Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; Luke 15:1-10
September 15, 2019
First Presbyterian Church, Sterling IL
Christina Berry
The prophet Jeremiah was called to a hard and heavy task: to call God’s people to repentance, and to preach to them the hard message of their failures. Jeremiah was a great preacher, but he was not a popular preacher. He frequently was in conflicts with false prophets, with political and religious leaders, with kings, and even with God.
This passage was described by one scholar as a “dangerous poem.” In a poetic parallel with Genesis chapter one, it imagines God “uncreating” the world: the breath of God returns the earth to the waste and void, takes away the light, shakes the mountains and hills, and lays waste to all that once was. It seems that all there is to do is weep in the darkness. Let’s listen for God’s word to us in the words of the prophet Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem:
A hot wind comes from me out of the bare heights
in the desert toward my poor people,
not to winnow or cleanse--a wind too strong for that.
Now it is I who speak in judgment against them.
"For my people are foolish, they do not know me;
not to winnow or cleanse--a wind too strong for that.
Now it is I who speak in judgment against them.
"For my people are foolish, they do not know me;
they are stupid children,
they have no understanding.
They are skilled in doing evil, but do not know how to do good."
I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void;
and to the heavens, and they had no light.
I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking,
and all the hills moved to and fro.
I looked, and lo, there was no one at all,
they have no understanding.
They are skilled in doing evil, but do not know how to do good."
I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void;
and to the heavens, and they had no light.
I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking,
and all the hills moved to and fro.
I looked, and lo, there was no one at all,
and all the birds of the air had fled.
I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert,
and all its cities were laid in ruins before the LORD, before his fierce anger.
For thus says the LORD:
I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert,
and all its cities were laid in ruins before the LORD, before his fierce anger.
For thus says the LORD:
The whole land shall be a desolation;
yet I will not make a full end.
Because of this the earth shall mourn, and the heavens above grow black;
for I have spoken, I have purposed; I have not relented nor will I turn back.
The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Our gospel reading for today is from Luke’s gospel, about midway through, when Jesus has been teaching and healing and has drawn the attention of the religious authorities. They are suspicious of him, particularly because, unlike other scholars of the faith, he is operating outside the norms. Rather than stay at the synagogue and debate Torah with them, he is wandering around like a homeless preacher, and consorting with the worst sort of people, the kind that respectable people try to avoid. He is not standing over and against Judaism, his faith, but is speaking and acting in ways that demonstrate his desire to reform it. In short, he is a prophet to all of Israel. That’s an important point, because it will guard us from falling into heresy. It’s heresy, believing that the God for whom Jeremiah spoke is somehow different from the God for whom Jesus spoke. God is God, and God’s prophets bring messages as correctives. Let’s listen for God’s word to us from Luke 15:1-10
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?
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 sheep that was lost.'
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.
"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?
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."
The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
"At the end of the road, there is a meal, and redemption.”
That’s how one scholar sums up these stories of lost things.
Lost things – lost hope, a lost sheep, and a lost coin.
But we are far away from the end of the road in these stories.
The promise of a meal and redemption seem absurd.
So how are we to understand these stories?
It is pretty easy to identify with the shepherd seeking a lost sheep,
with the woman seeking her lost coin.
Looking for a lamb sounds nice, in the abstract,
though few of us have headed out into the night to round up livestock.
Sweeping the floor by lamplight sounds familiar, somehow,
though few of us have ever done that.
The harder loss is the loss of hope – the bleak situation Jeremiah portrays.
It’s hard to think about getting so far away from God
that everything around us is desolation and misery.
It’s hard to think of the God of love uncreating the world.
This benevolent creator is laying waste the earth;
the skies have gone dark, the very mountains tremble,
All the birds of the air have fled, once fruitful pastures are now desert land
and all the cities lay in ruins. The very earth is mourning.
All is desolation.
It can’t be pleasant for Jeremiah to say this to them:
“You have strayed far from God, and God’s anger is kindled against you.”
The solution is obvious – repent, and return to God.
Turn from your wicked ways, and draw near to the God of the covenant.
God WILL redeem you!
Jesus is saying the same thing.
He’s been questioned about why he welcomes sinners and eats with them.
How is it, they wonder, that this rabbi wants to consort with such people?
There are plenty of faithful and educated people he could hang out with.
And you know, birds of a feather flock together.
You are judged by the company you keep.
yet I will not make a full end.
Because of this the earth shall mourn, and the heavens above grow black;
for I have spoken, I have purposed; I have not relented nor will I turn back.
The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Our gospel reading for today is from Luke’s gospel, about midway through, when Jesus has been teaching and healing and has drawn the attention of the religious authorities. They are suspicious of him, particularly because, unlike other scholars of the faith, he is operating outside the norms. Rather than stay at the synagogue and debate Torah with them, he is wandering around like a homeless preacher, and consorting with the worst sort of people, the kind that respectable people try to avoid. He is not standing over and against Judaism, his faith, but is speaking and acting in ways that demonstrate his desire to reform it. In short, he is a prophet to all of Israel. That’s an important point, because it will guard us from falling into heresy. It’s heresy, believing that the God for whom Jeremiah spoke is somehow different from the God for whom Jesus spoke. God is God, and God’s prophets bring messages as correctives. Let’s listen for God’s word to us from Luke 15:1-10
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?
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 sheep that was lost.'
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.
"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?
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."
The word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
"At the end of the road, there is a meal, and redemption.”
That’s how one scholar sums up these stories of lost things.
Lost things – lost hope, a lost sheep, and a lost coin.
But we are far away from the end of the road in these stories.
The promise of a meal and redemption seem absurd.
So how are we to understand these stories?
It is pretty easy to identify with the shepherd seeking a lost sheep,
with the woman seeking her lost coin.
Looking for a lamb sounds nice, in the abstract,
though few of us have headed out into the night to round up livestock.
Sweeping the floor by lamplight sounds familiar, somehow,
though few of us have ever done that.
The harder loss is the loss of hope – the bleak situation Jeremiah portrays.
It’s hard to think about getting so far away from God
that everything around us is desolation and misery.
It’s hard to think of the God of love uncreating the world.
This benevolent creator is laying waste the earth;
the skies have gone dark, the very mountains tremble,
All the birds of the air have fled, once fruitful pastures are now desert land
and all the cities lay in ruins. The very earth is mourning.
All is desolation.
It can’t be pleasant for Jeremiah to say this to them:
“You have strayed far from God, and God’s anger is kindled against you.”
The solution is obvious – repent, and return to God.
Turn from your wicked ways, and draw near to the God of the covenant.
God WILL redeem you!
Jesus is saying the same thing.
He’s been questioned about why he welcomes sinners and eats with them.
How is it, they wonder, that this rabbi wants to consort with such people?
There are plenty of faithful and educated people he could hang out with.
And you know, birds of a feather flock together.
You are judged by the company you keep.
You’ve all seen it – the nice kid who starts running with a rough crowd.
Pretty soon, there’s trouble, and even the nice kid is implicated.
Some of you may have read the book The Outsiders, by S. E. Hinton.
In that young adult novel, Hinton traces the lives of the “greasers,”
boys we’d probably call “thugs” or “hoodlums.”
But one of them, a boy called Ponyboy, is different.
He notices the sunset; he reads poems. He muses,
“I don't want to be a hood, but even if I don't steal things
and mug people and get boozed up, I'm marked lousy.
Why should I be proud of it? Why should I even pretend to be proud of it?”
So if you could just spend more time with respectable people, Jesus,
spend more time with YOUR people, Jesus, that would suit us better.
Because seriously, if we are following you,
that means we, too, will have to welcome sinners, and eat with them.
You can see where this is going.
In the stories Jesus tells, the distress of the main characters,
while familiar, is hardly the devastation described in Jeremiah.
There’s a kind of hopelessness in his world that seems insurmountable.
Pretty soon, there’s trouble, and even the nice kid is implicated.
Some of you may have read the book The Outsiders, by S. E. Hinton.
In that young adult novel, Hinton traces the lives of the “greasers,”
boys we’d probably call “thugs” or “hoodlums.”
But one of them, a boy called Ponyboy, is different.
He notices the sunset; he reads poems. He muses,
“I don't want to be a hood, but even if I don't steal things
and mug people and get boozed up, I'm marked lousy.
Why should I be proud of it? Why should I even pretend to be proud of it?”
So if you could just spend more time with respectable people, Jesus,
spend more time with YOUR people, Jesus, that would suit us better.
Because seriously, if we are following you,
that means we, too, will have to welcome sinners, and eat with them.
You can see where this is going.
In the stories Jesus tells, the distress of the main characters,
while familiar, is hardly the devastation described in Jeremiah.
There’s a kind of hopelessness in his world that seems insurmountable.
There’s a bit of disagreement among those who argue about such things
about whether it makes sense for the shepherd to leave 99 sheep in danger
in order to search for one single lost sheep.
In God’s economy, obviously this makes perfect sense.
But in the human way of seeing the world. it really doesn’t.
The lost sheep would have to be some kind of special sheep
to justify putting the whole flock at risk.
And certainly, having a party over finding one lost lamb makes no sense.
about whether it makes sense for the shepherd to leave 99 sheep in danger
in order to search for one single lost sheep.
In God’s economy, obviously this makes perfect sense.
But in the human way of seeing the world. it really doesn’t.
The lost sheep would have to be some kind of special sheep
to justify putting the whole flock at risk.
And certainly, having a party over finding one lost lamb makes no sense.
The same is true of the woman and her coin.
The coin is a drachma, worth maybe a day’s work;
hardly worth wasting a lot of precious lamp oil over it.
And then throwing a party when it was found
probably cost about …you guessed it….a drachma!
And certainly, the Lucan interpretation added to Matthew’s version
does not make it any easier to understand.
Luke wants us to see the importance of repentance
as Jesus answers back to the Pharisees and Scribes.
The way the gospel of Matthew tells it, Jesus sums up the lesson by saying:
“It is not the will of your Father in heaven
that one of these little ones should be lost.”
No pharisees, no sinners, no party.
So maybe the point of these parables as Luke tells them
is not the Pharisees, or the lostness, or even repentance at all.
Nobody actually repents in these stories.
Israel doesn’t repent in response to Jeremiah’s warnings.
The coin is a drachma, worth maybe a day’s work;
hardly worth wasting a lot of precious lamp oil over it.
And then throwing a party when it was found
probably cost about …you guessed it….a drachma!
And certainly, the Lucan interpretation added to Matthew’s version
does not make it any easier to understand.
Luke wants us to see the importance of repentance
as Jesus answers back to the Pharisees and Scribes.
The way the gospel of Matthew tells it, Jesus sums up the lesson by saying:
“It is not the will of your Father in heaven
that one of these little ones should be lost.”
No pharisees, no sinners, no party.
So maybe the point of these parables as Luke tells them
is not the Pharisees, or the lostness, or even repentance at all.
Nobody actually repents in these stories.
Israel doesn’t repent in response to Jeremiah’s warnings.
The Pharisees and Scribes don’t need saving –
they are already righteous and living squarely in the kin-dom of God.
The sheep doesn’t repent, nor does the coin.
they are already righteous and living squarely in the kin-dom of God.
The sheep doesn’t repent, nor does the coin.
Maybe the story – certainly the story – is about redemption.
The story is about God – God’s redemption, God’s seeking, God’s finding.
Jesus is associating with sinners and tax collectors.
He brings a message of hope and redemption – not for the righteous, not for the found,
but for those who are lost, for those who have lost hope.
After all, leaving the ninety-nine sheep to look for one is ridiculous –
unless that one lost sheep is you.
That’s what Jesus does!
He comes to us, beyond all logic, carrying love and grace.
God’s salvation story is the same as it was in Jeremiah’s time:
turn your eyes to the light of God, receive God’s hope, and be found.
This same God that wept over Israel holds open arms out to us.
In Christ God comes to welcome us, and eat with us.
It’s true in the Hebrew scriptures and it is true for us:
Psalm 23, the Good Shepherd Psalm, begins by saying,
“The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.”
and it ends with this promise of a meal and redemption:
"You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil. My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
“At the end of the road, there is a meal, and redemption.”
That is what it means to be found by grace,
found by love,
found by hope.
The story is about God – God’s redemption, God’s seeking, God’s finding.
Jesus is associating with sinners and tax collectors.
He brings a message of hope and redemption – not for the righteous, not for the found,
but for those who are lost, for those who have lost hope.
After all, leaving the ninety-nine sheep to look for one is ridiculous –
unless that one lost sheep is you.
That’s what Jesus does!
He comes to us, beyond all logic, carrying love and grace.
God’s salvation story is the same as it was in Jeremiah’s time:
turn your eyes to the light of God, receive God’s hope, and be found.
This same God that wept over Israel holds open arms out to us.
In Christ God comes to welcome us, and eat with us.
It’s true in the Hebrew scriptures and it is true for us:
Psalm 23, the Good Shepherd Psalm, begins by saying,
“The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.”
and it ends with this promise of a meal and redemption:
"You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil. My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
“At the end of the road, there is a meal, and redemption.”
That is what it means to be found by grace,
found by love,
found by hope.
The one who seeks us, when he finds us,
throws a party – a banquet – to which all are welcome
and which is without end.
throws a party – a banquet – to which all are welcome
and which is without end.
Amen.
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