Sermon: Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

September 16, 2007

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 15:1-10

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. ²And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."
³So he told them this parable: ⁴Which one 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 he finds it? ⁵When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. ⁶And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' ⁷Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
⁸Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' ¹⁰Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

The Passionate God

You know, there’s a story, it’s an old story, about a woman who lived in a small town. Everyone in town knew of this woman, but no body really knew her. They knew where she lived, sometimes they’d see her out on her porch, but nobody ever saw her around town. She was never spotted at the grocery store, she was never seen at the gas pump, and she was noticeably absent from the town’s major attraction: the local town baseball games that everyone went to.

One day a call came in to the local paper that the woman had died. The editor picked up the call and, seeing as it was a small town paper with a small town staff, he went to work on her Obituary that would run that week because he was also the Obituary writer.

As he sat down to pen what he would write about her life, he realized that he knew nothing about her. So he did some investigative work, going from house to house on her block, to the local church, to the local hospital clinic, anywhere that he thought he might find information. He didn’t come up with much.

He found out that she never married, never had children, didn’t have any siblings, never went to the hospital, never went to the movies, never went to church, and that, basically no one knew anything about her.

In a last ditch effort to find out information on her, he went to the graveyard where she was to be buried. He stopped in at the engraver who was to mark her headstone to see what he was going to write. He found the engraver sitting there scratching his head. He had no idea what to write. They were both stumped.

Feeling fed up with the whole situation, the editor went back to his office. The engraver had agreed to write on the grave marker whatever was put in the obituary, and the editor had decided that he was going to pass this assignment off to the next writer he found in the hall.

Sure enough, here comes down the hall Cal Hopkins, the sports writer. He passes the assignment sheet off to Cal the sports writer and says, “Good luck.”

The next day Cal ran the sports column and had a feature debut in the Obituaries as well. The obituary, and the grave stone, are reported to read:

Here lies Nancy Jones

In life she knew no terrors

She lived alone

She stayed at home

No bats, no runs, no errors.

Now, I don’t think that story is true, but if it is true, I think its very sad. It’s sad not only because no one reached out to that woman, but also sad because it gives the appearance that the woman had no passions in her life.

Passion. Passions drive our lives, sometimes for the best, sometimes for the worst. I know some Packer and Bears fans who are practically devoid of all other topics of conversation, and can’t stand to be in each other’s presence because their football allegiance is so passionate it consumes them. That’s passion.

I’ve met Polar Bear Club members who love to jump into icy Lake Michigan in January because they love the rush it gives them. They have a passion for that feeling.

And sometimes are passions are not on what they should be. Sometimes our passions lead us down sinful paths, lead us away from the godly life that we are called to exhibit. Sometimes our passions cause us to leave the sheepfold, prompting us to make golden calves out of our passions.

Folks, humans are creatures of passion, both good and bad; passion is something we can identify with.

But what about today’s Gospel lesson? Can we identify with today’s shepherd who searches for the sheep, or the woman who lost a coin? I don’t think we can, if we really think about it.

I mean, consider this. This shepherd loses a sheep, first of all indicating that he may not be a great shepherd. But if that’s not all, he leaves the rest of his sheep to search out this other one. Where does he leave them? Not penned up, not secure, but wandering about in the field. What if when he’s away, another sheep runs off or a wolf comes prowling? Foolish shepherd.

Or what about this woman? She loses one of ten coins, and then spends all her time and precious oil trying to find it. And when she does, what does she do? She throws a party! She invites her friends and neighbors to celebrate with her! I mean, think about it. She spends all this time searching for this little coin, and then when she finds it, she spends tons of money celebrating it. Sounds to me like that’s pretty foolish.

Even as passionate as we are, today’s Gospel reading goes far beyond what we would consider reasonable. Just as it is hard to imagine someone with no passion in their lives, I find it just as hard to imagine someone with this much passion.

But that is precisely the point. No one has that much passion, that much foolishness, but God. God is the one who is ultimately passionate, ultimately foolish when it comes to us.

God is passionate for people.

There are tons of depictions of God being a Shepherd. Stained glass windows and Bible covers are full of them, usually with that one lost sheep around his shoulders. It’s a beautiful image. But I love it even more that Jesus compares God to this woman who looks for the lost coin, and I wish there were more depictions in stained glass and Bibles of that. It’s refreshing to have a feminine example for God, but it’s even more refreshing to have such an extravagant example. The utter extravagance of this woman, to search for a coin, and then spend tons of coins on a party once she finds it is something I can’t get over.

But that is exactly what Jesus is saying here. He is saying, “God’s passion for us is like the woman who searches high and low for a coin, and then is so happy about it, no expense is spared in celebrating it being found.”

We call that foolish; Jesus calls it Godly. We call that extravagant; Jesus calls it love.

And it’s a love that comes to us. Notice how this story isn’t about the coin coming back to the woman, or the sheep finding its way back into the fold. It’s about the woman and the shepherd going, searching, seeking out what is lost. God’s love comes out to touch us, not the other way around, and the party the ensues is a party for the cosmos, that which is beyond our comprehension.

This conception of God, as one who is passionate for people, is a conception that defies our normal ideas about God. We often want to make God stoic, solid, perfect, unyielding. We often want to make God like that golden calf in today’s first reading.

But Jesus is saying that that is not what God is like at all. God is dynamic, God is moving, God is reaching out, searching out, ever ready to take on the journey to find us, love us, be with us. Even though our passions sometimes take us from God, God’s passion for us goes the distance and bridges that gap.

It is no wonder that the word used for God’s Spirit in the Old Testament is the same word that is used for “breath.” Ruah, the spirit of God, that thing this breathed into our bodies and out of our bodies, is fluid, moving, ever present and ever seeking.

Our God is a dynamic, moving, and extravagant God when it comes to being with humanity. That is passion.

So, I ask you today, how has God been extravagant in reaching out to you? How has God’s love been extravagant this past week? Look for sings this week of God’s extravagant love; perhaps I’ll ask you about it next week, or perhaps someone sitting next to you will.

God has a passion for us that is beyond our comprehension, a love that reaches out to us even though it might seem foolish to do so.

We are passionate people, but God is extravagantly passionate. Thanks be to God for God’s passion. Amen.