Lost Things - Redeemer Episcopal Church (15 Pentecost)

 The Parable of the Lost Sheep

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

So he told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

The Parable of the Lost Coin

“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Let us pray. 

God of grace and goodness, be with us on this beautiful Sunday morning that we might hear your Word and ponder it in our hearts together so that we might leave this place to more fully and confidently do your will. Amen. 

Grace and peace to you from God and from all of our students and board members at Jacksonville Campus Ministry! It is good to be with you this morning, and I am so thankful for your hospitality and for Pastor Adam’s invitation to be here. I am also so thankful for your generosity in partnering with our campus ministry. 

For those of you who are not familiar with Jacksonville Campus Ministry, we are an ecumenical campus ministry that started in 1972 with the vision of Dr. Ed Albright, a fellow presbyterian here in Jacksonville. His vision was to bring to the forefront the spiritual health and formation of young adults, but this would be a unique ministry in that it would not be defined by one single denomination, but by the partnerships between several denominations. Imagine— a semblance of Christian unity in the 1970s— they had brought together Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, the United Church of Christ, and Presbyterians so that mainline protestant students would have a spiritual home at Jacksonville University and University of North Florida. 

Over the last 50 years, our partnerships have expanded to include Cooperative Baptists and Disciples of Christ. We serve young adults from all over Jacksonville and we have about 30 congregations that partner with us in various ways from all across the state. 

It is with partnerships like yours that we are able to do the important work of nurturing and forming young adults in their faith. So again, thank you. 

… 

I almost couldn’t make it through the gospel reading the morning because it hits so close to the work that we do in campus ministry. 

We have a student who grew up in the church his entire life. He went to a Christian school, and probably has more verses of the Bible memorized than I do. But when he began to understand who God was calling him to be, he was excommunicated from his church and not allowed to speak about his experience and his identity in his own community. He wasn’t lost. He knew exactly who he was and who God was calling him to be. Instead, he was kicked out. 

In undergrad, he attempted to get back into a faith community, but wasn’t able to find one that allowed him to be fully himself. Eventually, wandering far enough and long enough without a community to call his own, he did become lost. 

This is a similar story for many of our students. Whether they intentionally distanced themselves from Christianity or they were cut off from their communities, so many of the young adults I encounter seem to be wandering outside of the flock. 

In some ways, this is common for this age group. Around late adolescence, we tend to push back on the teaching of our youth, and especially what our parents taught us. We start to ask big questions and many times we might begin to wander away from the tradition we have known our entire lives. 

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

The story that the people of Jesus’ day were used to hearing was that sinners and tax collectors don’t make very good dinner partners. They are not the kinds of people you want to be associating with if you want to be taken seriously as a rabbi or a religious leader. There was this expectation that only the clean and righteous are deserving of good company, and perhaps even good food. 

This is the story that so many of our students have heard as they grew up. I have had too many conversations to count with students who grew up in places with exactly this kind of mentality— sinners deserve nothing and only the upright and righteous, the clean and “good” people are the only ones who deserve good things or God’s love. 

Here, Jesus tells a different story, a distinct story. A story in which God’s grace reaches to the margins. Indeed, God does not forget about the sheep who has been lost or wandered off or scared off by the other sheep. But God cares deeply about this lost sheep and searches endlessly until they are found again and rejoices in the sweet reunion.

“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.”

For our students on campus, there are a lot of stories being told by a lot of different people. There are preachers who come onto campus to harass the students and yell at them that they are going to hell. There are other ministries on campus that claim to love everyone and then kick students out for being a part of the LGBTQIA community. Sometimes the story being told on campus is that students are good enough if they don’t make certain grades or play certain sports or pledge certain fraternities. 

Here in this place, we have the opportunity to tell a different story. We have the opportunity to tell the story of Jesus. We have the opportunity tell about a God whose love reaches to the margins, whose love pursues us until we are found. 

What does it look like to be like this shepherd Jesus describes and reach toward the margins, looking for the lost sheep and coin? 

In campus ministry it looks like… 

Clarity so that our students know what we believe and what we stand for in ministry. 

It looks like genuine welcome, affirmation, hospitality for all people, regardless of their history with the church, their identity, their sexuality, or wherever they come from in life. 

It looks like listening, and having hard conversations, and asking big questions and feeling okay just sitting with them. 

It looks like deep care and authenticity, confessing that we will often disappoint one another but we are going to keep showing up anyway. 

I want you to know that your community here, South Jacksonville Presbyterian, is one of the very few communities I point my students toward when they are asking about safe congregations in Jacksonville. 

Not because you have it all figured out or you do any of these things perfectly, and not because you won’t challenge the beliefs of those who enter here … but because you continue to be honest about who you are and what is important to you. I can see that you are a community where people can come after being hurt by the church and you will welcome them, indeed you already have. You are a community where you ask big questions and talk about difficult topics because you know it is important to be a part of these conversations. 

This is how we care for one another. Not only because we are for the one who is lost, but because we care for the other 99 as well. When one is missing from our flock, our flock is lacking. When a piece of the body of Christ is missing, we all suffer. Look around here this morning. Who is missing? Who are we lacking? Who has yet to become a part of this community? Who has been cut off from the body of Christ? 

How do we care for them and bring them back in? Perhaps we should begin with this new old story, the story of a God who is persistent and loving, a God who is not only present in Spirit but in flesh in blood in Christ Jesus. A God who reaches out into the wilderness to find us and asks us to do the same. Amen. 

Cost of Discipleship - Redeemer Episcopal Church (13 Pentecost)

The Cost of Discipleship

Now large crowds were traveling with him, and he turned and said to them, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

God of goodness and mercy, we thank you for your son Jesus, who you have set before us to be not only an example to us but be the savior of the world. Amen. 

How many of you would say you’re a follower of Jesus? Did anyone hesitate because of what we just read this morning? Yikes, right?

When we say we are followers of Jesus, I’m not sure we always understand what that means. If we really are following Jesus, are we prepared for all of that? 

Jesus isn’t being a very good evangelist here, is he? I mean think about it. Does’t he want people to follow him? Doesn’t he want people to come with him as he travels and listen to his teachings? He’s not selling it very well. 

It reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my students last year. He grew up Buddhist and had a lot of questions about Christianity. And over the course of the year, we had more and more conversations about what it means to be a Christian. Eventually, he said “you know, I’m about 85% sure this is the right religion for me. I think I want to be a Christian.” I kind of stopped short and turned to him and said, “are you sure??” 

Oftentimes, when we talk to our friends or family members about being Christian, we focus on the good aspects, the benefits. And there certainly are benefits— of course there are, otherwise why would anyone follow Jesus? But we don’t often dwell on what it could cost us. 

It’s not all rainbows and butterflies when it comes to discipleship. In fact, Jesus seems to say this morning, it’s really perhaps no rainbows and no butterflies.

In Jesus’ day, following a rabbi meant following so close that the dirt from his sandals would be kicked up on your own shins. Now, of course, we could talk about how terrible it would be to walk around having dirt kicked up on you all day, every day. But I want you to think about how close you’d have to be to someone’s heels to have their every step affect you like that. 

In Jesus’ day, it wasn’t possible to call yourself a follower or disciples of a rabbi without following him incredibly closely, day in and day out. You had to be there to hear his every word and imitate his every move. Nowadays, to “follow” someone, might mean to read some of their books, or watch a tv interview they’ve done. Or maybe it means clicking a button on your phone to “follow” them on instagram or Twitter. And just as easily, you can click the same button to “unfollow” someone. 

And it costs us absolutely nothing to do any of that. We assume no risk whatsoever to follow or unfollow people whenever we choose to. 

Not so with Jesus and his disciples. To follow Jesus, it means staying close. It means being like him. It means doing what Jesus does. 

Imagine if every time you hit that “follow” button, you had to imitate the person you were following, you had to be like that person. It would make you hesitate, wouldn’t it? 

I think that’s what Jesus is trying to help his followers understand in this moment. It feels good and right to follow me right now, when things are going well, and you’re seeing the miracles that can happen, and the people who can be healed. But things can turn ugly really quickly and things are going to get bad for us. 

And there is good reason for that. Jesus was in the world to change it, to show people a different way to live. Jesus was there to disrupt things and challenge the comfortable people while lifting up those who the world had forgotten. Of course it was going to get him into trouble. 

Barbara Brown Taylor puts it this way: 

“As long as the world opposes those who set out to transform it, the transformers will pay a high price…Discipleship costs all that we have, all that we love, all that we are. That is less God's doing than our own. If the world were kinder to its reformers, discipleship might be a piece of cake, but it is not, and Jesus does not want anyone to be fooled.”

Because following Jesus is going to cost something. It is going to changing your life, and rearrange your priorities. It’s going to change how you see the world and how the world sees you. It will likely lead you to death. In fact, for most of us it already has. 

Because in the waters of baptism we have died to our old lives, and we have been raised together with Christ. We have rejected our old ways of living and the ways of death and the devil so that we might be able to follow Christ on a journey to a kingdom that is foreshadowed here at this table. But it’s going to cost us something. And we absolutely must be prepared for it. So are you sure? Amen. 

God is up to something - Redeemer Episcopal Church (11 Pentecost)

 Let us pray. Merciful God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of each heart here before you be good and acceptable in your sight. Amen. 

Can you feel that? 

The semester starts this week at UNF. Freshmen have moved into the dorms. We have a kick off party on campus this afternoon… Duval County Schools have started again. Traffic is absolutely awful again. 

Can you feel it? The city is buzzing again. Things are starting to feel about halfway normal. 

Can you feel it in here? In this place? This congregation? This community? 

The buzz I feel here is a little different, a little slower to boil, but it’s there. And I don’t think it’s traffic or school starting. I think it’s the Spirit. 

God is up to something. Can you feel it? 

Now, God is never NOT up to something. We are taught this from a very young age in Sunday school, in Bible studies— even if we don’t say it exactly like this— God is active in all of narratives we know by heart. From the very beginning, God formed the oceans and the dry land, the sun and the moon. God created human beings, God promised new life and new creation after the flood, God led God’s people out of slavery— throughout all of history: God is up to something. 

Here we are introduced to a woman of no great importance in the grand scheme of things. She is no queen, no prophet, no mother of a noble. Yet she gets this whole introduction about having a spirit that crippled her and her bent back being unable to straighten for 18 years. 

18 years. Those freshmen I said who moved into their dorms this weekend? The majority of them are 18 years old. Young to us, perhaps, but imagine being bent over for that long. Imagine yourself 18 years ago. That was more than half my lifetime ago. Imagine being bent over and unable to stand for that long. More than that, imagine being afflicted with a spirit of sickness for that long. 

After 18 long years, is this woman supposed to wait one more day to be healed? When she finally encounters God in the person of Jesus Christ, is she supposed to wait for the proper time? Is Jesus supposed to tell the woman to stay on the margins of society, afflicted and condemned, for one more day? Just a little longer, until all the right conditions have been met. 

I love this story because it reminds me that our teaching is nothing without our action. Jesus shows us this first hand.

You see, Jesus isn’t just an observer in the synagogue that day— he is teaching. He is likely in the middle of a crowd of faithful Jews who know God’s story of redemption by heart. And Jesus brings this woman into middle of the crowd, right in the middle of his teaching. As soon as he sees her suffering, he calls her over from the margins of the community and brings her into the center. 

This is very specific language in the story— Jesus immediately stops his formal teaching and actually brings this woman— a woman who has likely been ignored for the majority of the last 18 years because of her physical appearance— he brings her into the center of attention because he notices that she is in need of healing, she is need of wholeness. 

He was probably teaching and preaching about God’s grace. Jesus was probably telling a story about how God set the captives free and liberated the oppressed. And then he sees this woman and recognizes the opportunity to practice what he’s preaching. He sees that he can demonstrate God’s incredible grace right there in that place and free this woman from the spirit that has crippled her for so long. 

And so he does. Jesus stops doing what is seen as “proper” and “legal” in order to do what is most important in the moment. 

…

Now don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with rules and laws. They are important to keep us safe and keep our society from being plunged into total chaos. The laws that God has given us in the Old Testament are meant to be gifts, not oppressive restrictions. So when what we believe is proper or legal begins to diminish the incredible power of God’s grace, we have to look again at our own intentions. I mean, when we encounter a situation in which a donkey is treated better than a woman… well, then it might be time to re-evaluate how and why we follow the rules and laws. They begin to no longer be gifts if they are not framed in the grace and love of God. 

It seems that the leader of the synagogue lost sight of that. He was indignant that Jesus would heal on the Sabbath. 

But the bottom line here is that Jesus saw a need and he fulfilled it. He intimately knew the grace of God and he embodied it in his actions. He saw a woman imprisoned and he set her free. This is the most important thing that God in Jesus does for us in this world— sets us free. 

I want you to hear those words: You are set free. This is what our God does. This is the promise that has been made to us. This is the gift of Sabbath and the gift of Jesus. You are set free. 

I don’t know exactly what that means for us here at Redeemer, but I can feel the Holy Spirit stirring. I can tell that God is up to something in this place. 

And we don’t have to wait for a better day or a more appropriate day— we don’t have to wait for a more solidified strategic plan, for a better definition of what “liberation” or “freedom” mean, we don’t have to wait until we have all the right answers for all the right people— we are called to act as God has taught us through Jesus. We are called to be witnesses to the liberation of Jesus. Can you feel it? Are you ready for it? 

…

When God is up to something, prepare to be set free, prepare to be unbound: whether from confining diseases, or social norms, or back breaking work, or the lie of busy-ness. God keeps showing up, drawing the circle just a little wider and unleashing a divine horizon that turns to rejoicing over the loosing of every human bondage in every time and place. And for that, and our own renewal this day and always, we praise God. Amen.