The Parables of The Lost Sheep and The Lost Coin

   ¹Now the tax collectors and "sinners" were all gathering around to hear him. ²But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."

    ³Then Jesus told them this parable: ⁴"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? ⁵And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders ⁶and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' ⁷I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

    ⁸"Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.' ¹⁰In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

Luke 15:1-10

Rejoice With Jesus!

How would you describe the worship service you regularly attend?

Perhaps you have never thought about it. It's just perfunctory. You just do it and that's it.

Perhaps it's somber with a lot of ritual and ceremony that you have witnessed too many times.

Some worship services are extremely well done. The music is performed well. The worship leaders don't miss a beat. The sermon is within the prescribed minutes. Acolytes and flowers are without fault.

Some try to jazz it up a bit. Contemporary music that moves the spirit. Few of the old religious words used. Screens up there to help you not to have to fumble through different sections of a book.

Maybe you just don't go much anymore at all. You don't get too much out of worship which always makes you think you need to improve some aspect of your life, and you never seem to measure up. The people seem to be so homogenous that you wonder if one spouse couldn't go home with a different one with whom they came and they'd never notice it!

I don't know. How would you describe your worship? Would you say that there is a lot of rejoicing going on? Would you say that people are really happy to be there with each other? Is there laughter? You'd have to have laughter, wouldn't you if there was joy?

If you're a Methodist Christian (I hope they are the same), perhaps the most wild expression of joy in a worship service is a self-conscious smile because you surely shouldn't laugh in church!

Jesus says that there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner that repents. Surely if the angels of God are rejoicing over people who have confessed their separation from God and its consequences, then when we see others who have confessed their separation from God and recognize that without the love of Jesus they would be lost, the whole she-bang of the congregation should be hooting and hollering in joy.

If angels before God can rejoice, shouldn't we?

Now rejoicing in our culture means singing, shouting, dancing and a big party. I don't know how angels do it, but I suspect that they can hardly make it from one party to the next because of all the sinners who repent each week, as you and I do. Wouldn't you think some of that should be part of our celebration when we hear each other repent and receive the forgiveness from the only One who saves, Jesus Christ?

Man, he came to seek and save us. He says that each of us are so important to him that he'll leave all the others and go after the 1% who are lost. That's what Jesus is all about. He is "about" looking for the lost one, finding the lost one, bringing the lost one back into the fold and rejoicing with the community.

You just have to see in these two small stories that Jesus told that the lost sheep is lost, the lost coin is lost. It is never going to be returned to where it should be without the person who going to find it and bring it back.

I don't know how a sheep repents or a coin does it either for that matter, but repentance for all we think of it is very simple. It is to come to the awareness that we are lost without a relationship with God.

It's not our piety, our being nice, our staying on the right side of the commandments that puts us into a relationship with God. It is God going out and bringing us back. It is baptism where the infant knows nothing and has no sense that he/she needs to be in a relationship with God. The infant thought Mom and maybe Dad was enough. No, not enough.

And if God had not come for you and me we would still be laying in the dirt and mire of thinking what we can achieve or enjoy in this world of things and the use of people is what life is about. We would believe that going for the gusto, draining every day of as much pleasure as we can get would be living life to the full.

The housing down turn is an example of this. We wanted a house so bad we would get sub-prime loans. We would refinance our homes so that we could use all that equity for pleasure of one kind or another, until...

Well, until it all comes crashing down around us and we are helpless.

Sure, perhaps the government will bail us out somehow, but where to now? We will probably never know.

But Jesus is there. He comes to us. It doesn't make any difference to him if we have a huge home and impressive assets or are homeless because of what we have done. It makes no difference if we have given millions away and still leave 12 million to take care of our dog. We are lost and cannot buy our way to whatever comes after death.

We are lost. Miserably lost. Hopelessly lost. Ever try to do it all right for one week? Most of us never try and if we do, we fail.

Those of you who confess you are Christians, just how good are you?

Have you forgotten to be loving? Have you intentionally been mean?

Have you been greedy and self-centered? Have you done one or more things you know you shouldn't have? We who are Christians cuss and lust. We look down our noses at those whose lives are a mess. We think we are somehow on a higher level than those caught in the thicket of exposure to their immoral deeds.

Well, we are not! We are perhaps, and sad to say, more like the Pharisees and scribes. They grumbled because this man, this Jesus, this man who claims to be on the inside track with God receives obvious sinners and even, mind you, even has fellowship with them, by eating with them!

They had no joy in their relationship with God. They thought it depended on keeping rules which had been made up so that they would look like they were honoring God. In fact, they didn't know God. They believed, as we often do, that our relationship depends on how close we come to keeping some of the commandments.

The truth of the matter is that they were far from God because they did not recognize their lost condition, their alienation from God. They were caught in the thicket of self-determined righteousness. The only righteousness that will ever count is the righteousness that Jesus gives us through his suffering and dying on the cross for us.

There was the end of sin. There was the end of being separated from God. There was the shepherd's staff pulling us out of hell and giving us a place with all the saints in the sheepfold of the church.

Repentance is not being sorry for sin. That's a very fine thing to do. But real repentance rejoices that all my sin, my separation from God is gone because the lost one (I, you, whoever) has a place with God because of Jesus.

Why do you think we have the Blessed Sacrament so often? This is Jesus receiving sinners and eating with them. This is Jesus welcoming us sinners and feeding us with himself, so that there will be no doubt, that the Almighty and Most Merciful God considers us part of his family.

So how can we display that joy we experience to others around us?

After we have rejoiced with Jesus, just perhaps maybe we ought to express that joy to others around us? Amen.

Walter W. Harms

I Will Testify To Love