17th Sunday after Pentecost/Proper 19C ​(Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; Psalm 14; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10)

This will sound quite mischievous. But after reading today’s gospel, I gotta say that what I really like about Jesus is that he has a way to frustrate those who don’t like him very much. He knows how to piss them off for sure! In this way, he doesn’t really portray himself as a saintly and godly figure.

In today’s gospel story, Jesus brings out two parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. These parables are directed at the Pharisees and scribes. These people grumble and criticize Jesus for “welcoming sinners and eating with them.” Jesus is far from their image of a godly person or an ideal rabbi or prophet. He’s a friend of all the tax collectors and sinners. He’s a friend of the so-called “losers.”

Jesus seems to know these Pharisees and scribes’ pet peeves. In his parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin, he describes God as a shepherd and a woman. This is not acceptable to their standards. A shepherd has no respectable social status, neither does a woman in their time. And look how Jesus is telling what this shepherd and woman do to find their lost ones. The shepherd is not so smart that he might lose the other ninety-nine sheep in his finding of one lost sheep! He has no sense of quality control. He is ready to give up all the other ninety-nine sheep for the lost one! What about the woman? She lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and searches carefully until she finds the lost coin. She looks for the lost coin with extreme care. Both of them are so determined to find their lost ones.

Notice that these lost sheep and coin are what Jesus’ God truly cares for. Jesus’ God doesn’t pay too much attention to the righteous ones. Jesus’ God will only care when these nine-nine righteous become lost like the first one! This means that unless the Pharisees and scribes find themselves lost as much as sinners and tax collectors find themselves in Jesus, they will not see God’s grace being always and everywhere available to them, God’s love always and everywhere seeking them in their lostness.

What can be more upsetting to the Pharisees and scribes is that the lost ones didn’t do anything in the parables. They didn’t achieve anything that will help them to be found by God. Absolutely nothing was done by them. They were far from the Pharisees and scribes, these righteous, overachieving winners. All they did was being lost! God’s grace doesn’t come to the lost ones only when they make a confession of their wrongdoings and sins. God’s grace doesn’t require anything from the lost ones. It’s unconditional, nothing transactional about this. Grace comes to all of us, I mean “ALL,” without ever asking what we have done wrong or what we can do better. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

When we find ourselves being lost, that’s when we find ourselves being found by God. When we acknowledge our lostness in God, that’s when we see God’s grace that has been seeking us without judgment, but with unconditional love. Whether we accept that grace or not is up to us, to our free will. Our acceptance of God’s grace is our what we call “repentance,” a change of our hearts. This acceptance of God’s grace is in other words our acceptance of God’s invitation to the divine feast filled with joy. All of us at Our Savior as well as all the other churches are once again invited to this divine feast called “Eucharist.” We have been lost, and are now found over and over again by God. God in the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ finds us and unites us in God’s divine feast. Let’s rejoice and celebrate our union with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.