Misplaced
A sermon by Brent J. Eelman
Abington Presbyterian Church
September 16, 2007

Luke 15: 1-10
    Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’
    So he told them this parable: ‘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? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And 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.” Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.
    ‘Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.” Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.’*

I was nine or ten years old and we were traveling home to New Jersey from our vacation. There were six of us: two parents, and four children, all stuffed into a single Chevrolet sedan. This was before air conditioning in autos and to this day, I wonder how my parents put up with all our nonsense in the back seat. One of the things that we did, with four children, was to make frequent stops along the road. That morning we stopped for breakfast and ate quickly and then continued on our way. It was about two or three hours later that I realized that I left my watch at the diner where we ate breakfast. I had the watch for all of 8 months, having received the brand new Timex for Christmas the previous year. I screamed, “Stop!!” The car didn’t stop, because my parents thought it was just more of the same silliness that often occurred in the back seat. Finally, I got their attention and told them that I left my watch at the diner, but we had traveled over 100 miles since breakfast.

After giving me a lecture about carelessness and taking care of valuables, my parents made an executive decision which my juvenile mind did not understand at that time. We would not go back for the watch. We had traveled too far and it simply didn’t make sense to turn around at this time. With tears running down my cheek, I tried to understand their logic, but it didn’t help. My parents tried to reassure me by saying that it would make more sense to get another watch then to go back for the one that I misplaced, but they also added that it probably would not occur until next Christmas.

That was my introduction to the realities of “cost-effective” decision making. Today, I understand my parent’s logic. I wouldn’t think of going back over 100 miles, searching for an inexpensive watch that may not even be there. It would be a waste of time and a waste of gas. Throw in four kids in the back seat and you have more reasons for not going back. As an adult, I make decisions like this, paying close attention to the realities of cost and time. This spring, for example, I faced the dilemma of a leaky roof and had to decide if it made sense to merely repair the roof or take it off and install a new one. We opted for the latter. These are decisions that we face and usually what guides are decision making process is the bottom line: Is it worth the time, effort and cost?

This is the same logic that is behind the two parables that Jesus told: time, effort and cost. The first was about a shepherd who had one hundred sheep. He did his count and realized that one is missing. What would bottom line logic dictate? I think that most of us would stay with the ninety nine sheep that we have safe. Why put them in jeopardy for the sake of finding one lost sheep that wandered away. We might even add… “and what is to keep that sheep from doing that again?” After all, maybe it will become a habit with that sheep. We wouldn’t want to encourage that kind of behavior. But Jesus assumed a different answer. The ancient world was not a disposable culture, and a lost sheep were costly. So the shepherd looked for it and when he found the sheep, he rejoiced. Jesus’ listeners would understand this story. They, like the shepherd would take the time to look for the lost sheep, because sheep were valuable and worthy of the time and effort.

The second parable is also similar. It is the parable of the misplaced coin. The woman who misplaced it put in a special effort to look for it. Once again it was worth the time and the effort to search for that coin.

But was Jesus really talking about coins and sheep? No. These two parables occurred within a context of some major grumbling. The Pharisees and the scribes were murmuring among themselves about the people with whom Jesus associated: tax-collectors and sinners. They wondered why he would spend time with these societal outcasts, when he could be with them. They were more educated and would give his new teachings more thought and debate. Harsher still, it led them to wonder about his character. After all, can’t you judge the character of an individual by the company he or she keeps? Jesus was keeping some questionable company. What do coins and sheep have to do with this confrontation?

I believe that this message of Jesus is very pointed, even for us today. Jesus was questioning the “cost/benefit” thinking of the Scribes and Pharisees. In ancient times, it made sense to look for a lost sheep. It made sense to turn a house upside down to find a coin that might have been misplaced. There was no question of that in Jesus parable. But this was not about coins and sheep. It was about human beings, and Jesus, through two simple, seemingly innocent stories, challenged the logic of his day that valued a coin or a sheep above the life of a human being. Jesus was not holding up tax-collectors and sinners as examples of piety. No. These individuals, like the misplaced coin and sheep, were lost. Somewhere in life they had lost their way. Jesus’ parable challenged his listeners: if a lost sheep is worth looking for; if a misplaced coin is worth the search; how much more important are these people, tax collectors and sinners?

But Jesus was not merely preaching to Scribes and Pharisees. Jesus was addressing us. He raised the question with us: do we regard other human beings, made in the image of God, as dispensable? This message is down-right offensive and runs smack into the logic of a lot our common-place thinking. We have all heard the expressions: “Once a bum, always a bum!” “You can’t change human nature.” “Don’t waste your time on him.” “Some people are beyond redemption.” Why was Jesus wasting his time with tax collectors and sinners, instead of meeting the religious needs of the good respectable people? Why? Because at the heart of the gospel, is the core belief that no one is beyond redemption. No one is too far gone. No one is not worth the effort.

When I was a senior in high school, our sociology class took a “class trip” to visit the Bucks County Jail. This was 1968 and the purpose of the trip was to acquaint us with the challenges of the penal system and the sociological realities of crime and punishment. I think one of the other reasons for the trip was to scare the living be-jeebers out of us. I am not sure if the same jail is in use today, (I doubt it.) but the trip made a powerful impact upon me. The jail was built a long time ago by Quakers. The simple cells had small entrances with a step up that an inmate would have to take to enter. The entrance caused the inmate to bow his head to safely pass through the doorway to his cell. The purpose of that bow was to instill a sense of penance in the inmate. The tour-guide explained that the Quakers believed that incarceration was for the purpose of leading a person to examine his/her life and through prayer and repentance to make the changes necessary. I learned that the word ‘penitentiary” came, not from sociology, but from theology. Behind it all was a belief that no one was beyond redemption. Even these lost sheep and misplaced coins of human beings could be salvaged.

I don’t think that bowing before entering a cell leads to any type of character change and development. But the logic of that practice challenges the way we think today… No one is beyond the pale of God’s saving love and grace.

Fifteen years ago, one of my midlife crisis projects was restoring an old MG sports car. It was a mess when I got it, and I literally had to cut it in half with a torch and sheet metal cutter to do the project. I know that I had a number of friends who thought that it couldn’t be done.. and I especially would not be able to do it. It took 18 months, but I finished and was quite happy with the result. It was fun to drive around.

It is wonderful that we can take a rusty old hulk of an old car and remake it to the point that it looks almost new. Those old cars can be saved with enough effort. The challenge of Christ’s gospel is that human beings can be re-created and made new also. That is why Christ spent time with tax collectors and sinners… because they are more important than coins, sheep, or British sports cars!

I remember the story of my misplaced watch as though it were yesterday. I can still experience the feelings of loss and pain that I had at that moment. All of us have a story like that: something that was not worth saving, fixing, or finding. The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that human beings, including you and me, are worth fixing, finding and saving. The good news of the gospel is that the Kingdom of Heaven does not operate on a cost/benefit basis, but is built upon gracious love. This is the good news… the challenge of the gospel is for us, the Disciples of Jesus Christ, to follow him and reach out to the lost, the misplaced, and those who live on the margins. The promise of the gospel is that when we do.. we will experience, “the joy of heaven.” Amen.
 

*The New Revised Standard Version Bible, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers) 1989.

Abington Presbyterian Church, Abington, Pennsylvania,  www.apcusa.org