Rejoice

Luke 15:1-10


I’ve seen a lot of books that offer Jesus’ management principles, but I’ve never been especially tempted to buy them, since I tend to think that anyone who can imagine Jesus as a corporate executive has not met the same Messiah I have.

Today, for instance, we hear Jesus’ reflections on asset management.
Which of you,     having 100 sheep and losing one,
does not leave the other ninety-nine unguarded and at risk in the wilderness to chase down the one that was lost?
And what woman, having lost 10 percent of her household cash does not drop absolutely everything to find it – and once found, invites the neighbors over for a party that more than likely costs at least what she’s just lost and found.

Which of you manage your work or your home like that?  (show of hands?)

It’s a deliberately out of proportion response to a relatively minor problem – not just in the recovery effort, but in the extravagant attention of the neighbors.  The whole community is called to take notice of the loss, the risk, and the recovery.

This week, I couldn’t help but notice the extravagant attention that national and international media, political, and religious organizations paid to the plans of one pastor of a very small church in Florida.
You might have heard about it. 
Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center – a church of apparently about 30 people – announced a Qur’an burning event.  Demonstrations – in Afghanistan and in the US, effigy-burnings, counter-demonstrations and news stories followed; the President, the commander of US forces in Afghanistan, and most major political and religious figures in the US weighed in.
(with the possible exception of Richard M Daley)

One missing sheep, one missing coin,
claims the complete attention of the shepherd, the woman, and eventually the entire community.
One small church, one offensive action,
has held hostage the attention of our nation, much of our world, and the leadership of several faiths.

It matters.
And it’s ridiculous.

It’s always dangerous to believe you know who the lost sheep is in one of Jesus’ parables.  But my own response to the 24-hour news coverage of a small stunt in Florida is probably not unlike the reaction of the Pharisees or the 99 sheep.

"That idiot. 
It’s his own poor choices that have gotten him in trouble. 
What a waste of attention and effort, when there is so much good going on in the world – churches and mosques and synagogues that are sheltering the poor and lonely, feeding the hungry, and proclaiming truly good news of God’s call to us are being ignored for the sake of this one guy."
99 righteous sheep, ignored for one lost fool.

It’s the reaction I think Jesus is expecting when he presents this parable.         
But it’s not the response that God is looking for.

Rejoice is what the prodigal shepherd says to his neighbors – with no reference to the fate of the 99 sheep.
Rejoice is what the woman says to her neighbors as she blows her newly-re-found savings on a party.
Rejoice with me is what Jesus says to the Pharisees and what God says to us.
The Pharisees, and you and I, are invited by Jesus to see as God sees: Rejoice with me, because what was lost was found.

If you find it hard to imagine your way into the mind of God, it may be easier to imagine the joy of the lost sheep on being found and restored to the community.
Many of us have had an experience of being found by God, or by one of God’s people, when we were lost, or alone, or in danger of our health, our life, our sanity, or our relationships. 
Many of us know, and I believe all of us can imagine, the extraordinary gift of being found, and even more, of being restored to wholeness, to our relationship with God and our community, in spite of how we had lost ourselves.

That experience leaves us full of the mercy of God – the mercy that Paul proclaims, that Jesus demonstrates, that the prophet Jeremiah begs Israel to accept.  Mercy that is extravagant in and of itself.

But Jesus invites us to an even more extravagant joy: to see that mercy as God sees it – as no risk or effort ever wasted,
even on the most hopeless and lost.
And Jesus invites us to share in God’s joy – a joy that cannot be contained, that will never stop inviting others to rejoice.

Because if we share God’s perspective, then neither Pastor Terry Jones nor anyone else looks like a threat to our self and salvation, no matter how misguided, mistaken, or just strange that other sheep may be.

I’m still horrified that anyone who knows that Jesus taught us to love our neighbor as ourself, and even to love our enemies, could plan to burn the Qur’an with the intent to destroy a faith. 
And at 9 years and counting, I remember other smoke, and I’m still sick that anyone could so distort faith in God to lead to terrorism and the death of thousands. 

I can’t love those neighbors and those enemies by my own will power.

So Jesus offers us a chance to see from God’s perspective; to see without fear and without contempt.
To see the idiots and the strangers and the sinners in our life with God’s overwhelming, extravagant commitment that not one of them will be lost. 
To see, with God’s love, the unrestrained joy and celebration when one of us is found.

Jesus offers us a lens to see Pastor Terry Jones,
or the idiot whose mistake means everyone else works overtime,
or even sheep from God’s other flocks like Muslims praying near “ground zero” as a cause of joy to God.

Not because of what they do – or don’t do – but because God will break the bank for anyone, seek them out, and celebrate that they are found.

Jesus invites us to see such extravagant attention to one sheep, one man, one small community, as a sign of God’s commitment that not one of us will be lost to God.

It’s messy, it’s not fair.  It flies in the face of common sense.
And those management principles are a lousy way to get ahead in business or to manage your retirement savings.

But it is an invitation to extravagant joy.
And to love as God loves; to rejoice because God rejoices, are the founding principles of the kingdom of God,
and that is where all God’s sheep, where you and I, belong.