Luke 15: 1-10
Sep. 15, 2019
Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS
There’s a video by primatologist Frans de Waal that shows an experiment involving capuchin monkeys, who are some of our distant relatives. In this video, one of the monkeys gives a scientist a small rock and receives a slice of cucumber in return. The monkey seems very happy to repeat this trick and enjoys the cucumbers he receives.
Eventually, the first monkey observes another monkey giving a small rock to the scientist...but the second monkey receives a grape instead of a cucumber. The grape is a sweeter, tastier food for the monkeys and after the first monkey sees his neighbor receive a grape in exchange for a rock, he eagerly gives another rock to the scientist. But instead of receiving a grape he gets ANOTHER slice of cucumber.
This time he’s not happy about the cucumber situation. He looks down at the vegetable in his hand in shock and then throws the cucumber at the scientist in anger. He’s so mad that he grabs window of the cage he’s in and shakes them in uncontrollable fury. [1]
Seems that monkeys are a bit like humans, right? We are often content with what we have...until we see that someone else has it better than us. Or until we look at someone else and think they are getting more than what they deserve.
This week’s lectionary passage from Luke features the religious leaders of Jesus’s time demonstrating this human tendency. As long as Jesus has come to preach good news to them...well, that’s good news. But when Jesus starts hanging out with tax collectors and sinners and other folks that the religious elite look down upon? Well, now they’ve got a problem. They grumble about Jesus. He’s too welcoming. It’s unbecoming for him to mix and mingle with sinners and outsiders.
And so Jesus tells them a parable. Two, in fact. The first is about the shepherd who has 100 sheep. One of them wanders off. Does he just forget about the lost sheep? No, of course not. He traverses hills. He traipses through valleys. He looks in caves. Until he finds the one lost sheep. And when he finds the sheep he throws a big party to celebrate.
The second parable is similar. A woman has ten coins but loses one of them. Does she throw her hands up and say, “Oh, well”? No, of course not. She gets out a lamp. She bends down low. She sweeps and squints. Until she finds her lost coin. And when she finds the lost coin, she throws a party to celebrate.
Now, my guess is, all this partying isn’t fiscally responsible. I bet the party cost more than the lost coin did in the first place! And theologian Amanda Brobst-Renault notes that it’s actually a bit shocking that the shepherd would go out in search of one lost lamb. Because a lost lamb is very difficult to find in the Judean landscape. It’s quite hilly and there are lots of nooks and crannies where a lost sheep can go...but a shepherd ca’t get into. Furthermore, there are “myriad predators (jackals, hyenas, leopards, foxes)” that make a lost sheep vulnerable. Going out in search of this lost sheep is not a sure thing. [2]
And perhaps that’s why the shepherd throws a big party when he finds the stray lamb. Because it’s a big deal that this one creature was returned to the fold.
Jesus ends his mini-lecture to the religious leaders by saying God rejoices in heaven just like the shepherd and woman when a sinner repents.
We’re not told how the religious leaders responded to this story. But my guess is they may have been offended. Because God’s grace is uncomfortably big in these parables. God is relentless in chasing after us. God is absurdly focused on bringing every last person back into communion.
Imagine your worst enemy. Even them, God? Yep. Even them.
Imagine yourself at your most lost...falling apart, completely outside the bounds of respectability. Even you, God? Yep. Even you.
Even me. Even all of us. Even the people we look at and say, “Really, God? That person?” Yup. Even them.
Now I’ve gotta do just a little thing on what Jesus means in the gospel of Luke when he talks about sinners repenting. Sin in Luke’s Gospel is always communal. It’s always about relationship and community. It’s not the little things we do that “break the rules.” It’s the rupture of relationship. It’s people being cast aside as unwanted and unwelcome. It’s when we humans get way too focused on “us versus them” and forget that it’s all about “we.” The Realm of God, that Beloved Community that Jesus is pointing to with his ministry is like a centrifugal force….drawing every single person back into relationship with God and one another.
To repent in this Gospel is about turning and re-turning. The Hebrew word for repent is literally “turn.” When we repent, we are like the sheep or coin welcomed back into community. It’s a turning, a movement; solid and firm steps back towards belonging with and through God. Repentance is connection, realignment. Biblical scholar Matt Skinner says repentance is about knowing who you are and being brought into this new arena where God’s salvation is fully known and actively transforming the world. [3]
When I was listening to Skinner talk about this passage earlier this week on the Sermon Wave podcast, something else he said really stood out to me. Because someone asked, “So, what’s this passage about?” And what immediately jumped into my mind was “sin” or “repentance” or “lost things being found.” But what Skinner and the other hosts said was this: this passage is about joy.
Did you catch that? Because I almost missed it, I was so caught up in wondering about sin and repentance and grace and being found. But in both of the parables, the finders are filled with joy when they find what’s been lost. Incidentally, the exact same thing happens in the next parable in Luke if you keep reading….the lost son returns to his father and another big party is thrown.
There is something about being a part of God’s Realm...something about being welcomed into that boundless arena of God’s grace and salvation that is DEEPLY connected to joy. Preaching professor Karoline Lewis says “To live in God is to tap into joy.”
In their magnificent work, The Book of Joy, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu spend time in conversation about obstacles to joy. What gets in the way of us being connected to that joy which seems to be at the very heart of the Gospel?
One of the things they mention as an obstacle to joy is envy. When we are resentful...when we look at what someone else has and say, “wait a minute, why do they have that? They don’t deserve that,” or “why don’t I have that? I deserve it, too!” we are turning toward resentment instead of joy. Just like the monkey who was content with the cucumber until he realized the grape was also a possibility. Just like the religious leaders, who looked at Jesus chatting with the lowly sinners and tax collectors and said, “Now, wait. You’ve gone TOO FAR.”
Joy and resentment cannot coexist.
And so when Jesus sees these religious leaders...these folks who really should have known better...and he sees their bitter, angry hearts filled with resentment….he gives them stories about seeking joy instead. He invites them to imagine a world where there is no “us and them,” a world where we finally realize that all the boundaries we draw are arbitrary, a world where we finally come to understand that God’s love is not like a pie. You getting a bigger slice doesn’t mean I get a smaller one.
And if we can only realize this….if we can get it on a cellular level….well, I think that’s when we start to hum along with everything in the universe that tuned into the frequency of God’s joy.
This is why Jesus gives stories about joy...because it’s the antidote to resentment. When we are tuned into God’s joy, our fear starts to dissipate. Our anger deflates like an aging balloon. Our constant, nagging anxiety about whether we are enough starts to slip away like the sun dipping down below a far off horizon.
In The Book of Joy, the Dalai Lama shares that there is a Tibetan Buddhist teaching that says what causes suffering in life is a general pattern of how we relate to others: “Envy towards the above, competitiveness towards the equal, and contempt towards the lower.” [4]
“Envy towards the above, competitiveness towards the equal, and contempt towards the lower.”
When we live in those ways we prevent ourselves from taking our place in God’s great arena of salvation and love. We refuse to let ourselves be found. We let ourselves stay hidden and lost.
The Dalai Lama continues. In his tradition there is the concept of mudita, which is often translated as “sympathetic joy.” [5] It’s looking at what someone else has and being happy for them. Even if we think they don’t deserve it. Even if we don’t understand why they have it. Even if we wish it were ours.
Archbishop Tutu explains that in some villages in Africa, when people greet one another they say, “How are we today?” [6] So the idea is that how YOU are has something to do with how I am. Your achievements, your happiness, your well-being are a blessing to ME. Mudita is feeling joy when something goes well for someone else. Mudita is realizing that we are not as separate from one another as we might think. Mudita is a “natural outgrowth of compassion” and “sees joy as limitless.” [7]
The Dalai Lama says that we cultivate mudita by recognizing our shared humanity. We are too quick to think about “I and they.” He says we need to remember it’s really all about “we.” And he says that we have to work on preventative measures. Cultivating gratitude each and every day makes us less likely to slip into resentment or envy.
When we cultivate mudita - sympathetic joy - we are allowing ourselves to hum along on the frequency of God’s great, deep joy. It’s what we were created to do. And God’s desire is for each of us to experience moments where we rest secure in that joy...nestled in close to God’s heart...sure as can be that there is enough love, enough grace, enough care to go around for everyone.
Even you. Even me. Even our worst enemies. Even those we can’t imagine would receive an invite to God’s epic party.
Thanks be to God.
NOTES:
[1] Story found in The Book of Joy by Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and Douglas Abrams, p. 136. You can watch a clip here: https://youtu.be/-KSryJXDpZo
[3] Working Preacher, Sermon Wave podcast for Sep. 15, 2019
[4] Book of Joy, p. 136.
[5] Ibid., 142.
[6] Ibid., 143.
[7] Ibid., 142.
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