Thankful Memorial, Chattanooga; September 15, 2019; Year C, 14 Pentecost

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; Psalm 14; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Recently, I’ve rediscovered my love for country music and I think it’s because, at heart, most country songs are like modern-day parables: they tell us something true about ourselves as human beings.  Let me give you some examples from a few of my favorites.  Toby Keith’s “God Love Her” tells us about how broad human love can be through the story of one “rebel child and a preacher’s daughter… baptized in dirty water” who “holds tight to me and the Bible on the back seat of my motorcycle.” 

Miranda Lambert’s “Mama’s Broken Heart,” on the other hand, reminds us of the vulnerability of that human love, the heartache and sorrow that can rarely be contained: “Go and fix your make-up girl; it’s just a break up…’Cause I raised you better, gotta keep it together even when you fall apart. But this ain’t my mama’s broken heart.”

And there are even some country songs that tell us something about ourselves and God, sometimes even explicitly.  Surely no lyrics do that better than Billy Currington’s chorus line: “God is great, beer is good and people are crazy.”

And funnily enough, Currington’s message isn’t all that dissimilar from the message we get in Jesus’ parables in Luke’s gospel this morning.  Mind you, Jesus doesn’t mention anything about beer, but the stories Jesus tells about a lost sheep and a lost coin do seem to highlight the facts of God’s greatness and people’s craziness. 

Take the shepherd in the story.  “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?” asks Jesus.  And, while one sheep is important, while one sheep is certainly worth looking for, we have to wonder how logical, how rational it would be for a shepherd to leave the ninety-nine others in the dangers of the wilderness to go wandering about searching for that one stray. 

The woman in the next story behaves even crazier.  She loses a coin – again, it’s a significant loss – but still, once she has used up precious oil to light her lamp in search for it, once she has thrown a massive party for her neighbors to rejoice with her in finding it, she will have spent at least as much, if not more than she gains in finding her one silver piece. 

What would make this shepherd and this woman behave in such a way?  Why go searching so hard and at such great cost for the ones that are lost?  In the literal context of these parables, it just doesn’t make any sense and the people in Jesus’ stories seem to affirm that Billy Currington song, that “people are crazy.”

But when we dig a little deeper into the parables, we begin to see that the shepherd’s desperate searching and the woman’s frantic sweeping have some additional effects in the world of their stories.  Yes, these actions result in that which was lost being found, but the act of searching also ends up giving value to the lost items.  As we listen to the shepherd’s story being told, we might think, “That shepherd must really love that sheep to go after it like that.  That sheep must be pretty special – or else why would the shepherd have left all the others?”  As the woman sweeps her house, we wonder “What makes this coin worth so much to that woman?  It must be worth more to her than its face-value or else why would she throw such a big – and expensive! – party when she finds it?” 

The shepherd and the woman are crazy, yes, but they’re crazy for something in particular.  They’re crazy about the things that they lost.  And we don’t know why – we aren’t given any details about why this one sheep or that one coin means so much to their owners.  In fact, the way Jesus tells the story, I’m inclined to think that there’s nothing inherently special about the things that are lost; rather, the shepherd and the woman go searching for them just because the sheep and the coin are their own.  It is the shepherd’s craziness for that sheep which makes the sheep so special.  It is the woman’s obsession for that coin that gives the coin such great value. 

And, of course, one way to read these particular parables is to read ourselvesinto the story as the lost and read God into the story as the finder.  And that makes sense, really.  Because most of us know how easy it is to get lost.  Most of us have had the experience of losing ourselves, of forgetting that our true belonging is to God, of having become separated from the One who claims us as Her own.  And perhaps you have also known what it’s like to be sought after and to be found.  And the truth is, most of us are always being lost and found and lost again and found again, over and over.    

And I think if Jesus were to sing these parables as a country song, the lyrics would be just a little bit different from Billy Currington’s version.  If Jesus were singing, I think the chorus would say: “God is great; God is good, and God is crazy.”  God is crazy for us.  God is crazy about you and me.  God is so great and so good that when we get lost – when we are separated from God through our sinfulness and our brokenness and our fraility – God goes a little bit crazy looking for us.  God disregards the risk; God doesn’t count the cost.  God just grasps His shepherd’s staff and desperately seeks us out.  God grabs Her best broom and frantically searches for us. 

And, I hate to break it to you, but God doesn’t search for us so longingly and lovingly because of who we are. God searches us out because of who God is.  In the first letter to Timothy, we are reminded of another story, this time of the apostle Paul, who was also lost and found.  And the letter tells us that it wasn’t because Paul was such a great guy that God called him to follow Christ.  On the contrary, Paul was “a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence.” No, Paul wasn’t the kind of guy you would think was worth much to God at all. 

But because God loved him, Paul was made worthy – worthy enough even for the special ministry and mission to which God called him.  And because God loves us, we are made worthy, too.  God’s love makes us valuable to God, precious and priceless.  God’s love for us makes us worthy, makes us capable of doing the good work, the special mission and ministry to which God calls each of us, too.  And that’s good news; that’s really good news; you might say, that’s crazy good news.  Amen.