September 15, 2013 – Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; Luke 15:1-10
Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; Luke 15:1-10
The Seeker
17th Sunday after Pentecost [Lectionary 24] – September 15, 2013
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
The Who’s song “The Seeker” seemed to catch the spirit of an age when it was written by
Pete Townshend and recorded and released in 1970.
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/who/theseeker.html
It speaks of a guy who is desperate for the Divine, for meaning and fulfillment.
He wants to know who he is, and what he is for.
But he’s getting nowhere: I’m looking for me You’re looking for you
We’re looking in at each other And we don’t know what to do So he turns nasty and selfish and destructive and
longs for death, figuring that, at least, he can count on.
Since the song was written, “The Seeker” has become emblematic of our age,
of people seeking for meaning in the aftermath of the old gods being overturned.
Who am I? Why am I here? What am I for?
People were seeking answers to these questions in 1970,
and people are still seeking answers to these questions.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Pete Townshend called “Divine Desperation.”
(Townshend quoted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Seeker_(song))
In the last 20 years or so, many churches have capitalized on this by offering what they call
“Seeker Services,” services that offer dumbed down “Christianity Lite” in
a weak attempt to make Christian faith “attractive.”
It was kind of fun for me to put all this up against the Gospel for this week.
The song “The Seeker” has been running through my head this summer,
and I thought it would be fun to learn to play it on my new ukulele,
but I didn’t have time to work it up this week: sorry! Maybe in three years.
In any case, today, in the Gospel, Jesus tells a couple of parables about what God is like.
He’s not addressing seekers: he’s addressing the settled, comfortably religious.
These settled comfortably religious people are criticizing Jesus’ company.
“This fellow,” say the Pharisees, “welcomes sinners and eat with them.”
Now the word “sinner” could cover a large amount of territory:
it could mean just about anybody you shouldn’t associate with for any reason,
anyone who might contaminate you,
anybody who might infect you with something bad.
It could be the disreputable people, it could be the lower class people,
it could be the people who are forced to engage in occupations that no one else will
in order to feed their families.
No one respectable would hang with these folks, heal them, eat with them, party with them.
But Jesus will.
So the Pharisees grumble.
And, in response, Jesus tells a couple of stories.
In the two parables we have here this morning, Jesus tells the Pharisees what God is like.
The first has to do with a poor shepherd losing one of his sheep,
and leaving the other 99 to go in search of it until he finds it and, when he does,
throwing a big party to which he invites all his friends.
The second has to do with a woman who loses a coin and does not stop searching for it until
she finds it, and when she does she throws a big party to which she invites all her friends
You can see why chapter 15 in Luke is called the “Party Chapter.”
And it doesn’t end with these two stories: Jesus tells a third story, the most famous of all,
right after these two, a story in which a father longs for the return of his lost son,
a father who throws a big party to which he invites all of his friends when
the son returns.
This is what God is like, Jesus.
God is like a shepherd who will risk everything, who will risk ruin, to seek one lost sheep
Out of 99 – he’ll risk ruin because while he’s looking for the 1,
the 99 will be untended and at risk of being attacked by predators.
God is like a woman – an ordinary, householding woman – who will seek seek seek and
who will not stop seeking one lost coin until she finds it.
According to Jesus, God is the Seeker.
Unlike Pete Townshend’s song, being a seeker identifies who God is, not us.
Unlike Pete Townshend’s song, we are not the seekers in the Divine Drama of life: God is.
God is not lost: we are.
God has always been right where we left God: fully incarnate, fully revealed to us in
the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
And just as God in Christ sought out the lost all those years ago in Galilee,
so this God in Christ continues to seek us out right here in the heart of Winnipeg.
Pete Townshend may have diagnosed the human seeker as having
a bad case of “Divine Desperation,” but Jesus is telling us this morning that
really “Divine Desperation” is something God has for us:
a desperate, heart-sick longing for us to be found, to be embraced by grace,
to rest in knowing that God’s love for us – and for the person sitting next to you –
is unconditional – that is, absolutely, 100% without conditions.
It is hard for us to imagine this kind of love, love without limit, this grace that is truly amazing.
Which one of you, asks Jesus, wouldn’t put 99 sheep at risk to find the lost one?
Which of you, asks Jesus, wouldn’t spend all day looking for a coin and then,
when you find it, throw a party that costs you way more than the friggin’ coin you found?
Well – none of us would! No one in their right mind would! That’s crazy talk!
But Jesus is not in his right mind: in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ family thinks he has gone “crazy.”
The truth is that Jesus is telling us this morning is that God is not only the great seeker who
seeks us out no matter what the cost – Jesus is also telling us that this love God has for us
Is a little bit – okay, a lot – crazy.
Because God is willing to do whatever it takes to find us, no matter what the cost,
even at the risk of giving all of God’s life to us, bankrupting the divine self on the cross.
That’s a little bit – okay, a lot – crazy.
But that’s how divinely desperately God seeks us.
The thing with these parables are that you have to remember who Jesus is telling them to.
Who’s he telling the story to?
Right: the Pharisees! He’s not telling it to the lost.
Jesus is not preaching to the lost: the lost have already been found by him, the divine seeker.
He’s embraced them and forgiven them and healed them and fed them and partied with them.
He’s telling the story to the Pharisees. It’s actually the Pharisees who have lost their way.
He’s telling the Pharisees not in order to judge them, but to invite them back into
the divine work of seeking the lost and embracing them and forgiving them and
healing them and feeding them and partying with them.
“Which one of you?” he asks them.
And while our immediate response is to say,
“Uh, actually Jesus, none of us would really do that” –
Jesus is asking them with an expectant look and a smile with eyebrows raised like
a teacher waiting for a student whom
she knows has the right answer inside them.
He’s waiting for them to wake up to the realization that actually yes, yes, yes they would
put everything at risk to join Jesus and the triune God’s mission to
seek out the lost and find them in their lostness and embrace them and
party with them.
Jesus is inviting them to join the search party with them.
I guess putting Jesus on the cross was kind of a big “no.”
But the thing about Jesus is that that cross is still where we can find him.
That cross is still where Jesus looks down at us from and asks us, “Which of you will join me?
Which of you of will join the divine seeker no matter what the cost?
Which of you will take up your cross and follow me?”
What is God like? Jesus asks this morning.
God is like an ordinary shepherd who extraordinarily seeks out a lost sheep.
God is like an ordinary householder who seeks out a lost coin and who when she finds it
throws a party that costs her way more than the coin that was lost.
God is not lost: where do you see God?
You see God in all the ordinary people who seek the lost and party when they find them.
You see God in all the people at First Lutheran Church who
make and serve our community meals.
You see God in our congregation when we throw a neighbourhood party and invite all the people
in our neighbourhood and celebrate God’s goodness with them like we did last week.
Which of you would do this? asks Jesus.
And the answer is, You would. You do.
You have taken it upon yourselves to share the Amazing, amazing grace that has sought you –
and found you: First Lutheran Church is an extraordinary place,
and it is a tremendous grace to be here, and a great privilege to be asked again by
the one who seeks us, “Will you join me?”
No matter where you have been. No matter how lost you feel.
No matter how much you have been seeking: you have been sought and found by
the Divinely Desperate Seeker: at this table, and in these words of Jesus:
You are mine. I have finally found you.
Join the party. Join the mission. Join me in seeking the lost.
And there you will find your true self, in me, and in my work, and in my amazing grace.
You and your purpose have been found.
So together let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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