Sermon for September 15, 2019 - Proper 19C - The Rev'd Jeffrey W. Mello

Exodus 32:7-14; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10

My son grew up in the age of “participation medals.”  Though now the cause of eyerolls and fodder for stand up comics, when my son was playing little league, or soccer, entered an art contest or science fair, everyone got a trophy.  Everyone got a ribbon.

His bureau was covered in medals and trophies in a way mine never was.  When I was young there were no participation medals. You either won, or you got nothing.

Now it is a joke in our house.  When one of us does something that doesn’t get the results for which we were hoping, we might say, “Hey, where’s my participation medal?”  “I spent the whole day fishing. Where my certificate that says 'I fished'?”

And, if I am completely honest with you, I had a direct role in this development.  Not just for my son, but in the hearts and minds of young people in the Youth Baseball League in Jamaica Plain.

I was a little league coach.  Hold for laughter. I was. In fact, I coached my son’s little league team with another Episcopal priest.  Hold for more laughter.

I will have you know that what I lacked in actual knowledge of the game, I made up for in sheer enthusiasm.  

Our team was never really good.

At the end of a game, as we gathered in our huddle to tell the players what a great effort they made, inevitably one of them would ask, “Coach, who won?  what was the score?”

I’d look at the child and respond in a voice loud enough for all to hear, “Did you have fun?”

“Yes,” they’d reply.

“Then you won!”

We’d load up the equipment in the car and start the ride home.  A voice from the booster seat behind me would break the silence.  “We lost, dad. It was 24 to 3.”

“Oh really?” I’d reply as though I wasn’t painfully aware of the score.  “But did you have fun?”

I do want to assure any critics of this approach that in my son’s young life, he has already learned that participation medals don’t happen in the “real world.”  In the world of adolescence, of high school cafeterias and social media, the competition is fierce, and there’s no medal for just showing up. Maybe you know something about the “real world” yourself.

The cultural pendulum swings roughshod over parents trying to figure out whether they are supposed to bolster their child’s self-esteem with praise for the mundane, or prepare them for the “real world” by asking why the A- wasn’t an A. 

And that same pendulum swings through the church and with those who consider matters of the Divine.  Does God love us just for being us, exactly as we are? Or is God never pleased with us, is nothing we do ever enough, ever good enough for God?

I think a clue to this question can be found in our reading from Luke’s Gospel this morning.  This series of parables that continues with the more famous parable of the prodigal son begins with these two stories of the lost sheep and the lost coin.  And I believe what Jesus is trying to teach his followers, trying to teach us, is that in God’s eyes, in God’s heart each one of us is special. Though no one of us is superior.

Each of us is special.  And none of us is superior.

The lost sheep wasn’t a better sheep, worth going after at the risk of losing the other 99.  It was just another sheep. And that made it worth finding.

The lost coin wasn’t of more value than the other nine.  It was just one of the ten. And that made it worth finding.

Oh, I know.  There is more rejoicing in the lost sheep’s return.  There is more joy in heaven over the one who is found.  But the rejoicing and the joy are for the return. And Jesus knows that we are all, at one time or another, the lost one in the parable.  

Jesus tells this parable in response to being called out for hanging out with sinners.  It’s usually where Jesus could be found. Sinners were his target audience, and let me tell you why.  Sin isn’t so much about a list of behaviors, a naughty and nice list that God keeps. Sin is a state of relationship with God.  It is a separateness from God, a brokenness in our relationship with God. There are behaviors that tend to cause a break in our relationship with God, murder, oppression of others, etc.  

But Jesus hangs with sinners because somebody told them who they were meant they would never know God, or be known by God.  And Jesus was going to show them differently. Jesus was there to seek those who never imagined that God might look for them, long to be in relationship with them, sit with them, eat with them, place them in the center of God’s life and ministry.  

But that’s just who Jesus was.  That’s just who God is.

These parables are meant to tell us more about the nature of God than the nature of each other.  Perhaps Jesus is less interested in his listeners figuring out who the lost one is and who are the others might be than he is teaching his followers that the God they worship, the God we worship, our God is a seeker.  It is God’s nature to seek, to search, to find. The value of those things that are lost comes from their relationship with the one seeking, not in their relationship to each other.

The lost sheep is special.  But it is not superior. The lost coin, too, is special, and worth finding, but it is not more valuable than the others.

Where does that leave us?  It leaves us to consider the truth that, in God’s eyes, we are precious and loved and worth seeking and searching.  Not because we are superior to anyone else, but because we are, you are, each one of us is, special to God.  Because it is God’s nature to seek.  It is God’s nature to search, God’s nature to find and to love and to rejoice in the found.

Many of you have told me how much you love the banner we’ve had out front of the church that reads, “God loves you.  No exceptions.” And God does. No exceptions. Because it is God’s nature to Love.

But you might have heard me say that the banner is only the first half of a two parter.  It is true that God loves us. No exceptions. AND it is true that God loves us far too much to leave us where we are.

God loves you too much not to keep seeking you even when you think you have already been found.  God loves us too much not to invite us deeper, not to offer us transformation, even when we think we are just fine, thank you.  

And God loves you far too much not to rejoice in you, even if you can’t think of one thing about yourself worthy of rejoicing.

God longs to find us not as an end in and of itself, but in order that we might be drawn deeper into the heart of God; that we might be even more transformed into the likeness of Christ.

That is what we are about this year as we strive to live the Way of Love.  This Way is an expression of our communal desire to dwell in our belovedness before God AND to live our lives in such a way that God might transform us more and more into who God desperately needs us to be in this world.

You are not superior. But you are special.  You are. And if you can’t believe that, let me believe it for you until you can.

And God is still searching for you, still looking for you, still longing to transform you, to transform your heart.

God doesn’t hand out trophies.  There is no first or second or third place with God.  But participation awards abound, and they are ours for the taking.  They come in the form of Joy, peace, justice, forgiveness, Love.  

Ours for the taking, if we let ourselves be found.

AMEN.

© 2019  The Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello