The ones
Luke 15: 1-10
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
September 15, 2019
One of the most beautiful illustrations of this morning’s gospel lesson is a Chinese movie made in 1999 entitled “Not One Less”. The story takes place in a rural one-room primary school in China. The longtime teacher must leave town for a month to care for his mother who is ill. Before he leaves he tells the substitute teacher, a 13 year old girl with no experience, she is to use only one piece of chalk per day and when he returns there is to be not one less student. Many of his students had left school to work in the city. If all the students are there when he returns, she will receive a small bonus.
After some friction between the young teacher and her students, like so many others, one troublesome boy leaves school to go work in the city because his family needs the money. The teacher and her students end up bonding over figuring out a way for her to travel to the city to find him. She leaves the rest of the class to go in search of the one. Through much pain and loneliness and struggle, the teacher and the student finally find each other with the help of a local news show highlighting the education of rural students. After a tearful reunion, the teacher and student return to the school with donations of school supplies, including many boxes of colored chalk. What was lost is found, what was missing is restored. A happy ending not unlike the gospel lesson.
These parables that Jesus tells about a lost sheep or a lost coin or the next one about the prodigal child—even though they have a happy ending, they aren’t as simple as they sound. Where relationships are difficult or strained or broken, wholeness does not come easy. Luke uses the words sinners and repent, which challenge and confront us and can sound shaming and damning to those who are already marginalized and lost to community. We may have sympathy for the tax collectors and sinners because we feel they are unfairly judged until we remember that they weren’t really interested in living by the rules, but when we call them purity laws we may have other feelings about those. We want Jesus to take a side but we want mercy no matter what side we’re on, whether we’re screwed up or righteous, the prodigal sibling or the one who always did what was expected of them.
Of course there really are no sides to community or family or tribe, much as we try. In stories like these we are to hold up each of the characters like a mirror and see them in ourselves. Where are we lost and gone astray and in need of turning around in our own lives? Who are the ones who are lost to us that need seeking after? When is it that we grumble and complain and chafe at rule-breakers? Who are the ones that disrupt our image of ourselves?
This mirror is not just ourselves but also how we see who we are as Church. How have we lost our way as Church and in need of turning? Who are the ones who need us to clean house until they are found, to search until they are rescued? Who have we as Church distanced ourselves from? Who do we still harbor as ‘them’? Who is it that would bring our reputation as Church into question?
With the exception of Jesus, no one around that table had a moral ground to stand on. Everyone would’ve been squirming to fit themselves into that grace Jesus was offering. The tax collectors were ripping off people who were living in economic slavery but they were also just trying to survive themselves. Jesus would’ve certainly had a few words to say about that. The Pharisees and scribes weren’t bad people, in fact, they were the ones you could count on, but they couldn’t see how to reach beyond the law to repair and restore relationships. Jesus was willing to enter into conflict, lose respect, risk whatever it took to get to the place of rejoicing. The work isn’t done, the grace isn’t truly amazing, until all the sheep are together again, until all the coins are found.
That’s the last mirror to hold up. What does the place of rejoicing look like for ourselves, our own lives? What is the transformation we long for? What does the place of rejoicing look like for our church, where the lost are found and friends and neighbors join in the celebration?
What does the place of rejoicing look like for the ones who are the most vulnerable, who have the most to lose? The ones who live daily under the slavery of binary gender. The ones who live daily under the slavery of poverty and inequality. The ones who live daily under the cruelty of racism, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, ableism. The ones who come to our borders. The ones who live on the streets. The ones who are denied access to adequate health care and mental health care. The ones who live under the tyranny of violence and fear and hatred; even the ones who have lost themselves to empire and domination and capitalism. None of us are truly found until all are found.
The place of rejoicing is wholeness, restoration, the Beloved Community, and all the moments of rejoicing along the way as people and things lost are found. To find the place of rejoicing we do as Jesus did. To restore the ones who are marginalized we go to the margins, to the barriers that divide and we cross them. We humanize the dehumanized. We decriminalize the criminalized. We use the pronouns. We hold ourselves accountable in our whiteness, in whatever privilege we have. We repair the harm we have caused to others, to community, and to the earth. We hold up the mirror and look at ourselves as compassionately and firmly as we can. We search for what is good and holy and true in everyone and everything and we hold on. We lift it onto our shoulders and we bring it home.
Amen.
Benediction – enfleshed.com (adapted)
Though we may leave from here, Love goes with us.
To the edges of the earth and to the depths of the sea,
Love would follow us.
Always searching for connection,
always seeking to mend and restore,
what is good and holy and true goes before us,
is within us,
and follows after us.
Thanks be to God.
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
September 15, 2019
 |
| The Lost Sheep by Daniel Bonnell |
One of the most beautiful illustrations of this morning’s gospel lesson is a Chinese movie made in 1999 entitled “Not One Less”. The story takes place in a rural one-room primary school in China. The longtime teacher must leave town for a month to care for his mother who is ill. Before he leaves he tells the substitute teacher, a 13 year old girl with no experience, she is to use only one piece of chalk per day and when he returns there is to be not one less student. Many of his students had left school to work in the city. If all the students are there when he returns, she will receive a small bonus.
After some friction between the young teacher and her students, like so many others, one troublesome boy leaves school to go work in the city because his family needs the money. The teacher and her students end up bonding over figuring out a way for her to travel to the city to find him. She leaves the rest of the class to go in search of the one. Through much pain and loneliness and struggle, the teacher and the student finally find each other with the help of a local news show highlighting the education of rural students. After a tearful reunion, the teacher and student return to the school with donations of school supplies, including many boxes of colored chalk. What was lost is found, what was missing is restored. A happy ending not unlike the gospel lesson.
These parables that Jesus tells about a lost sheep or a lost coin or the next one about the prodigal child—even though they have a happy ending, they aren’t as simple as they sound. Where relationships are difficult or strained or broken, wholeness does not come easy. Luke uses the words sinners and repent, which challenge and confront us and can sound shaming and damning to those who are already marginalized and lost to community. We may have sympathy for the tax collectors and sinners because we feel they are unfairly judged until we remember that they weren’t really interested in living by the rules, but when we call them purity laws we may have other feelings about those. We want Jesus to take a side but we want mercy no matter what side we’re on, whether we’re screwed up or righteous, the prodigal sibling or the one who always did what was expected of them.
 |
| The Lost Coin by James Tissot |
Of course there really are no sides to community or family or tribe, much as we try. In stories like these we are to hold up each of the characters like a mirror and see them in ourselves. Where are we lost and gone astray and in need of turning around in our own lives? Who are the ones who are lost to us that need seeking after? When is it that we grumble and complain and chafe at rule-breakers? Who are the ones that disrupt our image of ourselves?
That’s the last mirror to hold up. What does the place of rejoicing look like for ourselves, our own lives? What is the transformation we long for? What does the place of rejoicing look like for our church, where the lost are found and friends and neighbors join in the celebration?
Amen.
Benediction – enfleshed.com (adapted)
Though we may leave from here, Love goes with us.
To the edges of the earth and to the depths of the sea,
Love would follow us.
Always searching for connection,
always seeking to mend and restore,
what is good and holy and true goes before us,
is within us,
and follows after us.
Thanks be to God.
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