September 16, 2007 at Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
Exodus 32:7-11, 13, 14 + Psalm 5 + 1 Timothy 1: 12-17 + Luke 15:1-32
A couple of weeks ago, when I settled down with this Gospel reading, my first thought was to focus on the first two of the three parables. After all, we heard the third parable on a Sunday this past Lent. It also struck me that using the shorter option for the Gospel would jolt Deacon Byron since he knows without my sayings that I always prefer the longer option. You can never get enough of a good thing, even the Good News! Then some time passed and I continued to look at the whole text and consider who was being addressed with these parables. It is the good son. It is the Scribes and Pharisees, the good law abiding, faithful ones who are being told these stories. It is you and me, the people who made Mass attendance the priority of the weekend who are hearing this message. So, I decided we had better keep it all together and not skip the last story which brings it all home.
Back away from the specific details for a minute, and these parables start to talk about the “in” group and the “out group. That is how Chapter Fifteen starts, and that is how it ends. There is an “in group” who are usually at the table and welcome. There is an “out group” not so welcome or sometimes absent. In this biblical language, there are tax collectors and sinners: they are the “out group.” Then there are the righteous: (Scribes and Pharisees or the good son) who are the “in group.” Isn’t that the way it is most of the time in our lives. Whether it’s an issue of ideology, politics, religion, race, language, culture, or simply who sits where in the school cafeteria. We have our “in groups” and “the others.”
The Jesus of this Gospel confronts that business. God did not make things this way at the beginning. This kind of dis-unity is not in the divine plan of things, and Jesus has come to restore what is lost, heal what is broken, and unite what is divided. God’s will is Unity.
Think about the numbers in this chapter for just a minute. One Hundred is a whole number and so is ten. The numbers in ancient writings are often symbolic and the use of them reinforces images and the message. The flock has 100 sheep: but one is missing. Something is wrong here. There are ten coins; but one gets lost. The Shepherd must have that wholeness.
The unity must be restored no matter what the cost. The woman must have the whole set of ten. so everything stops until it gets back together.
What unites them is joy from the realization that things are the way they were meant to be. Creation is fulfilled. God’s will is satisfied. Things are good.
In the face of this however, something in our age makes us shrug and scoff at such insistence on wholeness. Our practical minds make no sense of looking for one when you have 99 or think it silly to waste precious oil to find one coin when you still have 9. Lighting the oil lamp probably cost more than the value of the coin! An imperfect world has made us too comfortable with imperfection. We’ve just decided that loss is inevitable, and we don’t bother about it. The truth of loss has impressed us too much and taught us to accommodate too quickly. We have become numb to the pain of missing what was once part of our identity. We accept this as the normal way of things, but Jesus is not so resigned. He does not settle for this, and neither should we.
Into this comes parable three and a contrast of behavior in the face of loss. We have a choice in the face of our losses: anxious hope waiting for a reunion and wanting to miss no opportunity for it; or a smug and arrogant dismissal that just accepts the broken way things are without any desire to make it otherwise. There is nothing more crushing than simply writing someone off with the comment: “They’ll always be that way.” Nothing more hopeless than opting out of life by simply declaring: “That’s just the way it is.”
Jesus was not so resigned, and neither may his disciples be. If God desires unity, so must we. Until we do, there will be no Joy and no celebration that affirms the victory of God’s Royal Reign. If the finding of one makes the ninety-nine and the nine whole, then it is not just the good fortune of a shepherd or a woman. We must all gather. When sheep and coins are together neighbors and friends are brought in. Getting back what we have lost is our project. Those who are “out” must be brought “in”. It is the only way; it is God’s way and God’s plan for creation. Scribes and Pharisees couldn’t get it. Too worried about being or staying part of the “in group” they never reached out or made room for others. It cannot be so for us.