. And we tend to get wrapped up in the Joy of the father and the redemption of the lost son who has come home. And that’s important. We are called to identify with the prodigal son. That’s our reality, we were dead and came back to life, we were lost and have been found.
But this story isn’t only about the first brother. In fact, that brother is really a supporting actor in who this story is really about. So yes we are called to identify with the son who ran away, the son who basically said to his father: “I wish you were dead” when he asked for his inheritance. We’re called to identify with the squandering of the gift that was given to him on reckless living. But we’re also called to identify ourselves with the main character. The character who carries the real message of Jesus’s story.
Jesus wants us, wants the Pharisees, to identify with the other brother. The brother who never left home. The brother who always did the right thing, and seemed to have lived a thankless life because of it. Jesus wants us to identify with the feelings that he has about all the hooplah surrounding the return of his dirty, broke, treacherous, maybe even treasonous little brother.
Jesus is holding a mirror up for the pharisees to look at themselves and hear the message of the father “Of course I love you too. We aren’t having a party because this man or these sinners deserve it. We are having a party because they were lost and now they’ve been found.”
And lets be honest. Jesus is holding this mirror up to us as well. Jesus is like listen, I know that you aren’t always brimming with anticipation to go and spend time with people who smell, with people who are homeless, with people who are addicted, or rough around the edges. I know that it’s tough. But look — these are the mission field. These are the ones that God is rejoicing over!
It’s becoming clearer and clearer to me as we move forward into this 21st century that the people that God wants us to reach and bring into the church is an increasingly less polished crowd. And perhaps that’s a good thing. Maybe we need a new look. Churches have been predominantly just passing around Christians, doing a lot less conversion of those who were not already following Jesus.
But that’s not what we are supposed to do. The pharisees and often our modern Christian church culture want religious places to be museums that highlight how good we are. Jesus wants churches to be hospitals for those who are sick and wants us, his people, to be the nurses and physicians who offer healing to those who need it.
Jesus is calling us to go looking for the lost, to welcome them home, and to quite honestly throw a party when any of God’s lost children come home.
This is not the work of one person or one team of people. This is the work of everyone who has learned how to walk through the mess of their past and paint with ashes. We have got to get out there and teach others how to paint with their ashes too. We’ve got to relentlessly pursue those who have walked away from the faith, as we are very much prone to do. That very same cat that I lost many years ago — he still wants to escape and go outside any chance that he gets.
We, God’s beloved treasures, are not immune to being re-lost. But thankfully God wants to reclaim us, and he wants to use us — the church — God’s chosen instruments — to be the ones who find the lost sheep and teach them to paint a beautiful new portrait with the ashes of their old lives.