First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS
September 11, 2016 - Luke 15:1-10
I want to introduce you to Pikachu. Now he’s a little guy, made out of cheap plastic, not gold, so you might be surprised to hear that he cost $125. How can this be? Well, here’s what happened. A few weeks ago, we came home from Feast and Festival on Sunday night. Our dog, Sweetpea, was hanging out in the living room. Most of the time, there are at least 20 toys laying on the floor of our living room, but we had cleaned earlier that day, so the floor was clean. Our kids started to round up their various Pokemon toys and when they couldn't find Pikachu, we became convinced that Sweetpea must have eaten him, because he had last been seen on our coffee table….right by where Sweetpea was hanging out when we came home.
David turned the house upside down looking for this toy. He looked everywhere. We moved furniture. We took apart couches. We swept. We looked in trash cans. We searched everywhere. When we couldn't find it, David finally took Sweetpea to the emergency room on campus at about midnight. The flat rate for any kind of emergency room visit is $125. We knew this and surely didn’t want to pay it but we were very worried that spikey little Pikachu would hurt our dear dog if she had swallowed him. They said they didn't think she had swallowed anything and to keep an eye on her.
The next day, while I was at work. I got a text from David with a photo,”Here's the $125 Pikachu,” he said. The toy was, of course, in the one place we hadn't thought to look.
We all have stories like this, right? When you lose something of value (or in our case, maybe not of much value, but something you still really need to find) you’ll go to great lengths to get it back. Jesus knew this. That’s why, when he told these two parables about lost items being found he said, essentially, “Now, it’s no big deal that the shepherd went looking for the one lost sheep or the woman went looking for her lost coin. We’d all do the same, wouldn’t we?”
When something or someone matters to us and they go missing, we don’t rest until we find them.
It doesn't seem too unusual to me that Jesus tells a parable where God keeps searching and searching for those who are lost. Of course God wants to find those who are lost. Just like our family wanted to find Pikachu. We all want to find things that are of value to us.
But what intrigues me about this parable is what the lost sheep and coin are supposed to represent: sinners. The people of value to God are sinners.
This parable begins and ends with sinners. The Pharisees are grumbling because Jesus keeps hanging out with sinners. “Why do you keep welcoming them and eating with them?” they wonder.
Jesus answers with two parables. In the first, he says, “Which 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 you find it?” And the second parable is similar, “What woman, having ten tiny Pokemon toys, if she loses one, doesn't light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?” Oh, wait. I’m sorry. I went a little off on that one. The woman had ten silver coins, not Pokemon. But you get the picture.
The picture is of a shepherd going out of his way to find the one sheep that’s wandered off. The picture is of a woman painstakingly turning over her whole house, living up couch cushions, emptying out trash cans looking for her lost coin.
And the point of it all is the rejoicing that happens when the lost sheep and the lost coin are found. Jesus says, “I tell you, there is joy in the presence of angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
It’s a story about sinners. And their value to God.
I don't know if you think of yourself as a sinner. I’m pretty sure that the Pharisees who were giving Jesus a hard time did not think of themselves as sinners. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been giving him a hard time for hanging out with them.
Me? Sometimes I'm aware of my sinfulness and other times, not so much. Now you may be feeling a little squirmy because I’m talking about sin. That’s okay. It’s church. We can talk about hard stuff. I want to note that I realize some of you have something truly akin to PTSD when it comes to sin language because you’ve been in churches where you were beaten over the soul with it, churches where you were literally abused and traumatized. Don’t worry. We are going to tread carefully and I promise you there will be no spiritual violence.
Here’s something that it important to know while we’re talking about this difficult subject: what I’m about to share about sin is not necessarily true. By that, I mean that it doesn't have to be your truth. It is my experience, my testimony. It may not ring true for you and that’s okay. We don't all have the same testimony. By sharing mine, I hope to help you ponder yours. And if you feel brave enough to then share yours with a friend or family member or with me, we will be thankful because you will have given us a gift. And we will learn and grow because of your testimony.
I am a sinner. It’s true. Somedays I remember this and other days I don’t. If I’m being totally honest, sometimes I get so caught up in the day-to-day-ness of my life - going to the grocery store, checking my emails, picking up kids, looking for missing Pikachus - that I don't make time to take stock at all. It’s not that I think of myself as sin-free, it’s just that I don't think about how I’m doing at all.
But then I have other days, like the day this past week when I was reading this passage and I ask myself, “Okay, so who am I in this story?” And it hit me like a ton of bricks: I’m the sinner. I'm the lost sheep. The lost coin.
I, too, have sinned and fall short of who God dreams for me to be. If I’m really being honest, I can think of several instances each day. The time when I walk past the person who is asking for money on the street because I am in a hurry. The time when I'm impatient with those I love. The selfish choices I make with my financial resources, simply because I can. All the millions of little acts of selfishness - choosing convenience over kindness, myself over others, the easy road over the more difficult path of true love. I sin every day.
And these individual acts are just one level. They don't even begin to get at the ways I participate in whole systems that cause damage to God’s beloved children and this planet we share. Four times a year, I pay my estimated income tax. Sometimes I do it without much thought, just another item on the to do list. Sometimes I do stop and actually feel troubled, knowing how some of those dollars are used...and how they aren't used. Once, many years ago now, I actually went so far as to send in a note with my taxes saying I didn't want them to use any of my dollars for the war in Iraq. But mostly? Mostly I just pay them because that’s the easy thing to do. And, of course, those taxes - that tangible representation of my participation in this shared society - DO get used for many good things. It’s complicated, this business of being a nation together, isn’t it?
My ancestors have been in this part of the country for a very long time. Some of my people came over from Switzerland in the early 1700s. They settled in what eventually became Maryland. Did they own enslaved people? I don't know. But maybe. What I do know is that sometime in the late 1800s, one of them came out west to the area that would eventually be known as Kansas. Named for some of the people who had inhabited this land for generations...until people like my great-great-grandfather came and claimed this land as if it rightfully belonged to them. I know that extended family members also eventually settled in Colorado, Idaho, Oklahoma...all places where they would have taken land that had previously belonged to indigenous people.
Do I feel guilty about this? Guilt is not the right word. I have no control over this. It’s just who I am and I can’t change it. But I understand how, through my very existence as a white person in this nation I am steeped in sin. I have been given things that I have not earned. I am still given things I have not earned every single day. And it’s not right. It’s not okay. It’s sin and I am a participant, whether I want to be or not.
These are just some of the ways I am aware of sin in my own life. Yours will be different. Or perhaps you don't claim the label of sinner at all. Maybe you’re sitting there thinking, “Oh, mine are so much worse than that. I could never say my sins out loud.” Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of my own sins. We don't have time for that.
The thing that really grabs me about this passage, though, is not that it reminds me that I’m a sinner. The thing that grabs me is how it ends. Jesus says that it ends with joy. The joy of God when a sinner repents.
This passage is not primarily about what it means to be a sinner. This passage is about what it looks like when a sinner repents. The word “repent” is not really a great translation of the Greek, which is metanoia. If I were going to translate metanoia I might use something more like breakdown. Metanoia is a complete and total change. A visual representation might be what happens when you heat glass at an extremely high temperature and it oozes and melts into something unrecognizable only to be reformed into an entirely different creation. It’s a breakdown followed by a rebuilding.
In English, the word repent seems to be too much about how we feel. Maybe you’ve heard someone say that repentance is when you feel sorry for what you’ve done and you say you’ll try to do better. I don’t think that's quite it. Metanoia doesn't seem to be so concerned with how someone feels. It’s concerned with what someone does.
An example from my own life: I am lucky enough to have a retirement account. I am embarrassed to admit that I have not done due diligence in making sure that my funds are invested in companies that share my values. This is partially because I’m too lazy to figure that out, partially because I'm not sure if many companies like that exist, and primarily because if I'm really being honest? I want my retirement account to make some money so I can retire someday.
Do I feel badly that I have made these choices? Yes. Do I want to stand up here and say, “I want to do better?” Yes. If I say, “I'm sorry and I'm going to try and do better,” have I repented? No.
Metanoia, true repentance, would consist of spending less time feeling badly about my choices and, instead, actually taking my money out of these investments and making different choices. It would consist of actually changing my behavior, not just thinking about it.
Jesus says that when a sinner makes that choice. When a sinner changes behavior and transforms their life in some way to live more fully into harmony with who God dreams for them to be….when that happens, the angels rejoice. Of course they do! Because this is a big deal! An even bigger deal than my husband finding that darn Pikachu that was lost. When a person not only realizes they have sinned AND decides to do something about it AND actually makes real, tangible choices that put them on a course towards living differently? That’s a huge deal. A HUGE DEAL. It’s worth an angel party. Maybe even more than one angel party.
And that’s why Jesus doesn't seem to be very bothered by the haters who chastise him for hanging out with sinners. Jesus is willing to take the heat because he really wants people to know that another way is possible. He wants them to know that no matter what happens, God still seeks us. God values us. God wants us to be found. God wants us to know that repentance - the real stuff, the life-altering kind - is always possible. No matter what we’ve done. No matter how messed up the world becomes. Choosing to walk more fully in the God’s ways of grace and love and justice is always an option for us.
And on the days when we don’t much care? On the days when we forget to even notice the choices we are making? On the days when we are too miserable, too distracted, too tired, too scared, too selfish to make different choices? God is still out there looking. God never stops looking and God never stops preparing the next party.
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