March 14, 2010

At All Cost, We Seek the Lost

March 14 – Communion Sunday

Psalm 32 sung as Psalter and Luke 15:1-7

Preached by Linda Jo Peters ~ March 14, 2010

INTRODUCTION TO SCRIPTURE
Luke 15:1-7
Jesus tells three stories about seeking the lost. The first is our reading for today, about a shepherd losing a sheep, the second is a woman who losses a coin and finally a very familiar parable about a father who losses a son. Our Lenten worship on Thursday is focusing on the story of the Prodigal Son. Each week we consider the view point of a different character in the story. One of the commentators on Luke reminds us that the Bible’s focus is on God not humanity. The point of these parables is not how we become seekers but how we are the lost and God is the seeker. This story about God is also an invitation to become a part of God’s story—if we can stop running away and hiding from the one who yearns and searches for us we will be found and then can become seekers with God.


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: 4“Which 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.


SERMON
These stories Jesus tells are packed with challenge and wisdom. There is usually a twist at the end. Did you hear the twist at the end? A complete reversal of their way of seeing and being in the world confronts the Pharisees.

Vincent Donovan was a Roman Catholic priest-missionary in Tanzania in the 1960s. Exasperated with conventional forms of Catholic education, he persuaded his bishop to let him simply wander among the Masai tribes, sharing their life and talking about God. Initially he wrestled with his own doubts about how the particular story of Jesus’ cross and resurrection translated into the Masai culture. But a Masai elder told him to contrast the relationship of a Western hunter with his prey and with the relationship of an African lion with its prey. To a white hunter shooting an animal with his gun from a great distance only requires his eyes and his fingers to take part in the act. But a lion uses his nose and eyes and ears picking up on the prey. His legs give him the speed to catch it. All the power of his body is involved in the terrible death leap and single blow to the neck with the front paw, the blow that actually kills. And as the animal goes down the lion envelops it in his arms thus pulling it to itself, and making it part of himself. This is the way a lion hunts. The Masai elder went on. “You told us of the High God, how we must search for him, even leave our land and our people to find him. But we have not done this. We have not left our land. We have not searched for him. He has searched for us. He has searched us out and found us. All the time we think we are the lion. In the end, the lion is God.”

This violent image of God tracking us done to consume us is far more terrifying than the gentle shepherd looking for one lost sheep, even at the risk of losing the 99 left behind. But today we gather at the table of Christ whose broken body and blood shed for our lives is remembered as we consumed the bread and drink of the cup. Such a feast creates a violent picture. In this violence we find communion with God. God is invested fully in union with us. The challenge for us is to realize how totally God’s investment is in our relationship and how total our response must be in relationship with God and God’s creation.

Here we are gathered together to do church. That is good. It is not foolproof or idol-proof, but good. It is better to be gathered together than to be off alone, perhaps scared or despairing. Surely it is better to be gathered together than to be isolated doing one’s own thing, perhaps lost in indifference, never thinking about anybody else, or perhaps lost in power, being controlling and ruthless to those around you.



Now here’s the trick: We are doing church, and that’s good. But we have followed Jesus in here, we have gathered together to be renewed, so that every week we can follow Jesus out of here -- out to the school and the hospital and the bank and the office and the neighborhoods. We gather together here to follow Jesus, and then we follow Jesus out of here to seek the lost, the broken, the bleating, and the alone.



Jesus seems to care inordinately about the ones who aren’t here. This interest in the absent may seem unreasonable to those of us who show up and keep the institutional church humming, but it is the gospel. Jesus came to find the lost -- lost sheep, lost coins, lost brothers, lost prostitutes, lost loan sharks, lost jack-asses, lost weaklings. Jesus came at terrible violent risk to look for them. He seeks the very people we have given up on or forgotten about or dismissed because of their unworthiness. These are the very ones that Jesus has headed out to look for. He looks back over his shoulder to see if we are following him.

Remember what happens every-time somebody who was lost gets found? Amazing grace happens! Celebration for all erupts, because we are so inextricably bound one to another, church leader to stranger, hungry to full, joyous to mean-spirited, faithless to faithful. What happens when the lost sheep gets found is that the joy is contagious. And the 99 sheep have an excuse to throw a party, we do it every week but even more on Communion Sunday. Amen.

Sermon February 28, 2010

Speaking to Power

Psalm 27 and Luke 13:23-35

Preached by Linda Jo Peters ~ February 28, 2010

INTRODUCTION TO SCRIPTURE
Psalm 27 read responsively
Pastor Edward Marquart of Seattle writes that:
In a world in which we are so busy dusting plastic flowers that we don’t have the time to smell the roses; in a world in which the glitter and glamour of the neon lights is so bright that we cannot see the stars; in a world in which violence and brutality rules so many hearts rather than the beauty of God; in this kind of world, I need, you need, and the world around us needs the beauty of the Lord living inside of our souls.


The psalm is a song of praise for seeking and living in the beauty of God in spite of all the ugliness that can surround us. In that beauty we become instruments of God’s love.




1The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
2When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh— my adversaries and foes— they shall stumble and fall.
3Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war rise up against me, yet I will be confident.
4One thing I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.
5For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will set me high on a rock.
6Now my head is lifted up above my enemies all around me, and I will offer in his tent sacrifices with shouts of joy; I will sing and make melody to the Lord.
7Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud, be gracious to me and answer me!
8“Come,” my heart says, “seek his face!” Your face, Lord, do I seek.
9Do not hide your face from me. Do not turn your servant away in anger, you who have been my help. Do not cast me off, do not forsake me, O God of my salvation!
10If my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up.
11Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies.
12Do not give me up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen against me, and they are breathing out violence.
13I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
14Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!

Luke 13:23-35


This is the season of Lent, a time for facing uncomfortable questions and hard truths. The first part of our reading is a collection of sayings by Jesus that challenge the criteria expected of the privileged to have access to salvation because they know Jesus, but access to salvation comes to us because Jesus knows us. The human quest for guarantees and competition for position lead instead to exclusion and remorse. These teachings proceed to an encounter with the religious leaders, who express their supposed concern for him, because he challenges the authority of Herod. Listen for a series of contrasting parallels. They want him to go away, Jesus wants them to go back to Herod. Herod wants to kill him, but Jesus can only be killed in Jerusalem. And the finally parallel is between a Jerusalem that kills and God who loves Jerusalem.

23Someone asked him, “Lord, will only a few be saved?” He said to them, 24“Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able. 25When once the owner of the house has got up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then in reply he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ 26Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’ 27But he will say, ‘I do not know where you come from; go away from me, all you evildoers!’ 28There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrown out. 29Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God. 30Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”


31At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” 32He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. 33Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ 34Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 35See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

SERMON
Bishop Wright of Durham Church of England, tells the story of a farm fire. Those cleaning up found a dead hen, scorched and blackened, and live chicks sheltering under her wings. She had quite literally given her life to save them. It is a vivid and violent image of what Jesus declared he longed to do for Jerusalem and, by implication, for all Israel and for us. But in spite of his willingness to sacrifice his life for them and us all he could see was chicks scurrying off in the opposite direction, taking no notice of the smoke and flames indicating the approach of danger, nor of the urgent warnings of the one who alone could give them safety. He laments their loss.


Jesus would do anything to get his message across. He taught as one with authority, there were clear signs of who he was in his healing and love of the lost, and at the end he died confronting the same powers that be that the Pharisees warned him about. Speaking to power can be a dangerous undertaking. In the first passage his is also speaking to the powers that we let rule our lives: greed, envy and hate. The narrow way is the way of love. Jesus demonstrated his love by eating with sinners, and going to their homes, touching their bodies that would be considered unclean, having conversations with women and raising the dead. He just did not follow the rules that dictated who belonged and who did not or who should be first and who should be last. Such behavior called into question the authority of the powerful and challenges the choices we make. What is Jesus saying to you? What uncomfortable questions and hard truths are you confronting this Lenten season? Be real honest with yourself.


Are you in debt?


Are you caring for your health?

What addictions are you dealing with?

What relationship in your life needs attention?


Jesus says come dwell under my wing. Stop looking for answers in all the wrong places. Pray this simple prayer everyday:


Come Lord Jesus into my life. I commit all that I am to your will. Amen.

Now write down where you need Jesus’ will for your life. In the quiet of his presence, what do you honestly need? Feel his wings shelter you from the raging fires of temptations and evil. Safe in his will, may you know true peace, joy and love. Amen.