Message for Luke 15:1-10

14 Pentecost C

September 11, 2022

I wish I could have a tranquil faith. I wish I could never stray from the safe path. I wish I could always jump in the right direction. Alas, that’s not me – never has been. When it comes to following Jesus, I’m a lot like the lamb in this video.

Some of that travail is years in the past. But it’s no less painful or powerful. So, when God reached out in Jesus to find me and bring me back, I thought it was a joke. When I heard the voice of God telling me to go to seminary, I was sure God had the wrong number. When the Holy Spirit blessed me with a call into ministry, I was positive that someone would figure out pretty quickly just how much of an imposter I was in this God and grace business.

Yet, the joke was on me.

That’s why I connect so personally to our gospel reading. Jesus will eat with anyone. Prior to Luke 15, Jesus has eaten with Pharisees at least three times. These meals erupt in controversy, but that doesn’t mean the meals were failures. That’s just what happens when you get some teachers together to debate the finer points of the Torah.

Jesus will eat with anyone, regardless of theological, social, or political inclination. That’s worth noting in a time when we tend to gather more and more only with people who look, think, talk, and behave like us. Then, as now, eating with anyone and everyone is a countercultural activity.

Jesus also accepts dinner invitations from the “wrong” kinds of people. He parties with the poor and the rich, the reviled and the respectable. It’s not bad enough that he sits down at the table with the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. He’s having a good old time with traitors and collaborators, with those who play fast and loose with their religion and probably fast and loose with a lot of other rules as well.

Why does Jesus welcome sinners and eat with them? Maybe it’s because, as Billy Joel noted, “the sinners are much more fun.” But I think it’s also because when there’s a chance to throw someone a lifeline, Jesus is going to do it. If Jesus finds someone who’s lost, Jesus is going to move heaven and earth to find them.

That message saves lives. I was privileged to be part of a congregational prison ministry called the FEAST. Part of that ministry was and is a Sunday meal together including inmates from the community corrections center, members of the congregation, and other volunteers, family, and friends.

I remember a FEAST partner (we call our inmate friends “partners” in that ministry) who was sure there was a catch to all of this. Nobody in their right mind would do this for free, he thought. “What do you people really want from me?” he asked. “We’d like to know how you want your burger cooked,” one of the volunteers replied.

We hoped our time together might change all of us for the better. But that wasn’t a condition for being together. Over time, my friend began to soften a bit. He was less defensive and paranoid. His shoulders relaxed. He even smiled a few times. After a few months, he came to me with a broad grin. “I’ve figured it out,” he told me. “I know what you people want.”

“Well, tell me,” I said, “what is it that ‘we people’ want?” He laughed as he spoke. “You don’t want anything. You just give yourselves and your time and your love for free. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. I didn’t think such a thing was possible. But do you know what really gets me?” he asked. “No,” I said, “I have no idea. Tell me.”

“All of a sudden, for the first time in my life, I don’t want anything either. Because,” he took a deep breath, “I know that God wants to give me everything.”

If I hadn’t been there myself, I wouldn’t have believed it. Yet, nearly twenty years later, that conversation rings in my mind as clearly as the Sunday we had it. It didn’t work that way every time. Some never got over their suspicion. Some took what they could get and left. But many more had precisely the same experience. After a lifetime of judgment and punishment, grace changed their hearts and their lives.

The story may sound like a cheesy exercise in self-congratulation. I apologize if that’s what you get. What I know is that those of us who appeared to be on the “giving” end of the deal were (and are) the ones who benefitted the most. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a greater privilege than to watch week in and week out as living, breathing human beings were transformed by the power of God’s grace in Christ. That grace was embodied in meals, friendship, acceptance, and love.

I still get chills when I remember this experience.

Why does Jesus welcome sinners and eat with them? The sinners are more fun. I suspect there really is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over the ninety-nine righteous who need no repentance. The challenge to the ninety-nine is to accept the joy when such a transformation happens.

This works out different ways in different settings. But the challenge of the Good News is there for all of us. In the last few weeks, Jesus has made it clear that he offers real freedom to those who fully follow him. When we receive and accept that invitation, can we take joy in offering that freedom to others?

If we reflect the image and likeness of God in our lives and conduct, we Jesus followers won’t be satisfied while any sheep and coins are still lost. Part of our calling is to understand that we are incomplete, that we are lost as long as we settle for flocks made up only of people like us.

God won’t settle for a partial victory. God is not content with finding most of the family, but not all. If we are thinking practically, we know that the sheep-owner should have settled for the ninety-nine lambs who stayed home. If we are thinking practically, we know that the woman should not have turned her house upside down for a coin that either would turn up on its own or could be replaced.

But today we meet the impractical God. Today we meet the God who will not stop looking until all have been found, reclaimed, returned, and restored. When God finds us in Jesus, will we join the search for the others? God wants all of us, and God wants us all. Let’s pray…

Text Study for Luke 15:1-10 (Part Five)

All three of these parables seem more than a bit “over the top.” The sheep owner leaves the ninety-nine to search for the wandering lamb. Upon finding the lost one, the owner doesn’t go back to the remaining flock. Instead, the owner heads home and throws a party. The woman turns the house upside down and inside out to find the displaced drachma. Then she spends that drachma, and perhaps more, to host a party celebrating the recovery of the precious coin. These are odd behaviors.

What if these parables are part of Jesus’ stand-up routine, rather than neat little morality tales? I have found Doole’s article on observational comedy helpful in reflection on these texts. I hope you might take the time to read it yourself, but I’ll hit the high spots as I continue my message preparation for Sunday. Doole argues, based on contemporary research, that the Lukan account is the funniest of the gospels. He seeks to demonstrate that our parables are not only sharply critical of Jesus’ opponents but that this criticism is couched in the language of laughter.

Todd Strong describes the process of comedy writing. He suggests that most of the jokes we tell involve some degree of exaggeration. “Exaggeration jokes work by first evoking a fairly common, day-to-day image,” Strong writes, “and then exaggerating one or more aspects of that image to such an extent that the ensuing pictures in the minds of the audience members become ridiculous, and funny.” That sounds a great deal like our two parables (and the third one, as well, but that’s for another time).

To illustrate his point, Strong invokes the work of Nebraska native son, Johnny Carson, whom Strong describes as a “master at telling exaggeration jokes.” Carson’s trademark line – “it was so (small, big, fat, skinny, etc.”) followed by the audience response – “How (blank) was it?” became a cultural staple for a generation of television viewers. The set-up gets listeners to imagine the scene in question from their own experience. The punch line takes that standard imagination and exaggerates it to absurdity.

The description in the previous paragraph is almost a schematic of our two parables. Jesus invites his listeners to imagine the scene. “Which man of you?” Jesus asks the crowd. Immediately, they are imagining themselves as sheep owners. With that dynamic established, Jesus doesn’t have to ask the question about the woman. Listeners are already there. By extension, Jesus doesn’t have to ask the question about the father. Listeners are immediately thinking about their own family situations.

Then Jesus ratchets the absurdity to extremes. Doole points to this joke-telling practice in a number of Jesus’ parables: the friend at midnight in Luke 11, the persistent widow in Luke 18, the great banquet in Luke 14, the unjust steward, and the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. Each of these stories observes some typical human behavior and then elevates that behavior to the heights of folly. “So,” Doole summarizes, “it is interesting that previous research has already demonstrated the significant role of humor in Luke 14 and Luke 16, which surely suggests that Luke 15 is fertile ground for further investigation of Jesus’s humour in Luke’ (page 185).

If the Doole’s argument is valid, then a first conclusion has to do with the tone of our messages on our text. When possible and appropriate, I think it’s helpful for a message to reflect not only the content of the text in question but also the tone and style of the text. Stories tend to call forth more stories. Jokes elicit more jokes. The tactic Jesus uses in our text is to get the folks laughing and then gently slip the rhetorical knife between their ribs at the end.

Of course, we must remember the words of actor Edmund Gwenn as he faced the end of his life. A visitor commiserated that his journey toward mortality must be terribly difficult for Gwenn. “Dying is easy,” Gwenn is supposed to have replied, “Comedy is difficult.” Even that deathbed line is an example of the nature of comedy – human situation raised to an absurd level and then then punch line lands. Any experienced preacher knows the truth of that (exaggerated) sentiment about comedy. Nonetheless, if Doole is right, we have our invitation right in the text.

Now, what about the details of our own comedic parables? Doole notes that Jesus is speaking to a mixed audience where the potential for laughing at one group and with another is great. “At this point in the Gospel,” Doole writes, “we have a mixed group, the perfect audience for the observations of Jesus on social absurdities” (page 187). In addition, standup comedy depends on audience interaction. Clearly, Jesus calls for that interaction as he begins the parable in Luke 15:4.

The Lukan author was apparently familiar with the conventions of classical humor. Doole notes five such conventions. Humor was a feature of the meals known as symposia, where a variety of people is present and where dialogue and debate are on the menu. The Lukan account would be half its current size if such gatherings were deleted from the text.

Speakers entertain the guests by comparing typical and exaggerated human characteristics or behavior. Common sense wisdom is used to make elite behaviors appear foolish. While the punchlines are joyful, they still put the Pharisees and scribes “in their place.” And the humor can be used for persuasion and/or censure, not only for entertainment (pages 189-190). The parables of the lost and found fit these parameters and would speak to the modestly elite target audience of the Lukan account.

So, on to the parables. Doole suggests that going after the lost sheep is not unusual behavior, in the experience of the audience. What’s crazy is that the sheep owner doesn’t go back to the ninety-nine. The audience might have seen this as careless and even ridiculous. Perhaps this was a typical rookie mistake or the work of one who was not going to be a shepherd for long. In the same way, the woman’s reaction is out of all proportion to the value of the coin. But just as some shepherds might have made a rookie mistake, so some women might have succumbed to such irrational exuberance.

The charming foolishness of the sheep owner and the woman pales in comparison to that of the forgiving father. Here Doole reminds us of Paul’s words regarding the foolishness of God in 1 Corinthians, chapter 1. That’s a worthwhile connection to make in our messages. When it comes to being rescued from ourselves and this broken world, there’s a real sense in which “the joke’s on us!”

“Luke’s story of the two sons, just like those of the sheep and coin, draws on observation of human behavior when people are confronted with loss,” Doole writes, “and the disproportionate joy that defies traditional values when that which was lost is recovered. We can all laugh at the actions of the father because we see our own foolishness in him,” Doole continues, “Yet the implied meaning of this joke is that God acts in the same foolish way” (page 204).

“The joke,” Doole concludes, “is on those who thought they understood God” (page 207). That’s an idea that’ll preach.

I have had no reason to expect that things would turn out well between God and me. I envy those folks whose journey with God has been relatively straightforward and uneventful. I don’t have that gift of a modestly tranquil faith. I am the sheep who nibbled itself lost. I am the coin who fell between the couch cushions. I am the son who told a variety of families that I had no interest in what they offered. Like the lamb, I fell into ditches. Like the coin I sat useless in the dark. Like the son, I hoped for a measure of survival but despaired of the possibility of acceptance and love.

Some of that travail is years in the past, but it’s no less painful or powerful. So, when God reached out in Jesus to find me and bring me back, I thought it was a joke. When I heard the voice of God telling me to go to seminary, I was sure that God must have the wrong number. When the Holy Spirit blessed me with a call into ministry, I was positive that someone would figure out pretty quickly just how much of an imposter I was in this God and grace business.

Yet, the joke was on me. And it continues to be on me. I return over and over to the words of Brennan Manning. In The Furious Longing of God, he writes, “Those of us scarred by sin are called to closeness with Him (sic) around the banquet table. The kingdom of God is not a subdivision for the self-righteous or for those who lay claim to private visions of doubtful authenticity and boast they possess the state secret of their salvation. No,” Manning continues, “The men and women who are truly filled with light are those who have gazed deeply into the darkness of their own imperfect existence” (page 32).

And there are the words of Cory Asbury’s “Reckless Love” — “Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God Oh, it chases me down, fights ’til I’m found, leaves the ninety-nine. I couldn’t earn it, and I don’t deserve it, still, You give Yourself away. Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God, yeah…”

Yeah.

Resources and References

Abraham, Heather R. “Segregation Autopilot: How the Government Perpetuates Segregation and How to Stop It.” https://ssrn.comb/abstract=4006587.

Burke, Trevor J. “The parable of the prodigal father: an interpretative key to the third Gospel (Luke 15: 11-32).” Tyndale bulletin 64, no. 2 (2013): 216-238.

Capon, Robert Farrar. Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus. Kindle Edition.

Dinkler, Michal Beth. ““The Thoughts of Many Hearts Shall Be Revealed”: Listening in on Lukan Interior Monologues.” Journal of Biblical Literature 134, no. 2 (2015): 373-399.

Doole, J. Andrew. “Observational Comedy in Luke 15.” Neotestamentica 50, no. 1 (2016): 181–210. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26417475.

Kilgallen, John. “Was Jesus Right to Eat with Sinners and Tax Collectors?” Biblica 93, no. 4 (2012): 590–600. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42617310.

Levine, Amy-Jill. Short Stories by Jesus. HarperOne. Kindle Edition.

Levine, Amy-Jill, and Witherington III, Ben. The Gospel of Luke (New Cambridge Bible Commentary). Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Malina, Bruce, and Rohrbaugh, Richard L. Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels. Kindle Edition.

Mannermaa, Tuomo. Two Kinds of Love: Martin Luther’s Religious World. Kindle Edition.

Manning, Brennan. The Furious Longing of God. David C. Cook, 2009.

Swanson, Richard W. Provoking the Gospel of Luke: A Storyteller’s Commentary, Year C. Cleveland, OH.: Pilgrim Press, 2006.

Swanson, Richard W. https://provokingthegospel.wordpress.com/2022/03/20/a-provocation-4th-sunday-in-lent-march-27-2022-luke-151-3-11-32/.

Volf, Miroslav. Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace. Grand Rapids, MI.: Zondervan, 2005.

Wright, N. T. Luke for Everyone (The New Testament for Everyone). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

Text Study for Luke 15:1-10 (Part Three)

The sinners are much more fun…

These days, I wouldn’t consider reflecting on one (or more) of Jesus’ parables without consulting Amy-Jill Levine’s Short Stories by Jesus. “It is unlikely a first-century Jewish listener would hear the first two parables and conclude that they have something to do with sheep repenting or coins confessing,” she writes of our texts (page 29). “Neither sheep nor coins have the capability to repent,” she continues, “and I doubt the younger brother does either.”

Levine argues that the first parable is about the shepherd who lost his sheep. Likewise, the second parable is about the woman who lost her coin. The Lukan author continues the practice of pairing men and women in parallel stories. In addition, we have a “rule of three” structure here. Somehow, the first two stories set the expectations for the third one. Levine would name the third parable “The Father Who Lost His Son(s).”

I would humbly suggest, however, that these titles are incomplete. The first parable is the story of the sheep owner who lost and found his sheep. The second parable is the story of the woman who lost and found her coin. Thus, the third parable would be the story of the father who lost and found his son(s). This makes a facile identification between the protagonists and God more complicated. But then, it’s a parable!

Levine rightly dismantles the argument that God is the forgiving finder and that this is a peculiarly Christian discovery about the nature of God, “as if Jews had no notion of a divinity who seeks relationship and reconciliation” (page 30). She proposes a more faithful and less anti-Jewish interpretive framework: “the parable’s message of finding the lost, of reclaiming children, of reassessing the meaning of family offer not only good news, but better news” (page 30).

Levine’s scholarship helps us to keep from making Jesus look good by making Jews look bad. Nonetheless, we still have the text as the Lukan author has presented it. If we should not make this a subtle anti-Semitic trope (and we should not), then what shall we do?

It seems clear to me that the rhetoric of the text directs it to the Lukan audience, and thus to us, as the Church. Which man among you, which woman among you, the parables ask. The narrative is designed to pull us into the middle of the parables and to examine our faith practices accordingly. It may be that Jesus used this phrasing to pull his listeners into the conversation. It is certainly the case that the Lukan author used this narrative strategy to engage the listeners and readers.

The chapter is launched by the grumbling of some of the Pharisees: “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” How did that grumbling reflect life in the Lukan communities? How does it reflect life in our communities?

Jesus will eat with anyone. Prior to Luke 15, Jesus has eaten with Pharisees at least three times: in chapters 7, 11, and 14. These meals erupt on controversy, but that doesn’t mean the meals were failures. That’s just what happens when you get some teachers together to debate the finer points of the Torah. As it turns out, the controversies are about Sabbath, the Temple, and Purity laws. These are three of the main pillars of Judaism and are worth arguing about.

My point is that Jesus does not reject invitations to party with the Pharisees. He embraces those invitations with gusto. He gets no further invitations, following our text. That may be because his hosts had had enough of him. Or it may be that the Lukan author has used these scenes enough to make the points the author wants to make.

Nonetheless, Jesus will eat with anyone, regardless of theological, social, or political inclination. That’s worth noting in a time when we tend to gather more and more only with people who look, think, talk, and behave like us. Then, as now, eating with anyone and everyone is a countercultural activity. “To invite a person to a meal was an honor that implied acceptance, trust, peace,” Malina and Rohrbaugh write (page 370). To accept that invitation was to accept that honor.

In Luke 15, Jesus embodies and enacts the table manners of the New Age that he outlined in Luke 14:7-14. He accepts dinner invitations from the wrong kinds of people. He parties with the poor and the rich, the reviled and the respectable. It’s not bad enough that he sits down at the table with the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. He’s having a good old time with traitors and collaborators, with those who play fast and loose with their religion and probably fast and loose with a lot of other rules as well.

Why does Jesus welcome sinners and eat with them? Perhaps it’s because, as Billy Joel noted, “the sinners are much more fun” (from “Only the Good Die Young”). But I think it’s also because when there’s a chance to throw someone a lifeline and offer a chance at rescue, Jesus is going to do it. If he finds someone who has fallen into an existential well and gotten lost (see Luke 14:5), Jesus is going to move heaven and earth to effect a rescue.

And there’s something about eating together that lowers our defenses. I was privileged for some years to be part of a congregational prison ministry called the FEAST. A major component of that ministry was and is a Sunday meal together including inmates from the local community corrections center, members of the congregation, and other volunteers, family, and friends. The meal often did and does take on the character of a celebration, whether there’s something to celebrate or not.

I remember a FEAST partner (we call our inmate friends “partners” in that ministry) who was sure there was a catch to all of this. Numerous times he asked me what it was that we actually “wanted” from him. There must be something. Nobody in their right mind would do this for free, he thought. “What do you people really want from me?” he asked again. “We’d like to know how you want your burger cooked,” one of the volunteers replied.

We hoped our time together might change all of us for the better, but that wasn’t a condition for being together. Yet, my friend began to soften a bit. He was less defensive and paranoid. His emotional shell became softer and thinner. His shoulders relaxed, and he even smiled a few times. After a few months, he came to me one day with a broad grin. “I’ve figured it out,” he told me. “I know what you people want.”

I held my breath, waiting for the content of the epiphany. “Well, tell me,” I said, “what is it that we people want?” He laughed as he spoke. “You don’t want anything. You just give yourselves and your time and your love for free. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. I didn’t think such a thing was possible. But do you know what really gets me?” he asked. “No,” I said, “I have no idea. Tell me.”

“All of a sudden, for the first time in my life, I don’t want anything either. Because,” he took one more deep breath, “I know that God wants to give me everything.”

If I hadn’t been in that conversation myself, I’m not sure I would have believed it. Yet, nearly twenty years later, that conversation rings in my mind as clearly as the Sunday we had it. It didn’t work that way every time. Some never got over their suspicion. Some took what they could get and left. But many more had precisely the same experience. After a lifetime of judgment and punishment, grace changed their hearts and their lives.

The story may sound like a cheesy exercise in self-congratulation. I apologize if that’s what you get. What I know is that those of us who appeared to be on the “giving” end of the deal were (and are) the ones who benefitted the most. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a greater privilege than to watch week in and week out as living, breathing human beings were transformed (repented, in the real sense of the word) by the power of God’s grace in Christ, embodied in meals, friendship, acceptance, and love. I get chills even now as I write about this experience.

Why does Jesus welcome sinners and eat with them? In a sense, Billy Joel has it right. The sinners are more fun. I suspect there really is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over the ninety-nine righteous who need no repentance. The challenge to the ninety-nine is to accept the joy that’s on offer when such a transformation happens. Thus, we get the real tie-in to the third parable. Can the older son take joy in his brother’s return?

This will work out different ways in different settings. But the challenge of the Good News is there for all of us. In the last few weeks, Jesus has made it clear that he offers real freedom to those who fully follow him. When we receive and accept that invitation, can we take the same joy in offering that freedom to others (all equally undeserving, by the way)?