Preaching text: Luke 15:1-10
One of my favorite members of my previous congregation, the late Dick Wolfe, once pulled me aside after worship and told me that he always knew how I was going to preach on a given Sunday. That I had a formula that I followed pretty diligently. But he did add in that, even though there was a clear predictability to what I would say, he always appreciated hearing it, that it was something that he felt still needed to be said.
Maybe I am in a rut or sorts. Maybe I am predictable. You folks have had me as your pastor for over four years now, so I’d be willing to bet you could guess how I’d approach today’s Gospel lesson: the first two of the three parables about “lost things” from Luke. I would probably say something like “God loves everybody, so we should pay particular attention to how he loves the ones we regard as lost in our world today and do likewise. Amen. Let’s sing our hymn.” That’s not a bad interpretation. It fits in with how the Scripture interprets and introduces itself: The Pharisees are grumbling about Jesus’ choice of dinner guests. How dare he eat with tax collectors and sinners! He then counters with these stories about the value of the lost to God.
But I should perhaps be a bit more circumspect in how I toss around that sort of interpretation. I seek to be an ally to those in our society who are disenfranchised and exploited in so many ways. If that’s my goal, do I really want to equate them with being “sinners?” Perhaps I should be more deliberate about how I define sin. And maybe that’s where I should really begin today.
So, what is sin? We tend to think of sin as moral and ethical failing. We sin when we do something that unjust, immoral, and/or illegal. If I cheat on my wife, I sin. If I murder someone, I sin. If I lie to you, I sin. There are also sins of omission, when we fail to do something that is just, right, and good. If I do not intervene in a friend’s suicide attempt and he dies, I sin. If I turn my back on a person in need and do nothing, I sin. This is typically how we look at sin. It is the birthplace of evil within ourselves and others. When we sin, evil comes to pass.
The Star Trek franchise is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week, so my FB feed (full of my nerdy friends) has been predictably blowing up with excitement. All sorts of posts and articles celebrating the event. Ten best episodes of the franchise. 50 greatest quotes of the series. On that particular list, I suspect is one I find rather appropriate to our conversation. In one episode of TNG, Picard reminds Data that “It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life.”
Gaming has certainly taught me the truth of that. I can play a perfect game, have ideal strategy, excellent die rolls, the right hand of cards, and still get the rug yanked out from under me by an opponent’s remarkable streak of luck. I can do everything right and still lose. In fact, I find it happens a lot.
Oh, Hearthstone, the lessons that you teach...
So I wonder then, when it comes to life, can evil come to pass even when we don’t do anything wrong?
There are certainly those that would argue that the events of this day 15 years ago were such an example. Few if any of those who died when the towers came down or when the Pentagon was hit or when the plane crashed outside Shanksville were in any way involved with whatever foreign policy decisions by our nation’s government that so enraged the terrorists. Over 3,000 lives lost. What did they do wrong? Why was such evil done to them? They made no errors and still lost...everything.
Sin is as often the evil done to us by outside forces as it is our own nefarious behavior. Perhaps, in some cases, it is even more that.
What about us? Or me? I get back from New Orleans, and I lose a job, my car blows up, and I get sick. Really sick, like I did last year. What did I do wrong?
But not just me. All of us. Come on. We are still coming to terms with Amy’s tragic passing last month and now Vale is gone. And all this after Fred and Jim and Millie and Suzie and Don and everyone else we’ve buried over the last 24 months. IN WHAT UNIVERSE IS ANY OF THAT FAIR?
I’m hurting. We’re hurting. I’m angry. We’re angry. I’m tired. We’re tired. I had a gentleman the other day at the senior center ask me a nice theological question. He asked if I thought hell was real. I gave him a nice scholarly response, but I should have said something else. My heart wanted to tell him, “Yes, it’s real. BECAUSE WE’RE LIVING IT.”
In moments such as these, what we find in Jesus’ stories in our Gospel lesson is that they are less about how we are to treat the lost than how God treats us when we ARE lost.
Stranded as we are in this wilderness, we have a shepherd who is searching diligently for us. We have a God that is hunting us, seeking us, trying to find us. Because he knows we’re scared. He knows we’re confused. He knows we’re hurting. And all he wants to do is scoop us into his arms, hold us tight, and whisper in our ear that “It’s going to be alright.”
It’s going to be alright because I went to a cross for you. It’s going to be alright because the stone rolled away from the tomb. It’s going to be alright because I have made death and hell my footstool. It’s going to be alright because I, the Lord of Heaven and Earth, did all this and more FOR YOU.
It’s in moments like this when the first thing any of us learn about God as children becomes beyond profound. “God loves you” is said so often that it can seem cliche even to us who are steeped in its truth. But, my friends, GOD DOES LOVE YOU. He is hunting for you in the wilderness. He wants to save you from this hell you’re living. And he will NOT stop until he finds you and pulls you into his loving embrace.
And when he does, there will be joy in his heart the likes of which cannot be described with human words. You are his beloved, his precious one. You and I and all of us, we mean the universe to God. We are EVERYTHING to him. And when we hurt, he hurts, because that’s what you do when you love something. And he does love us.
Yeah, we’re a mite lost right now. And it’s scary and painful and worrying and a whole host of other things. But God is on the hunt, he is searching, He has heard our cries and he is coming for us. And he will come and put things right. For he is Lord of Heaven and Earth and he will do anything and everything to see his precious ones safely home. Amen.
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