Sermons

Foolish Love

The Rev. Beth Ellis

A man who claimed to be a follower of Christ,
And who I had never before met, once sent me an email
Demanding an explanation for how the Episcopal Church
Dared to welcome “known sinners” to the altar For communion.
Funny, I thought to myself at the time, If sinners weren’t allowed, every altar would be empty!

Jesus is being ridiculed in today’s Gospel for keeping company
With “known sinners”: tax collectors and such…
The Pharisees and scribes who accused him
Prided themselves on their meticulous attention
to following the purity laws of Moses.
Now let’s be clear: there’s no sin in trying your best To do what God commands.
Their problem was that in the process of obedience,
They developed a sense of pride.
They began to see themselves as either without sin
Due to their fastidiousness,
or else “less sinful” than others.

Jesus’ mission was to help fulfill the law,
And therefore to help us realize two things:
First: That every one of us, no matter who we are or what we do, falls short of what God has required.
As Paul writes in Timothy, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
Second: That every one of us, no matter who we are
Or what we do, is too beloved to Him to lose.

Jesus tells two parables: of a lost sheep and a lost coin,
Which were so precious to their guardians
That they put everything else aside until they could recover What was lost.

Now there’s a scandalous idea for the Pharisees to ponder!
Never mind that Jesus has just compared God
To a lowly shepherd and a woman!
But he has claimed that the “lost”, those sinners which they will not associate with, lest they defile themselves,
Are precisely the ones over whom God will rejoice When they are found.

No doubt the Pharisees are incredulous:
What kind of a shepherd would leave 99 obedient sheep,
To go look for one who wandered away?
Only a foolish shepherd would risk everything
For one puny sheep.

And what kind of woman spends a whole day looking for a coin?
What about her other responsibilities to her family and home?
And how wasteful to throw a party after recovering the coin!
None of this makes any sense to them.
For all they can tell, Jesus is calling God a fool,
And that is intolerable.

Yet they are not entirely off base in their assumption.
Jesus is calling God a fool,
At least in the sense that human reason doesn’t apply.
After all, if it did, so many things would have been different.
Would God have chosen prophets who stuttered, ran away, or otherwise had little to recommend them?
Would God have continued to call Israel back, despite her
Wandering ways?
Would the Messiah have entered the world as a helpless infant,
Instead of the longed- for warrior king?
Would Jesus choose to keep company with the outcasts
and the oppressed, and the sinners of society?

Most importantly, would the Son of God offer himself
As a sacrifice for the sins of all people,
Even those who didn’t understand what he was doing?

The foolishness of God is born of unfathomable love.
You know the kind of love that makes you do crazy things?
The kind of love that seems like it will make your heart explode?
That’s not even close to the love that God feels for you and me, His lost sheep and coin.
God’s love for every one of us sinners is so deep, so extravagant, That it eschews all reason, And desperately seeks after us, until we may be found.
And it has to be this way.
Lost coins and sheep cannot find themselves.

I have a magnet on my refrigerator that says, “I’ve found Jesus! He was behind the sofa the whole time!”
It makes me laugh because it pokes fun at the idea of us Finding Jesus, when in fact, it’s always been Jesus
Coming to search for us, who are invariably lost.
Some, when compared to coins or sheep, may believe themselves to be the shiniest or the woolliest, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re just as lost as everyone else.
One’s level of shininess or wooliness doesn’t really matter to God,
But the coins and the sheep often don’t get that.
Neither do they seems to notice that they are quite lost.
But Jesus knows, and will not rest until each one is in his arms.

Now the only problem with an extravagant gift Like God’s love
Is that we might not (and often don’t) accept it.
Maybe we’re like the Pharisees and think we don’t need it.
After all, if God’s love were wrapped up in a package, it would be addressed to “Beloved sinner”,
How many of us would look at that label and
Think it was for someone else?

Or maybe we’re like the Pharisees in another way,
Assuming that we shouldn’t be getting gifts at all,
But only what we can earn by our good behavior?
God will keep holding out that package to us,
Hoping that someday we’ll accept the gift
And understand that it cannot be earned.

Have you ever given an extravagant gift?
One that took everything you had,
But that you were delighted to give?
Have you ever received such a gift?
The kind that makes you catch your breath,
Not necessarily because of the gift itself,
But because you understood how much you
Were loved by the giver?

We can only truly appreciate the gift of Christ’s love for us When we embrace the reality of our need for it.
When we allow ourselves to admit that we fall short
Of what God has asked of us
And then see that instead of receiving the justice we deserve,
We are given grace instead,
That is the moment when we begin to absorb the power
Of the foolish love of God.
It cannot be earned.
It does not make sense.
But make no mistake, if you accept it,
It will transform you, inside out.
So the next time someone asks you if you’ve found Jesus,
Let them know that he’s found you,
And that as far as you’re aware,
He wasn’t the one who was missing.

Amen