September 14 – Sermon
Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus into our world to redeem and restore sinners to a right relationship with You. Through the power of Your Holy Spirit, please help each of us to realize that we stand before You as sinners redeemed by Your saving grace. Please take from us the arrogance of pride in our self-accomplishments and help us to show mercy to others as You have been merciful to us.  This we ask in Christ’s holy name. Amen
In the Gospel reading, God is portrayed as actively seeking out those who were lost – those who had separated themselves from God for one reason or another.
In the Epistle reading, Paul speaks with gratitude about the mercy that was extended to him, even although he was once `a foul-mouthed persecutor and violent man.’ `Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the very worst’.
The scriptures appointed for today are very affirming, but also convicting:
Do you think of God as a distant deity, withdrawn from the experiences we have in life? Or – are you one that longs to be found?
Do you celebrate the fact, like Paul, that you have been found? That God’s amazing grace has reached out and touched your life?
It’s really incredible to read how God as a shepherd, would seek out one lost sheep. It’s also an incredible picture of God seeking a lost coin, just as the woman did. As a side note: for any married woman in Jesus’ time on earth, these weren’t just any coins. They were part of a beautiful headband a man would give to a woman to represent their coming marriage. The headband was a symbol of their commitment to one another. To lose one of the 10 coins was traumatic. She would have never been able to wear it with a coin missing. This parable shows us how personal the love of Jesus is for each one of us.
Both of these parables in this Gospel reading highlight how important every person is to God. The uniqueness about these verses is that God seeks us out in our brokenness—even if we may not want to be found.
These words from Luke’s Gospel were addressed to a crowd of people–people from the top of the social scale right down to the very bottom. The opening verses stated that `…the tax collectors and sinners’ were all gathered around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
We must understand that the principal characters in these two parables, were people on the very bottom of the social scale—at least in the eyes of those who made the scale. The religious leaders then—and maybe now too, were the very people who should have known that God’s love had no boundaries. Yet they always seemed to be ready to draw rigid boundaries around their belief as to who could or could not be the recipients of God’s love.
Now we may all be nodding our heads in agreement, but let’s not get hasty, because we too draw comparable boundaries. How many of us only care to associate with white, heterosexual, middle class Americans preferable of European descent? We might not think that’s what we’re doing, but people—calling themselves Christians are tempted to make such judgements.
In Jesus’ day, the shepherd’s job was out in the fields when he should have been in the synagogue. His work didn’t allow him to take the time off and so he was despised by those who exercised religious authority. Yet it was the shepherd’s lamb the Jewish leadership wanted when it was time for Passover.
As for the woman, she too, was an unacceptable person – yet Jesus said – God acts just like this woman who persistently sought out the lost and then celebrated when she found it. Luke continues that same illustration in the parable of the prodigal son.
These illustrations held many levels of meaning for their first readers, as they do for us as well.
Luke 15 is often called the Gospel of the outcasts and it’s one that is consistently used in Christian recovery groups for those people who feel forgotten, looked down on, and cast out by the human race. These very words of Jesus tell us the least and the lost are not cast out – and are not forgotten by the Lord our God.
These two parables make the same point – the joy experienced by the person who recovers what he or she had believed was lost. It is that kind of joy that is felt by the Lord God whenever a lost person is found, whenever a person is welcomed and restored into a loving relationship.
That’s what God’s amazing grace really is- -it’s the love that actively seeks us out those lost and unwanted. It happens through the kindness of another person, through an act of compassion, an act of inclusion rather than exclusion.
Every Sunday is to be a time of thanksgiving – of gratitude that we have been touched by God’s grace. I hope and pray our response to that amazing grace, will be a renewed commitment to continuing the work of Jesus who came to seek and to save the lost.
Let’s pray that we will never be a stumbling block to the one coming through our doors—the one who is fragile, the one who is looking for compassion. Let’s pray that we will demonstrate the love of Jesus to every woman, man and child that is placed in our care.
These two parables illustrate how we are to respond to Jesus for finding us. But the flip side is that we must actively seek out the lost and love them to Christ. Amen
