Year C

Luke 15:1-10

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

Reckless Grace

Is there anything worse than knowing you put something just where it should be and when you go get it, it’s not there? When this happens to me there is this automatic feeling of fear that rises up and I think that somehow I have lost the thing I am looking for and then, when it is finally found, there is a great sense of relief. This reminds me of a post I read recently called, “My Child Got lost at Disney…It Can Happen to You.” The writer of this post wrote, “Disneyland went from the happiest place on earth to the scariest place on earth during those few minutes my child was lost. I’ve been to Disney in Orlando many times and each time it has been very crowded. So it’s not hard for me to understand how someone could get lost in those crowds.

When my daughter and I went, it was pretty easy to keep track of her but I remember when she and her husband went with my four grandchildren. I did a lot of praying as the thought did go through my mind that one of the children might get separated from them and get lost but thankfully, they all survived. I did lose my 3 year old daughter one time in a department store when she thought it would be fun to hide from me in the middle of a clothing rack. It was a pretty terrifying experience for a few minutes. There was utter relief and joy when she was found. All our lessons today speak about the relief and joy when the lost has been found.         

The prophet Jeremiah deals with a nation that is lost. Two words that characterize this OT reading today is: total despair as it begins with the image of a hot wind that signals God’s judgment on a people whose evil has produced a land that is desolate, barren, and lifeless. The Sirocco winds that descend on the Middle East are a lot like the Santa Ana winds which plague the American Southwest. They arrive like a blast furnace out of the desert. We can almost feel in this image the divine frustration. God’s own people are foolish and stupid because they are ignoring the covenant they made with God.

They have ceased to call upon God, acting as if God does not exist and they are willfully ignorant of what is required of them. They needed to remember the greatness of the God they had offended. And although the text seems to suggest that God has determined that Israel is to be dismantled forever, God says “I will not destroy it completely.” Destruction will not be total. Despite sin and darkness, God will not abandon God’s people, because God’s mercy trumps the deepest darkness. The prophet Jeremiah knew Israel’s God as have few mortals, and Jeremiah knew that Yahweh’s final word is not judgement, but redemption….finding the lost.

This truth is borne out in both the Gospel of Luke and in Paul’s letter to Timothy today. Despite sin, God remains faithful, God remains merciful; as Paul expresses today, when he reflects with gratitude upon his own experience of being lost and found by the Lord. He voices his personal witness: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’-and I’m the biggest sinner of all.” But for that very reason he says, I received God’s mercy and grace in Christ. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ is writing his letter to Timothy a cherished mentee who he met in Lystra while on his second missionary journey. Timothy became his companion from then on, learning and growing in the faith and helping to plant the faith with Paul.

The intent in this letter to Timothy is not to provide biographical information about Paul’s life but to establish a stark contrast between the “before and after” Paul’s. Just as Paul’s life before Christ is portrayed in extreme terms, so also is his life after Christ. Paul the persecutor and killer of Christians became Paul the apostle, set apart for service by the abounding grace of Christ. This contrast serves to illustrate the depth of the mercy and love of Christ that redeems and transforms even the greatest of sinners of whom Paul is so great, to show the grace and love of Christ that is so great. Paul was an example and encouragement to others that God could and would use any and all of us great sinners to show his power and strength.

Therefore, I’m sure that Paul’s remembrance of his sins and countless experiences of God’s grace helped him to keep alive the flame of his gratitude. That is why after the recalling of God’s grace in his life, he bursts forth with one of the most memorable expressions of doxology in the scriptures. “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen” How else could he respond except with grateful praise…because God is always gracious to the lost in the hope that they will be found by the love of Christ.             

We see repeated throughout the parables today in Luke’s gospel, what forgiveness is like in terms of things lost and things found. A shepherd wandering in the wind and rain for one lost sheep, and a woman turning the house upside down for one small coin are images of God’s persistence in seeking sinners. God is like that, the stories say, meticulously pursuing rebellious creatures to show us God’s nature to forgive and restore God’s people. Such searching gives value to those being sought. They become treasured and significant because they are not left for lost, and when found, there is joy and delight in heaven in the recovery of the lost.

So overcome are the shepherd and the woman with the success of their search that they call their friends and neighbors to come for a party. Neither wants to celebrate alone. They bring in the lost in the name of Christ in the hope that they will be found in Christ. When we once lost are found, we experience how amazing God’s grace and mercy is not only for us but for everyone. And as Jesus continues his journey to Jerusalem, the excluded are starting to get it: in the kingdom of God, everyone is included. God grants grace and forgiveness to all but by most worldly standards, this makes God’s love reckless and even foolish.

For God is so concerned about these tax collectors and sinners that God will never give up on them. God believes that each child is so valuable that God is willing to risk 99 for the sake of one. God will keep searching until that lost one is found. Our calling is to exemplify the acceptance that is in Jesus and bear witness to the difference that faith makes, in offering hospitality with the whole of one’s being to the well-being of others. We are to open our doors and rejoice, for sinners and tax collectors, the one sheep, the coin, you and me, were lost but now we are found. The love and mercy of Jesus has restored our hope and therefore we with Jeremiah, Paul and all who have been found throughout the ages can burst forth with grateful praise. “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen”