Proper 19 C – George Yandell
There’s a certain excess in Jesus that I used to find outrageous, but increasingly now find tremendously joyful. He zaps helpless fig trees. He sleeps on the fantail of a boat in a hurricane. He feeds thousands with next to nothing. He praises a shepherd who’d ignore 99 nearsighted, beetle-brained sheep just to go after one that’s lost. He heals. He admonishes. He predicts, he indicts. He commends a poor widow who finds a lost coin and spends whatever others she has left just to celebrate. He makes one wonder whether the gospel’s not only about change, but also about small change.
And this is the son in whom God is proud and to whom God also wants us to listen? This is the one for whom we should seek in our neighbor? This is what happens when the Word becomes flesh? This is the Way, the Truth, the Life? The Christ? Well… Yes.
It’s no wonder the tax collectors and sinners were curious. The prophets were easy to ignore, but not this. They could identify with Jesus if for no other reason than his apparent profligacy, a kind of recklessness that in a way confirmed their own. And it’s no wonder the religious leaders and their minions got even stiffer necks than usual. One audience with him, and all their careful religion – school curriculum was either ready for rewrite or else down the drain.
Is there any conceivable message for us, his church, his disciples, those of us gathering together Sunday in and Sunday out in his name? On this anniversary of 9-11? Maybe. Perhaps the tithe is more like ninety percent than ten. It’s all finders-keepers with the rest. [adapted from Lane Denson sermon 9-16-07]
Even seemingly simple stories are not always what they appear to be. Jesus in his ministry was a master of ‘creative indirection’—an original and perceptive rabbi. His methods and his ends are not as transparently clear as some interpretations would have it. Today’s parables are an example of this.
The story of the lost sheep can relate to individual as well as corporate salvation. “I once was lost, but now am found…….”, but that’s not Jesus’ point here. The shepherd goes after the lost sheep not only to save her, but more importantly to save the other ninety-nine. The other 99 cannot achieve wholeness apart from the 100th. In this passage, there is no individual salvation or blessedness—no rugged individualism, no rejection of the vulnerable and useless. The majority cannot be saved apart from the well-being of the minority. This is God’s wisdom, which confounds the wisdom of self-interest. Jesus is all about politics here—the politics of salvation, which must embrace all of us, body, mind, and spirit, for any of us to be whole. [Adapted from Bruce Epperly in Synthesis for Sept. ‘13]
Discovering the lost coin is essential to the completion of the other nine coins. The many are incomplete without the one. The one is lost not by choice, or foolish wandering, but by being caught in cracks. A peasant woman had ten coins, which might have had holes in them so that they could be worn as a necklace (as was the custom). Thus the loss of one of them could have spoiled the beauty of the necklace’s design. [The above adapted from King Oehmig, Synthesis, Sept. ‘13]
There is an obvious social commentary here: how many persons are lost because no one notices, no one cares, no one offers support or welcome? A healthy society or church does not abandon anyone—no child is truly left behind in the inner city or rural Appalachia. The church is called to a style of hospitality that seeks rather than waits, that goes out to find the lost rather than expecting them to come to us. For whom are we to look in our communities? The church doors are open to let us out—to have Bible studies at Starbucks or Pub Theology at The Old Mule House, to prepare meals for hungry children in our county to eat over weekends, to advocate for the voiceless. God’s joy comes from people finding a home, from the lost completing the lives of the found. Our salvation and wholeness depend on the lost being found & welcomed. [ibid]
The Qumran Manual of Discipline was one of the first Qumran scrolls to be discovered. It was designed to protect the purity of the community’s Hebrew fellowship. A member who committed even minor infractions was excluded from the sharing of the common meal for the duration of repentance. And there was no possibility for letting outsiders partake of the sacred meal. Almost everyone at the time would refuse to eat with known sinners who did not try to live according to the received patterns. In fact, most Qumran people chose to have as little contact with the unrighteous as possible.
Jesus was different. He sought out the acknowledged sinners of the community, so that they began to feel comfortable in his presence. He could speak their language. And, of course, you can’t do anything for people whose company you carefully avoid. It would have been possible for Jesus to argue the issue within the religious community—and perhaps to cite examples from the lives of the prophets. But Jesus had a better idea. He stated a hypothetical question in story form. For us, the compelling point in these two stories is that the disciples of Jesus cannot afford to keep their distance from the people around them who are not living by the Lord’s standards. [ibid] They complete our mutual salvation, salvation here and now as God’s kingdom becomes present.