We Belong to God

Many of you knew my grandmother, Dee. When I was with her shopping one time, when I was a little girl, we got separated. The shelves were really tall, and there were a lot of aisles. I could not find Grandmother. I looked and looked. Finally, I went up to the cash registers. I don’t remember what kind of store it was, but I remember that someone picked me up and put me on the belt, so maybe a K-mart…anyway, an early precursor to the “box” store. And one of the workers asked me if I was lost. “No! I am not lost,” I assured them. “But my Grandmother is.” They were nice enough to announce over the store intercom that the grandmother in the store who was lost should come to Customer Service.

We don’t like to admit we are lost. We have a family member who was in an unknown location while hiking for a few days, in the mountains. It involved search teams. This person will still tell you about the time that they became disoriented while hiking.

Jesus told about a shepherd with 100 sheep, and a woman with 10 coins, and in each story 1 was lost…we know that we are the sheep and the coin. But, in our reluctance to admit that we got lost, we might be tempted to wonder how the shepherd lost the sheep and how the woman lost the coin. We have free will. The shepherd and the woman are God. The sheep and the coin are us. We have wandered or rolled away…that’s how we got lost.

The great Presbyterian preacher George Buttrick told a story about a farmer and a city slicker meeting on along a country lane. The farmer has a sheep under his arm. “Got a stray,” he comments. And the city slickers asks, “How do they get lost?” To which the farmer replies, “They just nibble themselves lost. They keep their heads down, wander from one green tuft to another, come to a hole in the fence – and never can find a hole by which to get back again.” “Like people,” replies the city slicker.

We all know those people. People who have gotten their heads down, busily working and raising their family, and supporting their children in their pursuit of being the best at their activity of talent, and wandering from one green tuft to another…eventually they come to a hole in the fence…and many times they never can find a hole, well a lot of times they don’t even look up from continuing green tuft to green tuft before they are miles and miles away from the fold.

And it is really easy for us to sit here nodding our heads. And it would be great for us to take these stories Jesus told and be encouraged to call our friends we haven’t seen in a while. Those people who used to sit on the pew in front of us, or behind us. Those people who never came back after COVID. Those people who maybe just now are going green tuft to green tuft…they haven’t left the fence yet, but they might not notice if they slipped through a hole in it. I’m not going to discourage you. Jesus is definitely telling us that God is still looking for them, frantically. They belong to God, and God loves them and wants more than anything for them to be seated at the table.

But they aren’t the only ones. Jesus tells these parables in response to some grumbling. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law are muttering about him keeping company with tax collectors and sinners, he’s even eaten with them. The grumbling is not over whether or not they keep the food laws. These tax collectors are Jewish people who have made a deal with the occupation, the Romans, to collect taxes for them from their Jewish neighbors and the incentive that sweetened the pot and was the selling point for them in this deal was that they got to overcharge their neighbors and their family and all the people in their town and Rome would look the other way when they kept the extra for themselves. They are traitors of their own people! And he’s eating with Jewish sinners. Unrepentant, uncouth, ill-mannered – mostly because they are poor – these people don’t keep the feast. They don’t follow the kosher rules…they just eat what they can get to eat. They don’t keep themselves ritually clean…they just do the best they can to wash up in local watering holes. They smell, they have sores on their skin, they are just unpleasant to be around…much less eat with. Luke tells us, “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.”

And the Pharisees and scribes were grumbling. So, Jesus tells these two parables about God’s desire to find every single one of God’s sheep and every single one of God’s coins. And then, he not only says God rejoices, but that the shepherd goes back to the folks at home, to his friends and neighbors, and the woman calls together her friends and neighbors, and God says, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.”/“Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.” Several years ago, Reverend Dr. Lynn Japinga in writing about this passage commented that, “In our contentious, polarized society, there are many groups that evoke similar disdain that the Pharisees and scribes have. People grumble about Democrats, Republicans, Muslims, immigrants, poor people, homeless people, panhandlers, people of other races, they grumble about liberals and conservatives, advocates for gay marriage and critics of gay marriage, almost everyone can find a reason to grumble about someone.” Everybody knows somebody who is lost…they may not know they are lost, but we are sure they are. And, it may be hard for us, standing outside the house, having called Jesus outside to talk to us, to hear that not only did God send him to find them and welcome them, God invites us to REJOICE that they are at the Table with Jesus.

That’s hard stuff. The conversation outside the house that day was harder. It’s more like….well…I’ll just invite you to think of someone who just makes you roll your eyes, pretty much anything they say disgusts you, you really don’t have anything nice to say about them, maybe you know a not-so-nice nickname for them… They belong to God, and God loves them and wants more than anything for them to be seated at the table. And when we find that they are sitting at the table with Jesus, God wants us to REJOICE. There’s a third parable Jesus tells in the series – about God the Father watching for a son who has left for the far country and a son who has stayed home. And when the son who has been lost returns, the son who has stayed home has a choice to make, It’s possible that we’d rather imagine judgement day going badly for that person or those people. If we are honest, we might not be thrilled for them to be welcomed, maybe we’d rather see that sinner punished. God would rather see sinners come home. We are free to accept the invitation, “Come and rejoice,” or become the one who is lost.

Picture the scene – Jesus is inside the house reclining at the table with tax collectors and sinners…sheep and coins who have drawn near. And Jesus gets up and goes outside to reason with these grumblers who would not be willing to come inside and eat with those kinds of people – bunch of scoundrels and riff-raff, always wanting something for nothing, probably just there for a free meal…doesn’t Jesus see through them?

Jesus leaves the crowd, he gets up from his meal, to go outside. Who is being sought in that moment? Theologian Justo Gonzalez says these stories are for the “never lost” – the people who don’t realize that it is possible for them to be lost. Franciscan priest, Father Richard Rohr writes that “Jesus tried to change people by loving and healing them. His harshest words of judgement were reserved for those who perpetuate systems of inequality and oppression and who through religion itself thought that they were sinless and untouchable.”
The people Jesus left at the table…the people already at the table…are celebrating and enjoying Jesus’s company when he gets up and goes out to seek the lost…the Pharisees and scribes standing outside, unwilling to come sit down at the table. Sometimes, we are the ones standing outside, and the Good Shepherd leaves the sheep who knew they needed God, who drew near and didn’t wander, to come and find us, the ones who didn’t know we were lost, who independently eagerly have gone from green tuft to green tuft filled with wonder at the blessing and bounty that we enjoy…without realizing how far away from the Shepherd and the other sheep we have wandered. We belong to God, and God loves us and wants more than anything for us to be seated at the table.

In the midst of political rhetoric and the blame game and the divisive finger pointing and attention grabbing and diverting tactics, we need to remember that we belong to God, and so do they….all of the theys. God loves us, and them…all of them. And God wants more than anything for us all to be seated at the table and is frantically searching for each and every one who is not. Will you join the celebration or will you be lost?

I guess, when I reflect back on that day at the store with my grandmother Dee, it is possible that she was not lost…she didn’t think she was – she thought I was! She made it to Customer Service and she wasn’t lost any more. She smiled at me and we laughed, together again. And I was glad she was found, and she was glad I was found…that’s how it is in the Kingdom of God.