Rick Olson, September 16, 2007
The first thing we have to establish in this story is who we are, where we stand. Because who we are in this story, from what vantage point we experience the two parables Jesus tells, determines to a large extent what they mean to us, how they apply to our lives. Every writer or filmmaker knows this . . . and the good ones precisely calibrate their work so that they control with whom the readers or audience identifies with at any given point. As I’ve often remarked, context is all, background is everything, and who we are in any given piece of literature can make all the difference. And really—if we can’t find ourselves in a passage from scripture, of what possible use can it be to us?
And there are three possibilities in this story, aren’t there? First of all, we could be the sheepherder-slash-widow, the one doing the all the losing and looking. Second, we could be the sheep-slash-coin-slash-sinners, the ones who are lost and are being looked for. Finally, we could be the ones to whom the story is being told, those to whom Luke refers collectively as “Pharisees and scribes.” And so I ask you: where do we stand? Who are we in the story?
Well, let’s think about for a sec . . . we can eliminate the sheepherder-slash-woman right off the bat . . . Jesus as much as tells us who they are in this little allegory, they’re God, or agents of God, perhaps, who look for the lost to restore to God’s kingdom . . . just so, Jesus says, there’s rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents, who was lost and is now found.
Ok, one down, two to go . . . but before we explore go on, we have to get define a word precisely, and that’s “sinner.” We usually think of the word “sinner” as meaning someone whose done something bad, something wrong, who’s done, so to speak, a sin. But to the to the scribes and Pharisees, who are the audience of these parables, sinner is a technical term for someone who is an outsider, who is not in the group . . . who is outside the norms of society, who is ritually unclean. Here’s a definition of the Greek word we translate here as “sinner,” from the Greek lexicon known as the BAG: “Persons engaged in certain occupations, e.g. herding and tanning, that jeopardized cultic purity, would be considered by some as ‘sinners’, a term tantamount to ‘outsider’. Non-Israelites were esp. considered out of bounds.” And so the term sinner here—as in many places in the New Testament—refers to an outsider, someone outside of the pale. And we’re certainly not that, are we? Most of us—especially here in this congregation—are about as inside as you can get . . .
So we can leave off thinking that we’re the second category, the “sinners and tax-collectors,” that the Pharisees complain about, whom Jesus equates with lost sheep and coins . . . so let’s see . . . we’re not the shepherd or the woman, they’re God. We’re not the lost, the outsider, the sinner . . . so that leaves only one group for us to identify with, only one place from which to read this passage, and that’s as Pharisees and scribes, to whom Jesus is telling the story—convenient, that—and I must say, it does fit us particularly to a ‘T’ . . . we’re all solid insiders, marchers in the upright citizen brigade. We’re Presbyterian, for Pete’s sake, members of staunchly-pro-status-quo denomination if there ever was one, we do so love playing by the rules. We do our civic duty like good little Republicans and Democrats and pay our taxes—even though we sometimes disagree as to just how much they should be—and we bathe once a day whether we need it or not. And what’s wrong with all of this? Not a thing, actually, it just serves to locate us in this story as the ones to whom Jesus is preaching. Like the scribes and Pharisees, we’re über-insiders, atavars of the status quo, we’re on the inside, looking out. In other words, we’re the ones for whom these stories were made.
And those Presbyterian doppelgangers, the Pharisees and scribes, are complaining at the sight of all those sinners, all those outcasts like tax-collectors or welfare queens—or maybe those folks who live across the tracks or go to evangelical churches that use video screens on Sunday mornings—we’re complaining that Jesus is actually welcoming all those outsiders, that he’s even eating with them, for Moses’ sake . . . he’s hobnobbing with Mormons, kibbitzing with drug-crazed bikers, hanging out with Baptists, already . . . they’re certainly not happy little Presbyterians, oops, I mean scribes and Pharisees . . .
And so Jesus tells a story . . . what person among you, he says, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go looking for the lost one? Well, what person indeed? Jesus is talking as if it’s a no-brainer, as if of course you’ll go looking for the one lost sheep, you upright Presby-sees, but I don’t know . . . seems like kind of a curious thing to do, to me . . . I mean, isn’t it bad economics, bad stewardship of what we’ve been given, to risk ninety-nine for the sake of one? That wilderness is one bad place, all kinds of lions and tigers and bears, oh my . . . so I wonder how the local Phari-terians answered that one . . . when Jesus asked which one of them, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine, I wonder what their answer was? Did they shrug and look around at one another and raise their hands, saying I wouldn’t leave the rest of the herd behind, in hostile territory, just to find one lost sheep . . . I mean, I’m sorry about the little feller and all, but sacrifices have to be made . . . better to lose one than risk ninety-nine . . .
But the shepherd in Jesus’ tale does it, he leaves the ninety-nine and heads off to find the one lost sheep, and he slings it over his shoulder and returns, and when he does he calls all his friends to come and party, saying “rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost” and because this is allegory, because it is metaphorical, the story means more of course than mere sheep and shepherds . . . and it’s keyed by the Pharisees’ and scribes’ complaint . . . he welcomes and eats with tax collectors and sinners, and what this story is saying is that not only does the shepherd—and does anyone doubt that who we’re talking about is God?—not only does he welcome and eat with outsiders, with the outcasts of the world, with the scapegoats, but he goes out and finds them and brings them in . . . and notice that it’s not something the sheep does, he slings it over his shoulders and hauls it unceremoniously in, just as the woman picks the coin up and restores it . . . it’s like the parable that—not coincidentally—precedes this one, where the master commands his servants to go out into the highways and hedges to bring in the halt and the lame, the outcasts and the marginal to partake of a great banquet . . . God the shepherd reverses the logic of the world and brings the sinner, brings the outsider in.
And what a reversal it is, too . . . not only does it upend the ways of the pharasitical world, where the sinners—the outcasts, the marginal, the outsiders—are not included, it does it symmetrically as well . . . the former insiders are left outside, in the wilderness, a not-inconsequential choice of words . . . the wilderness symbolizes the lost and it symbolizes hardship, it symbolizes the margins, the out there . . . the devil, you will recall, is in the wilderness, and in God’s schema, the reversal of ground has those who were on the inside now on the outside, in the desert, while the one who was on the outside coming back into the fold, a fold created and maintained by a loving shepherd/God. Shades of the last shall be first and the first shall be last . . .
But it’s not just the reversal of place, of insider/outsider that this story of the lost sheep—and to a lesser extent, the lost coin—points to. The wise shepherd refuses to make a scapegoat (in this case, a scape-sheep) out of the lost sheep, he refuses to sacrifice the sinner, the outcast, who is different only in that he is outside, he refuses to sacrifice the outsider for the well-being of those who are in. And that, brothers and sisters, is far and away different from human economies, from human culture, which is by-and-large sacrificial in nature. The well-being of one group is invariably sacrificed for that of another.
This can be seen in many places within Western economies, all of which have significant under-classes—economic under-classes—whose low wages, lack of benefits, and virtual poverty support the middle and upper-class’ penchant for the good life. The film Dirty Pretty Things shows this graphically, portraying the incredible poverty that is the foundation of the
God does not play this game . . . God doesn’t play the “take care of our own” or “circle the wagons” or “satisfy our own needs first” game. God freely brings, deliberately and inexorably, all the outsiders inside, all the lost within God’s sheepfold, all the unclean under the fountain of God’s cleansing waters . . .
God’s economy is not sacrificial, God tells the servants of God’s household to go out into the highways and hedges and bring in the outsiders, to share in the great banquet, to share in the food intended for the insiders. God tells the shepherds to never mind the safety of those who are already in, who are already safe, and go out and find the lost sheep, no matter how few, no matter how many, and bring them in. And, I believe, God tells us here at First Pres to do the same thing. God tells us to quit being the Pharisees, quit being the consummate insiders, anxious to protect and preserve the status quo . . . God tells us to instead become the shepherd, or the woman with the lost coins, to go out and find the lost ones—and if they’re lost, somebody’s done the losing—go out and find the lost ones and bring them in . . .
Brothers and sisters, our denomination is losing members at an alarming rate . . . and the tendency is to protect what we have, to preserve it and enshrine it and nurture it in many ways . . . the tendency is circle the wagons and protect what we have, but if we do that, we sacrifice the lost, the outsider who might come in if she felt she was truly welcome. It’s tempting these days to think in terms of numbers, of what pleases the majority, to concentrate on getting the biggest bang for the ministry buck, to go after the broad middle at the expense of the fringe . . . but the Gospel is never about that, it’s always proclaimed to the few, to those who are on the outside, looking in. God never sacrifices those outside the fold for those within. There is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one who was lost is found; there is room for all in the
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