June 15

Lost and Found

June 15, 2008 Rev. William “Buck” Day

We now have the opportunity to turn to God’s word on this Father’s Day, so it’s going to be from Luke 15, the first ten verses. So I invite you to follow along on our screen as we hear God’s word today. (Luke 15:1-10)

Now all the tax collectors and “sinners” were coming near to listen to him (him being Jesus) and the Pharisees and scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable.

“Which 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? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. When he comes home he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just 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.

Or what woman having ten silver coins if she loses one of them doesn’t light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it she calls together her friends and neighbors saying ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I lost.’ Just so, I tell you there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

This is God’s word for us this morning and I invite you to pray with me.

Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for the way it enriches us. Lord we ask that as we gather around it that you would clear any distractions from our mind and that we might be fully attuned to what your Spirit might be saying to us this day. Lord we have that confidence because we come before you, not in our own name, but in the name of Jesus, our Lord. Amen.

Well a couple of years ago my sister-in-law was working on her taxes and she asked me a question. Now I don’t do taxes for a living, I will say that right now, but she had a question because we had both received some inheritance from Les’s mom when she passed away. So she was asking what I did with it. I said, “I will have to look at my returns.” So I went to try to find my tax returns. They weren’t there. So I began this kind of panic search to look in all the places where my tax returns should be – you know those files… They weren’t there. They were not to be found anywhere and I kept going through, going, “Where did I put them? Where could I have put them?” You know how the anxiety just continues to rise? That’s where I was. You know, you don’t want to lose taxes for lots of different reasons. I knew that I had sent copies of the tax returns to my son’s school for his financial aid. They were copies… I know it. Or were they? So I called John on the phone and I said, “John, go check for me.” And sure enough, they had gotten the copies….and the originals. Pretty smart, huh?

When we are looking for something that is lost, particularly something that is important, like tax returns, or maybe your wallet or keys or whatever it might be – you know when you are looking for them there is this frantic pace that comes over you. And the more you look and the harder it is to find them, the more you become more panicky, right? Yet, when you finally find what you are looking for, there is this wave of relief that kind of washes over you and you just kind of go, “Sigh”. Well that is kind of where we are today. In our text today they’re talking about things that are lost and finding them. Jesus is telling these stories in the form of a parable. Whenever Jesus uses a parable he is talking about something that is bigger than just the story that we just read. This story of the lost sheep and of the lost coin is actually followed by another parable, a little longer one that probably many of us are familiar with, the parable sometimes called the prodigal son, or the parable of the lost son. It is the same thing. These three Jesus tells right back to back to back. Jesus is using these parables to show the Pharisees, because the Pharisees, even though they were grumbling that these undesirables were hanging out with Jesus, he is telling the story and the Pharisees are listening. So they are listening and then there are these undesirables, at least from the Pharisees perspective, these sinners and tax collectors were also with Jesus. Now, Jesus tells that story for us as well.

It tells us something about the nature of God. In each of these parables, the person who has lost something represents God. The things that are lost in these stories represent those who don’t know Jesus, those who weren’t followers of him. They were those sinners and tax collectors that Jesus was welcoming to his side. Jesus is using these three parables back to back to back, I didn’t read the longer one, but he is using these to make a powerful statement about God and, I think, about us. It is something that Jesus wanted to make sure that everyone understood – those Pharisees who were grumbling, he wanted to make sure they understood it; he wanted to make sure those sinners and tax collectors, those undesirables, heard it; and now for us too. The message is the same in all three parables. In the parable of the prodigal son there are a few more twists and turns but the message is still the same.

This is the only place in scripture where Jesus tells three stores back to back to back like this. What Jesus is communicating is so important for him that he tells it three times almost as if to reinforce the point, saying, “As you are listening to this, make sure you understand this. If you don’t get anything else, get this.” What Jesus is saying through these three stories is that lost people matter to God. Lost people matter to God.

The person who is looking for what is lost in each story – do you notice how they just throw caution to the wind? It is almost as if they say, “I am going to throw common sense right out the window and search for what I have lost. It has that much value to me.” They want to find that sheep and that coin and that son, because they have value to the one who is searching. They have value to that one that is searching because they belong to the one who is searching. They have so much value that those who are searching will do everything they can to find the lost thing. Jesus is making it very clear to the Pharisees and to those undesirables who are considered lost from the Pharisees’ perspective that those tax collectors and sinners were of great value to God. He wanted to make sure the Pharisees heard that message, that these undesirables have great value to God. Their value stems from the fact that they belong to God. They were created from the Creator. They have chosen to become lost. Even in that state of being lost, even in their lost-ness, they are still God’s.

We all, from Sunday school, remember John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.” Notice that it doesn’t say that God so loved those who turn to Him only. It says “for God so loved the world.” God wanted them to hear that He loves those who are found but He also loves those who are lost. That’s what the Pharisees missed. That is what Jesus was trying to communicate to those Pharisees, that turning your back on those who are lost are not of God.

Then he wanted those sinners to hear, first and foremost, particularly in the hearing of the religious folks, that, you know what? God really values you. You are important to God, so important that He will go to any length to find you. You are of worth to God. So if God values those who are lost and he is willing to do anything to find them, notice that in that search he leaves no stone unturned. The shepherd goes into the wilderness to find the one, no corner is worth overlooking. The woman actually uses her precious oil to light her lamp, she is not going to wait until the sun rises, she is going to light the lamp and start looking right away.

God is in pursuit of the lost. That is the message that Jesus wants them to hear. He is on an active mission to find the lost of the world. Jesus wanted to make sure that everyone who heard his message today that there is no one that is beyond searching, no matter how insignificant they may be, no matter how out of step they seem to us. No one is beyond searching. And yet that goes against the grain of our world in so many ways today, doesn’t it? Losses are acceptable. Collateral damage is to be expected, right? That is the message we hear, in lots of ways. You hear it in war; you maybe hear it in the business world; you may even hear it in the school system, that some losses are acceptable. That is kind of the cost of doing business. You know it is part of the cost, not to share Jesus with those around you. But that is not the way it is for Jesus. A one percent loss of sheep is not acceptable to Jesus. A ten percent loss of coins is not acceptable. A fifty percent loss of brothers is not acceptable.

Many of you know I grew up in southern California. I became, growing up in southern California, very familiar with brush fires and they usually occurred during certain weather conditions; but they are also a result of the geography of southern California, the kind of ecosystem that is made up of California. It is considered a chaparral climate zone. For the chaparral climate zone to function its ecosystem, it has to periodically burn to the ground. That is how the seeds are released from the plants. The plants actually are very highly combustible because of some of the fluids in the plants. That is just how they are made. So when a fire starts, many times the only thing that will stop a brush fire is a change in wind direction. When those fires are whipped by those Santa Ana winds as they come out of the desert, they consume everything and anything in their path. It is almost as if the fire washes over the dry brush and continues to grow as it feeds in the fuel. In fact fires actually accelerate as they go up hills because they are able to preheat the brush so that it explodes as it gets closer to the fire, so they actually move, sometimes, up to sixty miles per hour, these brush fires. I like this vision of a fire sweeping down a canyon and then sweeping up the other side of the canyon. I like that as imagery for God’s love and his pursuit of those who are lost.

The shepherd, the woman, the father of these stories didn’t care if they looked foolish as they were searching for the lost. That is the nature of the kind of love that is shown in these stories. It is foolish in many ways. It is a love that only asks to be allowed to love at any cost. The love of the shepherd, the love of the woman, the love of the father is what saved the sheep and the coin and the son, they don’t save themselves. It is the love of those who are searching. Jesus wants us to get that picture of God the Father. He doesn’t care; God does not care if He looks foolish in his pursuit of the lost. God’s love for the lost is extravagant.

When you think about extravagance, it is like you have so much that you don’t know what to do with it so you just kind of throw it away. It is this idea of going beyond what might be considered wise, going beyond what might be prudent and that is the message that Jesus wanted everyone to hear. God’s love for the unlovable, it goes beyond what is acceptable, it goes beyond what is normal. God’s love for the lost is extravagant and it is spectacular.

Have you ever thought about God like that? Have you ever thought about God in this high pursuit of the lost, willing to go to any length that any cost is worth it? Does that fit your image of your God? A reckless God who is consumed by His passionate love to find the lost, willing to throw all of His resources at it, even His own Son? That is the God that we worship. That is the God who is driven by love for the most cherished part of all of His creation, that part that was made in His image, you and me.

I think that as Jesus is telling these three parables back to back, this for Jesus is very much a watershed moment for him. It is a watershed moment for him as he is sitting with the Pharisees and with those sinners that he has welcomed to his side. It is a watershed moment because really what he is saying to those groups is, “Guess what folks? You have to choose. You have to choose to believe, does God love like this or does God not? ”Is that how God loves? And if God loves like this with this extravagance in a spectacular way, then our love must mesh with His love. Jesus is saying to those Pharisees, “If you believe God’s love is extravagant like you have seen in these parables, then you must love the same way. You must love the sinners. That is why I welcomed them to my side, to show you what it looks like. This is God’s love. This is God’s extravagance. Pharisees, learn the lesson. Learn the lesson.”

These were the words that were heard by those that were in Jesus’ hearing that day -- the Pharisees, the tax collectors and now they are being heard by us. For in many ways, I hate to say it, but we are like the Pharisees. God loves extravagantly in pursuit of the lost. That is why Jesus came to earth. That was the whole reason he “came to seek and save the lost,” as the song goes. He came to find those that are lost and to show God’s love to them.

As we look at our vision statement, we talked about last week, this idea of calling Jesus, Lord, when we call Jesus, Lord, part of what that includes and we will continue to unpack this over the coming months, but part of what that means to call Jesus, Lord, is that he is our teacher and as our teacher he shows us how we are supposed to love. So in that, he is saying to us the same message he said to the Pharisees. “Let your love mesh with my love. Love extravagantly. Love in a spectacular way.” Jesus as Lord also means that he is our master, master in the idea of master/slave. If you think about slavery, the slave always submitted to the master, didn’t they? That’s what we are to do too. We are to submit to our master, Jesus, “for you have been bought with a price, you are not your own,” Paul said. That is what we are called to do. We are to learn from our master; for even though he is our master, his “yoke is easy, his burden is light.” Beyond that, Jesus as Lord is also our king. He is also the one that is worthy of our worship. So when we look at that and we say Jesus is our Lord, to follow Jesus means, you know what? I am going to love extravagantly. That is where that second part, “being filled with his love” that comes right out of Ephesians 3. In that it talks about that God’s love is so extravagant that he pours it into us. It is so extravagant that he fills us to overflowing. He fills us to overflowing so that we can be extravagant with God’s love. We can be extravagant to the world. That is what he is saying. He is saying “I am extravagant to you, now you be extravagant to the world,” because as we are extravagant with the world, God will continue to refill us with his extravagant love, with His spectacular love. Loving extravagantly those who are lost, that is part of what is included in this statement.

Anyone know the significance of April 20, 1999? If you do, shout it out. Exactly. April 20, 1999 was the date of the Columbine High School shooting where many young students lost their lives. Eight days later, on April 28, there was a concert scheduled by Marilyn Manson, the rock singer, in Iowa City. If you know a little bit about the Columbine story, Marilyn Manson’s music figured prominently in the life of the killers, Harris and Klebold. So this concert was coming up and one of the local youth pastors down there kind of chronicled the goings on because there was a lot of apprehension, as you might have guessed, among civic leaders, among the concert promoters about what was going to happen, for they could foresee conflict between the Christians and the supporters of Marilyn Manson as they kind of came together at the concert sight on that day.

So they were not sure what was going to happen. In the days leading up to the concert there was this movement that began to grow out of the Christian community that said, “You know, we want to show the love of Christ to these fans of Marilyn Manson in tangible ways.” So the day of the concert arrived, the police were there not sure of what was going to happen, the concert goers showed up, the Christians showed up. As the Christians showed up, they go, “We are going to do two things. One, we are going to pray.” So there were people praying on the sidewalk outside the concert hall. There were people doing prayer walks around the arena.

The other thing they were going to do is they were going to love. They were going to love in a tangible way. One of the things that happened is one church donated one hundred pizzas and said, “Give those pizzas out to the people standing in line.” Others were given sodas, were given cookies. And I love this one. It said “And some of them had turkey sandwiches.” That is like, down home Iowa – that is like the perfect vision, “Here, have a turkey sandwich.” One pastor, as they were waiting in line with the concert goers, he said, “Would any of you like prayer? I would love to pray for you?” Not many took him up on it, but about twenty of them did and they got prayed for right on the spot as they were waiting in line.

After the concert there was two hundred dollars that was donated to pay for the concert goers parking, so some of them didn’t have to pay for parking. As a part of that, the Christians showed that kind of love. And on a website after the concert, on a pro-Marilyn Manson website, they said, “Maybe those Christians aren’t half bad after all.” You see I guess what happened in the concert was that in the course of the concert it got cut short because Marilyn Manson got upset about something and stormed off. One of the things they talked about was that the concert fans came believing that Christians were irritating and that Marilyn Manson was spectacular. But they left feeling that Marilyn Manson was irritating and that the Christians were impressive. Lost people matter to God.

Let’s pray.

Mighty and Holy God, give us your heart, give us your heart. Lord we want to love the way you love. We want to be extravagant. We want to be reckless with our love because that is what you are. You loved us enough to call us and we heard and you saved us and we are grateful. And Lord I ask that you would continue to move us forward. Help us to really call you Lord and live it out. So Lord may we be filled with your love to overflowing that we might share in abundance what you have given to us, for in that Lord we reflect you and we become the salt and the light that you call us to be. Lord we pray to that end, in your name. Amen.