My Mom is a pretty resourceful lady with a great talent for recovering things that other people have passed over or thrown out. Very little was wasted in our home growing up and few things give my mom more satisfaction than finding practical uses for scrap fabric, or sanding down and refinishing a discarded piece of furniture. Her latest project was recovering two very dated reclining chairs; I was openly skeptical of the value of this endeavor but was once again proven wrong when we arrived this summer to see those chairs looking new and inviting in the living room. And so it comes as little surprise that my mom is also a good thrifter. This summer when we arrived in Comox she had a stack of books she had gathered on her travels. At the top of the stack was a copy of Because of Winn Dixie; a touching and poignant story about a young girl named India Opal who was abandoned by her mother at three years of age, her itinerant preacher father, an orphaned dog and a the group of misfits who find one another and themselves along the way. It is a brilliant little story because it touches so beautifully and truthfully on loss - India's mother does not come home, but India finds a home and a people and a way to live hopefully, even with her sadness. At the end of the story this rag tag group of people: pinch faced Amanda, the rumoured witch Gloria Dump, Otis who is just out of jail, the orphaned Dog Winn Dixie, the town bullies, India Opal and her Dad are gathered up in old Gloria Dump's house eating egg salad sandwiches and enjoying music. And sometimes I wonder if that isn't just the type of party that Jesus would show up at.
This theme of lost and found is the theme of our text for this week: the lost sheep and the lost coin. This is a theme that runs all through scripture. Think of Adam and Eve hiding from God and yet found by him, remember Cain murdering his brother in a jealous rage and wandering around trying to hide from God, or Jonah running from God and yet being found by Him in the belly of the whale. The story of God carries with it a God who pursues, who finds us, who reaches out to us where we are - hiding in deceit like Adam and Eve, wandering and deep in jealousy and anger like Cain, inside a whale in disobedience like Jonah. Sometimes being lost is really dramatic and sometimes its a little more subtle, it's a disorientation; we have lost our way even when we seem so close. It is that experience of circling around a neighbourhood looking for the house you were meant to be at ten minutes ago, one you've been to before, knowing you are in the vicinity might help but the truth is - you are still lost.
Jesus tells these stories to two groups of people gathering around to hear him: those who are sinners and those who are teachers of the law and pharisees. The pharisees are murmuring, muttering in the background - they are scandalized by Jesus, he is eating with sinners, with unclean people. And cleanliness matters! Meals matter - they are an expression of worship - clean food, clean hands, clean plates, pure hearts - to eat with sinners is blasphemy.
And to this crowd of people Jesus tells three parables. The first is about a shepherd who leaves ninety nine sheep to go looking for one who is lost and then upon finding the one missing sheep, he throws it on his shoulders and hosts a party for friends and neighbours. The grade three worship bulletin has a little section called "interesting facts" and there it states: a shepherd would not actually leave ninety nine sheep to go and look for one that is missing. It certainly would be risky business to leave a flock to go and look for just one sheep who didn't have the sense to come home with the others. Wouldn't it be better to cut your losses and return home with ninety nine? Even if you left your flock in the care of other shepherds dangers were in the moors: wild animals, rocky crags and cliffs. But it is a risk this Shepherd must take; he searches for the sheep - you can imagine him calling to the sheep, making noises to try and attract the sheep to him; looking and listening for any clues as to where the sheep might be. And when the sheep is found he is full of JOY. The kind of joy that God has when a sinner repents, comes home, is found.
Or what about the woman who turns her house over to find one coin, it clearly states she had nine others. One coin - one denarius - one days wage and this woman could not afford to lose it. But finding this coin in a poorly lit house with dirt floors is a tall order. You can imagine her sweeping or running her hand along the floor with one hand and holding the lamp in the other, her heart beating rapidly and her mind racing: where could it have gone, what did she do with it? Have you ever lost something and felt that surge of adrenalin as you turned your house over, near tears, or called your Mom and asked her to pray that you find your wedding ring or something else of great importance? The woman persists until she finds that coin and when she does she gathers her neighbours and friends to celebrate with her and this little celebration is a glimpse of the celebration God will have at one sinner who is found, who turns to God. There is a tenderness and an intimacy, something about being known, in these stories. We are all unique, we all have value and matter deeply to God: "O God you search me and you know me, you know when I sit and when I rise, you knit me together in my mothers womb, your eyes beheld my unformed substance." (Psalm 139)
And so back to that sticky matter of eating with sinners - Jesus is also talking about sharing the table with sinners. Just like the Father in the story of the lost son (which follows the lost sheep and the lost coin). The younger son doesn't feel worthy to come to the feast his father has prepared for him - he wants to eat with the servants, surely he does not deserve to be the guest of honour at such a lavish celebration. The older son doesn't want to share the table with his brother - after all why should the father throw a party for that scoundrel? What did he ever do to deserve that? All his brother did was come home after squandering his fortune. And yet the Father welcomes both of them to the table, to the feast. It is a wide and generous invitation for all of us sinners and saints.
It is a pretty incredible story that has become our own story of lost and found.
Let us return home, receive the embrace of the God of love & rejoice together!
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