Bishop Craig Schweitzer

Luke 15:1-10 • September 14-15, 2013

Click here to view a video of this sermon.

Brothers and sisters in Christ grace and peace to you from God our Father and Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen.

Jesus is having dinner with some pretty shady characters yet again who are lost and want to be found. Although, I’m not sure they recognize that they want to be found yet. You know who I’m talking about – tax collectors and sinners. Or in today’s world we might refer to them as Democrats or Republicans, bankers or corporate executives, politicians or even your boss, maybe even your mother-in-law.

There are times when you and I think quite highly of ourselves. We are the best, most perfect members of the community and we need to file a complaint with Jesus about what he is doing. I mean, why in the world is he hanging out with those people? Those people who are really good for nothing. Why is Jesus treating them like they are his long-lost friends? You and I shout out to Jesus, “Jesus, why are you eating with those people?”

And we don’t seem to have stopped confronting Jesus and asking questions like that even after after 2,000 or so years, so Jesus continues to remind us that for God, nobody is outside the fold, nobody is lost without any hope of ever being found.

In the first parable today, Jesus shows us that this shepherd will do anything to bring one lost sheep home – hike through the roughest terrain, push his way through the thickest forest, listen for snakes and other dangerous animals along the way. This shepherd will look relentlessly for that one lost sheep. The one with the black spot on her right shoulder, the one with the twitch in her right eye and her third toe-nail on her back left foot just slightly longer than the others. And when he finally hears the “baa” of that lost sheep, he lovingly puts it on his shoulders and carries it home to be with the rest of the flock. Along the way, one of the neighbors inevitably asks, “Why did you risk leaving ninety-nine to go looking for just one?” To which God replies, “Let’s have a party. This one that was lost, has been found. Rejoice with me.”

After teaching this parable about lost sheep, Jesus looks at the people who have gathered and asks, “Do you get it?” Nope, so he offers another parable. This one about a woman and a lost coin.

A woman has ten coins, but lost one. Remember she still has nine left. Losing one probably isn’t going to send her into the depths of poverty. But still she insists on searching for this one lost coin like it will. She turns her world upside down until she finds the coin. The neighbors think their friendly neighbor lady has lost her mind and cry out, “Why are you bothering to turn your whole house upside down for one measly coin?” To which God replies, “Let’s have a party! This one that was lost, has been found. Rejoice with me.”\n“Now do you get it?” Jesus asks.

You see brothers and sisters, God is on a mission to drag every one of us into the party – saints and sinners alike. You know who I’m talking about – people like you, people like me. This Jesus eats with anybody, because everybody is lost and needs to be found.

Jesus rarely called people sinners, instead he called them lost. I like that. Lost sounds more like concern, not condemnation. Some days we feel more lost than found, more wrong than right. Every one of us acts like unthinking sheep who have wandered off from time to time. Every one of us has felt helpless to the weight of gravity like a lost coin falling on a dusty living room floor.

So many things can make us feel lost – the loss of a job, debt that we wonder if we will ever be able to pay off, the unending pain of a broken marriage or dysfunctional family, the sudden death of someone we love. \nYou and I feel lost when we realize we don’t do what we want to do. You and I fell lost when we get what we thought we wanted and end up finding out that it’s still not enough. And worse yet, when we discover that we may not even know what we really want.

The shepherd is walking through death defying obstacles to find that one lost sheep. The woman is diligently sweeping the dust out of the way, shining light into every dark corner of her world in order to find that one lost coin. God keeps seeking us, trying to show us what life in Christ is really like. God looks for us – through caring people – brothers and sisters in the body of Christ; through sacred stories in scripture that connect us together with God’s story; through prayer offered for others and for ourselves; through worship together in communities of faith. God is hope that pursues us, comfort that gathers us home, and love that embraces us.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to pay attention to the whispers of God. And I do not believe anyone is deaf to the sound of God’s voice – not even the most defiant people who claim that God can’t possibly exist.

The parts of us that get lost or cause us to wander probably won’t go away – our short tempers, or judgmental statements toward our neighbor; our quest for more wealth or unending drive for self-promotion; or our burdensome schedules that drive us away from taking time to grow in relationship with God.

God knows that we have problems letting go of everything that we need to let go of, of doing all that we think we should do, and of becoming all that we think we should become. When in fact, what we need to do most of all is nothing. What we need to do most of all is let ourselves be loved by God. To allow ourselves to experience God’s unconditional love, mercy, and grace in every part of our life.

Because you know what, God cares passionately about your well-being and that you and I find our way home. God is always on a quest for those who are lost – lost sheep, lost coins, lost insurance agents, lost politicians, lost teachers, lost mothers, lost fathers, lost daughters, lost sons, lost people just like you, and just like me.

Whether you and I always know it or even really believe it, you and I are here today in worship because we know what it’s like to be lost. My hope and prayer for all of us today, is that we also experience what it’s like to be found. Our stories are full of experiences of wandering off yet being sought, being wounded yet healed, confused yet cared for, broken-hearted yet loved, foolish yet forgiven, lost yet found.

Feeling lost? May you discover once again this week the love and grace of a God who is always searching for you no matter how far you may have wandered. Always entering the darkest corners of your life with the light of a savior named Jesus. Always reaching out with wide open arms of unconditional love and unrelenting grace. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Related articles

• Lost and Found (paigehanks.wordpress.com)
• Sunday Reflection: A Welcoming Community (apmarshall.wordpress.com)

Luke 13:10-17 • August 25, 2013 • “Always New”

Click here to view a video of this sermon.

Brothers and sisters in Christ grace and peace to you from God our Father and Lord and Savior Jesus. Amen.

You may or may not know this, I recently returned from the 13th Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the ELCA. The ELCA is the Christian denomination that Good Shepherd is part of. We are one of nearly 10,000 congregations who share in mission and ministry together as the ELCA.

I didn’t attend the churchwide assembly in Pittsburgh as a voting member, rather I was part of a six musician worship team that led Morning Prayer and worship each day as well as numerous other musical activities throughout the week. This was the second time I have been invited to be part of the worship staff at a churchwide assembly – an event that takes place in our church body only every few years.

Needless to say, I am honored to be called to serve the church at events like these. And I’m thankful for the ministry you and I share as brothers and sisters in the body of Christ at Good Shepherd and for opportunities that all of us have to participate in the life of the larger context of the church, and, so finally, thank you for graciously allowing me the time away to serve at events like churchwide assembly. And, I’m thankful to be home for a little while – it’s been kind of a crazy summer.

This year’s churchwide assembly marks the 25th anniversary of the ELCA. One document that I came across at the assembly stated that, “the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is still comparatively new as a church body, and yet our roots are much deeper than our 25 years together. The taproot of our life extends through the histories of predecessor churches in the United States, through the formative witness of the 16th century evangelical reformers and their confessional writings, to the Scriptures and the word of Christ. Our life is in Jesus Christ.”

I want you to know that you and I are part of a church that is alive in Christ in amazing and unexpected ways. You and I will have several opportunities in the coming weeks to give thanks and praise to God for the many ways that we live out our life in Christ together as part of a church that we know simply as the ELCA.

The theme at this year’s churchwide assembly was “Always Being Made New”. That theme has been running through my head and heart in the days since the assembly ended and in the days that I have spent in preparation for this weekend’s sermon.

Always being made new.
Words that echo the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth.

Always being made new.
Words that echo healing of a woman and renewed understanding of Sabbath for an entire community in today’s gospel reading from Saint Luke.

Always being made new.
Words in our worship today that invite us to be renewed each and every day in our relationship with God and each other through our savior Jesus Christ.

In Jesus’ day, the temple was still the main place for Jews to gather for worship, reading of scripture, and teaching of the law. It was not only a place of worship, but also a place of study. From earlier texts in Luke’s gospel we can assume that Jesus hung out at the local synagogue a lot. It’s pretty easy to imagine Jesus sitting among the teachers of the day, listening, asking questions, reading, and interpreting scripture.

We really don’t know why this woman who is bent over is in the synagogue on this day. Maybe she wanted to hear Scripture read or interpreted? Maybe she was hoping to be healed? Maybe a friend or family member brought her? We don’t know for sure?

Whatever her reasons for coming, it’s interesting that the woman makes no request of Jesus to heal her.

Jesus takes the initiative, invites her to come to him, and says, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” Or as I heard repeatedly this week, “Woman, you are always being made new.”
This act of healing in Luke’s gospel is powerful by itself, but on a deeper level I believe it offers you and I a chance to ask how we’re “bent over” or “unable to stand up straight” because of any number of things that consume our lives – physical limitations, emotional struggles, spiritual deserts that we may be wandering through, or burdensome schedules that blind us to the needs of others around us.

Immediately after the healing has taken place, the leader of the synagogue confronts Jesus, saying that it could have waited until the Sabbath was over. And in reality, he’s right. The law in both Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 prohibit work of any kind on the Sabbath. That’s the law.

But Jesus does something in the synagogue that day that I believe he’s still doing today; he calls this leader of the religious community beyond his one-dimensional, self-absorbed way of thinking. Jesus goes well beyond the letter of the law and appeals to the spirit of the law, challenging the community leaders with a question that almost certainly requires a grace-filled response: “Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water?” The answer, of course, is “yes” they do!

The central issue here isn’t a debate over what one can or cannot do on the Sabbath. When we hold stubbornly to the law, we become like the leader of the synagogue who is so bound, so tied up in knots by his rules and regulations that he can’t rejoice in the blessing that has taken place. He can’t rejoice at this healing in order to hear Jesus say, “My brother, God is making all things new.”

Jesus calls people to look at life and the world around them differently, imaginatively. Because of Jesus, the Kingdom of God is breaking in and breaking everything open at every turn, making all things new. In Luke’s gospel today, Jesus is teaching in the synagogue surrounded by a lot of people from every background imaginable; from scholarly religious leaders to common bystanders, from wealthy elite business men to homeless people off the street. Every one of them is bent over by something. Something physical. Emotional. Spiritual. Something, that’s keeping them from standing up straight. Something, that’s keeping you and me from standing up straight.

That same document that I referenced earlier from the ELCA Churchwide assembly in Pittsburgh also offered this. I think it’s a wonderful insight and appropriate for us to hear as we receive the good news that’s before us today.

“We are being made new every day. In Jesus Christ we are not unchanged. What God does in Christ is as radical as the death and resurrection of baptism, where new creatures in Christ rise to live “no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.” Our life is in Jesus Christ. We are no longer strangers, competitors or enemies to each other. We are beloved companions in one body, restored to a communion where the rich diversity of our experiences, wisdom and abilities serve the common good in Christ. The new creation in Christ rises to life among us every day.”

Earlier this week, Pastor Janet Hunt who writes a beautiful blog called “Dancing with the Word” said that “It seems to her [me] that in the moment after Jesus called the woman over to him and before he healed her, he must have bent down to look into her eyes.”

As you sit in worship today and reflect upon everything that has you bent over, I hope and pray that you feel Jesus’ gentle touch, that you see Jesus looking into your eyes with grace and mercy, and that you hear Jesus say to you, “Beloved child of God, I am making all things new.” Thanks be to God. Amen.

Related articles

• Meet the Woman Who Will Lead Evangelical Lutherans: “Religious but not Spiritual” (swampland.time.com)
• Child of God: What Does God Want for You? (granpresblog.wordpress.com)