Sunday, September 15, 2019 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

Partiers and Grumblers

Shannon J. Kershner
Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 14
Luke 15:1–10

What would today’s church have to do, in the visible public world, . . . that would make people ask, “Why are you doing something like that?” and give us the chance to tell stories about finding something that was lost?

Tom Wright, Luke for Everyone

Where are you sitting in that biblical scene—the one I just described? Here is one possibility: You could be with Jesus at the big round crowded tables in the middle, sitting shoulder to shoulder with all those tax collectors and sinners, for we notice Luke does not say only a few of them came near to hear Jesus. Rather, Luke purposefully writes that all the tax collectors and sinners came near to hear Jesus. That would have made for a pretty large group.

Let’s think for a moment about the ones who fit those categories back in Jesus’ day.

We will start with tax collectors: As we would assume, those called tax collectors did indeed collect the variety of different taxes that local residents owed the Roman Empire. Those taxes included poll taxes (really just a tax for existing), land taxes, taxes on imports and exports, transportation taxes, etc. (“Tax Collector,” www.biblegateway.com). All of that sounds a bit familiar, doesn’t it. Most of the locals could not stand tax collectors, because they represented the foreign domination of Rome. Plus, many of the tax collectors had the unfortunate tendency to collect more than was required of them, in order to line their own pockets with the extra.

And then we have those called sinners. In those days, you did not just use the term “sinner” to express your personal opinion about someone (Fred Craddock, Luke, p. 77). It was more complicated and more regulated than that. According to Fourth Church friend Barbara Brown Taylor, sinners fell into five basic categories: (1) People who did dirty things for a living (such as pig farmers, tax collectors, and shepherds); (2) People who did immoral things (such as liars and adulterers); (3) People who did not keep the law up to the standards of the religious authorities (such as maybe a few of us in this room, but I won’t name names); (4) Samaritans; and (5) Gentiles (which does indeed include just about all of us in here today) (Barbara Brown Taylor, “Table Manners,” Christian Century, 11 March 1988, p. 257). Quite a mix of personalities and professions, don’t you think? Including them all would make for an interesting party, for sure. And yet, Luke claims that all the tax collectors and all the sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus and what he had to say.

And that might make us wonder just what on earth was Jesus talking about that would attract such a motley crew—a crew of those used to being on the outside of the religious structure, those used to being fairly low on the scale of respectability. What drew them to that place, with Jesus?

Was it simply the way he opened his arms and his heart to them? Was it his message that they counted in God’s eyes? Was it the promise that those who felt so lost to most everyone else would be found and claimed starting right then and there? I wish Luke had recorded even just a bit of their conversations with each other. Regardless of why they came, though, there they were. Eating, laughing, and drinking with Jesus. Listening to what he had to say about God and God’s reign. Probably having a rather raucous good time. So as I asked in the beginning, do you see yourself sitting with them?

Here is another possibility: Are you sitting at the other table—the one off to the side occupied by the Pharisees and the scribes? Now, I know that when I say “Pharisees and scribes,” many of us wrinkle our noses in judgment. Unfortunately, we have been taught to do that. We’ve been taught to see them as the religious rule-keepers, the rigid do-gooders, the judgmental elite. Those taught inaccurate assumptions have had awful anti-Semitic effects throughout our Christian history, for when we look closer at who they really were, we see them a bit differently. Many of the scribes and Pharisees were God-fearing believers. They were devoted disciples who did not just talk about their faith but who lived their faith with complete obedience, and they lived that way because they wanted to show it was possible to live in accordance to God’s will, and they hoped others would follow their example. They do not need to be the villain in every Jesus story.

Preacher Fred Craddock has also challenged our bias against the scribes and the Pharisees. After all, he once preached, they were the religious leaders who were always having to clean up for a God who never behaved the way people expected (Fred Craddock, preached at a conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 13 September 2007). For instance, scripture is full of moments when God is recorded as saying one thing but then ends up doing something else. Let me offer just a few examples from what we call the Old Testament: (1) Adam and Eve were told if they ate the forbidden fruit, they would die. And yet, God ends up just throwing them out of the garden, but not before God lovingly made them clothes. (2) Later on in Genesis, we read that God decides creation is overcome by evil and literally wants to wipe the slate clean. But then God decides to save Noah and his family, along with the animals. Furthermore, after the waters recede, God vows to never again bring that kind of destruction. (3) In the book of Jonah, we read that God is all set and ready to overthrow Nineveh to punish the Ninevites for their wickedness. But then the people decide to repent and do their best to be faithful, so, as scripture says, God changes God’s mind, once again falling on the side of mercy instead of holy wrath.

When we immerse ourselves in scripture, we realize this is a pattern with God: almost always giving in to mercy. So we can see why some of the religious leaders were the way there were. There were standards to be met and kept to strengthen one’s faithfulness and obedience; proper boundaries to maintain in order to preserve the purity of the religious institution; appropriate lines to draw between what is right and what is wrong so that children would learn how to live a moral life. The Pharisees and the scribes, religious leaders like your own clergy, were committed to those things not just for their own sake but for the sake of all the people.

This commitment was why these particular religious leaders were getting so fed up with Jesus. The word Luke uses is grumbling. It is the same verb used with the Israelites as they wandered around in the wilderness, convinced God had set them free from slavery in Egypt just to let them die from hunger in the wilderness. Grumble, grumble, grumble. We hear similar frustration from the scribes and Pharisees in today’s story. “This guy Jesus may be quite a teacher and a healer, but he keeps receiving and eating with tax collectors and sinners.” Grumble, grumble, grumble.

But why would they care so much about with whom Jesus eats, we might wonder? Here’s why: in that time period, you were the company you kept at mealtime. An ancient proverb stated “I saw them eating and I knew who they were.” If you ate with someone, that act meant you fully accepted them—just as they were—and you fully identified with them, as well. Sharing a meal together was a kind of societal statement. So when they saw this up-and-coming religious leader named Jesus both receiving and eating with the people typically forbidden from the church’s table, the religious could not help but grumble.

Consider this: Think about people whom you strongly dislike or those whose actions you find less than moral. Have you made your list? What would be your reaction if you walked into a party and saw Jesus living it up with all of them front and center? Would you throw off your shoes and head out to join in the dance, deciding that if Jesus liked them then clearly you need to give them another chance? Or would you head off to a corner table where you could frown with all the others who agreed with you and grumble about it a bit? After all, Jesus is certainly not behaving the way we might expect the Son of God to behave. Grumble, grumble, grumble.

Again, where are you sitting? Now I realize some of you might indeed be out there dancing with the sinners and tax collectors, but let’s just assume the great majority of us are sitting at the corner table with the other grumblers. And as we sit there, off in the corner, arms folded, brows furrowed, appropriately concerned about Jesus’ unorthodox behavior, Jesus pauses the music and suddenly starts preaching parables to all who would listen, including us.

“Which one of you, if, as a shepherd having 100 sheep, after one strays off from the flock, will not leave the 99 sheep in the wilderness and go out to beat the bushes, climb the rocky ridges, and swat off bazillions of mosquitoes in order to find that one lost sheep? Then, when you find it, throw the animal over your shoulders, laughing and carrying on as if it were a lost child, and when you see your friends, cry out, ‘Come party with me! I have found the sheep!’ Which one of you would not do that? For I tell you that is the kind of joy that breaks out in heaven when just one single person tries to reorient their life around God, letting God sweep them up over God’s shoulders to carry them home.”

“And,” Jesus continues, “what woman who has lost a quarter would not rip up all the carpet in the house, move out all the furniture and the heavy appliances to the front yard, and search high and low with flashlight in hand until she finds that one coin? And then, when she finds it, run up and down her street excitedly declaring ‘Come party with me! I have found the coin!’ Which one of you would not do that? For I tell you, that is the kind of joy that breaks out in heaven when just one person repents, turns back in the direction of God, turns back in the direction of good.”

“Which one of you would not do that?” Jesus asks everybody in the room—tax collectors and sinners, scribes and Pharisees, you and me—his face radiating light. Honestly Jesus? None of us would do that. None of us would leave 99 sheep vulnerable and alone in order to go and find one that was stupid enough to get itself lost. Furthermore, none of us would destroy our house, turning it upside down and inside out, in order to find one coin worth 25 cents. Neither of those decisions make any kind of sense. What Jesus is proposing is absurd behavior—extremely excessive, bordering on ridiculous, and completely impractical. None of us would do that, regardless if we are partying in the middle of the room or grumbling over in the corner.

As a matter of fact, there is only One whom we can even imagine practicing such absurd mercy. There is only One whom we can even imagine extending such extremely excessive grace. There is only One whom we can even imagine throwing that kind of raucous party for every single person who suddenly finds themselves found, tossed over the shepherd’s shoulders, carried home, held up and prized like a precious and rare treasure. There is only One whom we can even imagine doing those kinds of over-the-top seemingly ridiculous things. And that One is God, not us.

Given that truth, then, that God is the only one who would continually fall into mercy in such extravagant ways, it might be that we have our question wrong. Perhaps Jesus is not really asking, “Which one of you would do those things,”things that only our God would do. Rather, perhaps Jesus’ real question is “Now that you know what God is up to in the world, will you throw off your shoes and join in the joy? Now that you know how incredibly valuable every single person is to God, will you sit down at the table with anyone and everyone and join in the party?”

For did you notice that joy and celebration literally stand in the center of both of these parables? At the center of each story stands the proclamation that God is throwing a celebration of grace and mercy and we are invited. But we are not the only ones on the guest list. Furthermore, more than likely that guest list is full of the kind of people that cause us to grumble, the kind of people we would never in a million years invite to any of our parties. Yet God invites them anyway, regardless of how we feel about it, so we can either make peace with that or leave.

Jesus’ posture in this text from Luke reminds me of a song just released by a group of women called the Highwomen. The song’s title is “Crowded Table.” Here is the chorus and one of the bridges at the end: “Yeah I want a house with a crowded table / and a place by the fire for everyone. / Let us take on the world while we’re young and able / and bring us back together when the day is done. / The door is always open. / Your picture’s on my wall. / Everyone’s a little broken. / And everyone belongs. / Yeah, everyone belongs.”

One of the things these parables do to us is call out for us to trust that in the stubborn, relentless goodness of our God, everyone does indeed belong. That no one is lost to God. That no one is forgotten and everyone’s picture is on God’s wall. But another thing these parables do to us is ask us a few other questions: “Are we willing to come and join hands with our irrepressible God? A God who, from before the beginning of time, has been constantly falling off on the side of mercy again and again? A God who, if scripture is a reliable witness, will probably keep on doing that for forever, until the day finally arrives when joy and celebration don’t just stand in the middle of a parable but are all in all for all?”

“Now, which one of you will do that?” Jesus asks us. Or would we rather just keep grumbling and miss out?

Amen.