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Sermon
for 15 Pentecost Yr C, 12/09/2004 Based
on Lk 15:1-10 By
Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson Pastor
of Grace Lutheran Church, & Chaplain
of the Good Samaritan Society’s South
Ridge Village, Medicine Hat, Alberta “Lost and Found” Lost and found. One person’s junk is
another person’s treasure. Who or what do we value in life? Joy and
celebration over the lost. Our gospel today consists of one of Luke’s
favourite themes. One of Luke’s
favourite pictures of Jesus is Friend of Sinners. Today we learn that the
setting of the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin is Jesus’ answer
to some Pharisees and scribes “grumbling” that Jesus hung out with tax
collectors and sinners and ate with them. I think that these stories or
parables remain so popular among us because everyone can relate to them—everyone has been lost and or found at one
time or another; or everyone has lost someone or something and looked for it
and found it. We can all probably tell stories about this. Here is one of
my stories.
On one occasion a few years ago, when
Julianna, Anna, our dog Patches, and myself were travelling home from a quick
trip to Edmonton; we stopped for a break at Red Deer.
After having some tea, I went out to
the car to put Patches on the leash for a short walk. All seemed to go okay.
After the walk, we all got back into the car and started driving home to
Calgary, where we lived at the time.
However, five or so minutes down the
highway I happen to notice that my wedding ring was no longer on my finger!
After much upset, fretting, panic, and self-recriminations—we decided to turn
around and retrace my steps in and around the restaurant where we had stopped
for our break. We also searched inside the car. Unfortunately, to my dismay
and consternation, we were unsuccessful in finding the ring on all counts.
So, with much regret, we left once
again for Calgary. While we were travelling, I still had this strange hope
that the ring was hiding somewhere in the car. When we arrived home, we
searched the car again.
This time, much to my relief and joy,
I found the ring inside a bag on the floor in the back where it must have
fallen off while I wrestled with Patches to remove her leash at the end of
our walk.
So, too, is
God’s joy over one repentant sinner who was lost, but found by our Lord.
These beautiful parables of Jesus are
so rich and deep, we could mine them forever and still come up with wonderful
insights and inspiration. This time, as I read and studied our gospel, it
occurred to me how the parables help us to ponder what or whom we value and treasure. It seems that what some of
the Pharisees and scribes valued and treasured was not what or whom Jesus
treasured. They seemed to have valued and treasured people of their own kind—not tax collectors and sinners, not the
outcasts of society. What about us? What and whom do we value and
treasure? Do we, like some of those Pharisees and scribes, tend to avoid the
poor, the homeless, the street people, the unemployed, the outcasts in our
society? Do we, perhaps like they, tend to blame the outcasts for their
problems and troubles—saying they’re lazy, rebellious, terrible people? Or do
are we, by the grace of God able to look at such people like Jesus did? Do we
too, like Jesus, see them as of immeasurable value and treasured by God?
Here are a couple of contemporary
stories that might help us to treasure and value the outcasts among us more: When (the Rev. Dr. William
Willimon) was a graduate school student at Emory, he supported himself by
serving two difficult little rural churches on weekends, many miles outside
of Atlanta. It was a difficult experience. Here he was, freshly graduated
from Yale Divinity School, finding himself in the wilds of rural Georgia. When he arrived at one of
the churches for the first Sunday, there was a padlock on the door, put there
by the local sheriff. It seems that some of the saints had gotten into a bit
of an argument during the board meeting the week before. Things got rough.
People started ripping up carpet, dragging out pews. The sheriff had put a
padlock on the door until Rev. Dr. Willimon could get there and try to settle
things down. He was miserable that
entire fall. Nothing went well. He was so depressed. One afternoon, he poured
out his story to his professor of pastoral counselling, Dr. Rodney Hunter. He
told Dr. Hunter about the fights after the board meetings. He told him about
the messes that those families had made of themselves, the difficulties of
their marriages. “Can you believe people,
calling themselves church members and Christians, can sink to such behaviour?
Isn’t it outrageous?” Dr. Hunter agreed. He said
that it was outrageous that a person of Willimon’s gifts and graces should be
trapped out there with people like these. Then Dr. Hunter said, “And
the most outrageous thing of all, is that Jesus says that they get to go into
God’s kingdom before us good ones!” [i]
That’s most likely difficult on our
pride, isn’t it? Yet, according to Jesus, everyone—especially the lost and the outcasts are treasured and valued by God.
The following story as told by a pastor concerning their congregation’s
change of attitude and practice to reach out to others is instructive for us
and every congregation in that it cause us to think and ask whom and what we
value and treasure: “We used to reserve
parking spaces for some of our older and valued members. Now we reserve
parking spaces for visitors, for those who are not members. “We used to give meals on
Sunday after church for those members who signed up in advance and paid in
advance. Now we only serve meals on Sunday after church for those who are
either visitors or who live on the streets around our church and have been
invited to join us for worship and a meal by one of our members. “Parking places, meals,
they are small gestures. They are gestures meant not so much to tell our
guests something about the church but rather to remind those of us in the
church of something about the church.” [ii]
So today we rejoice with God in
heaven whether we are doing the losing or the finding, we too, with Jesus are
invited to be inviting towards the lost, the sinner and outcast in our
community—ourselves included!: for
“there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over
ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. Amen. ____________ [1] Cited from: Wm. H.
Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Vol. 26,
No. 3, Year C, July, August, September 1998 (Inver Grove Heights, MN: Logos
Productions Inc.), p. 45. 2 Ibid.,
Willimon, p. 46. |
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