Richard C. Choe ©
“Beyond Wants”
Luke 15:1-10
September 16, 2007
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Preached at Kingston Road United Church by the Rev. Richard C. Choe
* * *
The Parable of the Lost Sheep
The Parable of the Lost Coin
The Parable of the Lost Coin
* * *
A friend sent me a video link to my Facebook a few days ago. Facebook, for those of you who are not familiar with it, is social networking website where people put up their personal information for communication. I noticed thatmany KRU folks are using Facebook.
I didn’t pay much attention to the video link until Thursday when I had time to check messages. I clicked on the arrow and saw an unassuming man walking into the lights on the TV show stage of Britain’s Got Talent. “I came to sing the opera” was his answer to the judge’s question why he was there. When he began to sing Nessun Dorma, one of the Pavarotti’s signature songs from an aria from the final act of Giacomo Puccini’s opera Turandot, silence fell in the audience and then people began to stand and cheer him on. Tears flowed from my eyes as I listen to Paul Potts sing Nessun Dorma – meaning “No One Will Sleep.” I had a tough time sleeping that night as images of an unassuming man singing his heart out kept coming back to me.
Paul Potts is a 36 year mobile phone salesman from South Wales. He shared at various interviews that he was often bullied as a child and singing was his way of dealing with life’s struggles. He was able to afford some voice training but an accident and illness, along with a lack of confidence prevented him from continuing his dream to sing opera. That is, until he decided to audition for the TV show, Britain’s Got Talent.
Paul Potts won the competition. His semi-final performance was viewed over 6.7 million times when I clicked on YouTube on Friday night. And his CD, One Chance, will be released domestically in Canada on September 18.
A mobile car salesman who dreamed of singing opera found his voice when he moved to make his dream a reality.
In Chapter 15, Luke connects the two parables – the Parable of the Lost Sheep and the Parable of the Lost Coin – with a third parable, commonly known to us as the “Parable of the Prodigal Son.” Biblical scholars say that the three parables come from different contexts but they have been “built into an artistically constructed unit with a single theme – God’s love and mercy for human beings and Jesus’ call for repentance and conversion.”[i] Luke is also conscious about balancing the images of man and woman in his stories.
Lost and Found seems to be a common theme throughout the three parables; however, there is a key difference between the two parables read today and the “Parable of the Prodigal Son.” The searchers – the shepherd and the woman – seek out and find the lost in the two parables read today whereas the “lost” returns in the other parable. The emphasis is on the actions of the searchers in the two parables read today. The shepherd seeks out the lost sheep until he finds it. The woman searches for the lost coin until she finds it. Both rejoice in their finding by inviting their neighbours to share in their celebration.
Luke writes about two “distinctive” groups of people present at the scene. “All the tax-collectors and sinners” make one group of people who are on the “wrong side of the track” of the community. Then, there are “the Pharisees and the scribes” – the religious and the professional theologians who are on the genteel side of the community.
Shepherds had often been portrayed in the Hebrew Scripture as the image of God; however, in Jesus’ time shepherds were considered undesirables. The shepherds were not following religious laws as closely as they should when they were in the wilderness tending the sheep. How do you not work on the Sabbath day when you have sheep to tend?
Tax-collectors in Jesus’ time did not fare any better than the shepherds. I know that there are a few in our congregation whose work is closely related with taxation so I am sure they can vouch for me that paying tax is not a popular notion in our society either.
Before we condemn the tax-collectors as a greedy lot, let’s look at the Roman Empire’s taxation system.
The Roman taxation system was built like a pyramid scheme. At the top of the pyramid is the Roman Empire, and there are various chains between the local Jew – a colonial – and the Roman Empire. A local tax-collector was a business operator who would purchase the right to collect tax from a local tax office for a geographical area by paying a specific amount of money allotted as tax for the area. Your profit is the difference between what you are able to collect and the set amount you paid to the local tax office.
The upside of the tax business was that if you could collect more than the amount you have to repay tax office, you would profit from the tax collecting business. The downside was that if you collect below the allotted amount, you had to make up the difference. One of the problems the tax-collectors faced in the pyramid scheme of the Roman taxation was that the population base used to stipulate tax by the Roman Empire was way higher than the real population base they were working with. Then there were those who were so destitute that nothing could be collected form them.
The Roman Empire, being at the top of the pyramid, would collect the amount set for the region regardless of the real population base. People lower on the pyramid also had to skim of the tax for their profit. As a result, the local tax-collector, who is at the bottom of the pyramid scheme, had to charge way more than what the local person was designated to pay.
Tax collectors would often resort to gouging an exorbitant amount of tax from the locals by any means necessary. In the eyes of the local Jews, the tax collectors were lackeys of the hated Roman Empire. They were one of the most despised in Palestine in Jesus’ time.
The sinners were those who failed to observe religious laws and those who were guilty of moral failings. Many women who turned to prostitution as means of survival after their husband’s death or family misfortune fell into the category of sinners. Women’s status and survival depended on men in Jesus’ time. And it continues to be a reality in many parts of the world today. The poor – the destitute known as People of the Earth – also fell in the category of sinners. How do you not cook when you find food on the Sabbath and you have been starving for days? How can you judge a woman for prostitution when no one is there to help her to survive?
As in our society, rules and regulations were made by those who can afford to keep them. For the Pharisees and the scribes – those who were able to afford to follow the religious rules – anyone who did not observe the rituals according to the prescribed rules, regardless of one’s circumstances, was condemned to the outside of the boundary of their faith community.
Well aware of the religious and social contexts of his time, Jesus chooses a shepherd, an undesirable to the religious leaders, as an image of God. Jesus also chooses a woman as another image of God and went against the social and religious norms of his day. Portraying the woman seeking for a lost coin as image of God seeking the lost must have shocked the audience.
To “welcome” – translated from Greek – could be actually mean to “host.” Jesus did not only eat with the undesirables of the society at someone else’s party, he actually hosted them at his place and threw a party for them. Jesus was not committing a transgression against the religious rules to not to eat with the sinners by happenchance. He was wilfully committing transgression by inviting the undesirables to his own party. According to a Biblical Commentary, “the Hebrew word (and perhaps the Aramaic) for coins, zuzim, can also mean those who have moved away, departed.”[ii] No wonder the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
The two parables of Jesus indicate that Jesus came for those the society labelled as outcasts and undesirables. That God searches and seeks out the ones who are not worthy in relations to the rest of the community is the point Jesus was making through the two parables. Jesus came to seek those who are lost and who are denied by the norms of the society.
Many of the sermons preached on the two parables in North America often skip over the contexts of the story told in Jesus’ time.
For a poor shepherd who is looking after sheep for someone else, losing one sheep may have meant having his wage garnished from his pay. “Life is hard for men who are poor, but even more so for women,” Elsa Tamez, a feminist liberation theologian born in Mexico, says in her book, Jesus and Courageous Women.[iii] She estimates that a person in Jesus’ time needs 200 silver coins a year. A silver coin would provide two days worth of meals and housing.
There is a sense of desperation in the story we often miss as those who are living in North America. Preachers and theologians in Latin America and Africa understand what it means to lose a sheep or a silver coin in their contexts. A value of a sheep may not have meant much for a wealthy person but it could have been few weeks’ wage for a poor shepherd who are looking after sheep owners. The value of a silver coin may equal the value of dinner at a fine restaurant for some. But it is enough for a poor family to sustain themselves for two days.
After all, a silver coin – about $50 to $100 in today’s term – could pay wages for two to three people for a month in Cuba today. DeeAnn reminded us last week that $50 will educate a child for a year in Mexico. I read from the Saturday Star that at Susur, a fine dining establishment in Toronto, a dinner for two with wine, tax and tip is about $500.[iv]
Just the way the shepherd and a woman search desperately for the lost, God seeks us with desperation. For each one lost is of tremendous value. For each one lost is precious. For without one, the rest is not complete. This is the context of the story that the tax collectors and sinners understood. God loves them with desperate passion and intense longing to reunite with them. “No transgression is too deep, no infidelity too severe, and no alienation too long that God’s justice and love cannot repair.”[v]
But for those who were law abiding citizens and middle class religious, the parables were mere stories of paradox Jesus was using to provoke them. Why waste time and risk the 99 in danger by going after 1? Why be so dramatic by inviting your neighbours to rejoice with you after finding a mere silver coin?
The same question echoes through our time. Why bother with the poor? Why do we spend so much of our resources on mission for outsiders than on our church? People who are outside of the church often wonder whether church is a self-serving place or a community-serving place.
The ministry of Jesus Christ we are engaged in is about seeking the lost with desperation and with passion. There is a sense of urgency and desperation in the ministry of Jesus Christ. It is not about engaging in a leisurely theological debate about who God is and where God is.
The two parables challenges us to move beyond our wants and needs and to address the needs of our neighbours and those who are within the community who feel lost and experience absence of God in their lives.
We are found when we welcome the lost. We rejoice when we welcome one another. Such is God’s compassion – desperate, passionate, intense, mutual, and joyous. “There are no insignificant people. There is no one who isn’t supposed to be here.”[vi]
God never gives up until we are found. We are called to be the shepherd and the woman in the parables – seeking the lost to be whole again and rejoicing together when we find one another.
The KRU Council met last Wednesday. One of the Agenda items was the acceptance of Ian Kellogg as an Inquirer for ordained ministry in the United Church.
Ian shared with us his faith journey and how the KRU community has impacted his faith and his sense of Call to ministry. As Ian shared his moving acceptance of his Call, many of us around the room also had tears in our eyes as we listened to his story.
We heard of a man who felt distant from a Christian faith community who found himself resonating with the Gospel preached at KRU when he came to worship here on Sunday, September 16, 2001 – the Sunday after 9/11.
In our listening and in our celebration with Ian as he took steps toward ordained ministry – the way Ian’s Dad, the late Rev. Claire Kellogg did – each member of the Council embraced him as each person shared the joy of Ian’s decision to accept the Call to ministry of Jesus Christ.
God continues to seek us and searches for us to be reunited with God-self. There are no insignificant people in our faith community or in our neighbourhood. There is no one who isn’t supposed to be here.
Amen.
I didn’t pay much attention to the video link until Thursday when I had time to check messages. I clicked on the arrow and saw an unassuming man walking into the lights on the TV show stage of Britain’s Got Talent. “I came to sing the opera” was his answer to the judge’s question why he was there. When he began to sing Nessun Dorma, one of the Pavarotti’s signature songs from an aria from the final act of Giacomo Puccini’s opera Turandot, silence fell in the audience and then people began to stand and cheer him on. Tears flowed from my eyes as I listen to Paul Potts sing Nessun Dorma – meaning “No One Will Sleep.” I had a tough time sleeping that night as images of an unassuming man singing his heart out kept coming back to me.
Paul Potts is a 36 year mobile phone salesman from South Wales. He shared at various interviews that he was often bullied as a child and singing was his way of dealing with life’s struggles. He was able to afford some voice training but an accident and illness, along with a lack of confidence prevented him from continuing his dream to sing opera. That is, until he decided to audition for the TV show, Britain’s Got Talent.
Paul Potts won the competition. His semi-final performance was viewed over 6.7 million times when I clicked on YouTube on Friday night. And his CD, One Chance, will be released domestically in Canada on September 18.
A mobile car salesman who dreamed of singing opera found his voice when he moved to make his dream a reality.
In Chapter 15, Luke connects the two parables – the Parable of the Lost Sheep and the Parable of the Lost Coin – with a third parable, commonly known to us as the “Parable of the Prodigal Son.” Biblical scholars say that the three parables come from different contexts but they have been “built into an artistically constructed unit with a single theme – God’s love and mercy for human beings and Jesus’ call for repentance and conversion.”[i] Luke is also conscious about balancing the images of man and woman in his stories.
Lost and Found seems to be a common theme throughout the three parables; however, there is a key difference between the two parables read today and the “Parable of the Prodigal Son.” The searchers – the shepherd and the woman – seek out and find the lost in the two parables read today whereas the “lost” returns in the other parable. The emphasis is on the actions of the searchers in the two parables read today. The shepherd seeks out the lost sheep until he finds it. The woman searches for the lost coin until she finds it. Both rejoice in their finding by inviting their neighbours to share in their celebration.
Luke writes about two “distinctive” groups of people present at the scene. “All the tax-collectors and sinners” make one group of people who are on the “wrong side of the track” of the community. Then, there are “the Pharisees and the scribes” – the religious and the professional theologians who are on the genteel side of the community.
Shepherds had often been portrayed in the Hebrew Scripture as the image of God; however, in Jesus’ time shepherds were considered undesirables. The shepherds were not following religious laws as closely as they should when they were in the wilderness tending the sheep. How do you not work on the Sabbath day when you have sheep to tend?
Tax-collectors in Jesus’ time did not fare any better than the shepherds. I know that there are a few in our congregation whose work is closely related with taxation so I am sure they can vouch for me that paying tax is not a popular notion in our society either.
Before we condemn the tax-collectors as a greedy lot, let’s look at the Roman Empire’s taxation system.
The Roman taxation system was built like a pyramid scheme. At the top of the pyramid is the Roman Empire, and there are various chains between the local Jew – a colonial – and the Roman Empire. A local tax-collector was a business operator who would purchase the right to collect tax from a local tax office for a geographical area by paying a specific amount of money allotted as tax for the area. Your profit is the difference between what you are able to collect and the set amount you paid to the local tax office.
The upside of the tax business was that if you could collect more than the amount you have to repay tax office, you would profit from the tax collecting business. The downside was that if you collect below the allotted amount, you had to make up the difference. One of the problems the tax-collectors faced in the pyramid scheme of the Roman taxation was that the population base used to stipulate tax by the Roman Empire was way higher than the real population base they were working with. Then there were those who were so destitute that nothing could be collected form them.
The Roman Empire, being at the top of the pyramid, would collect the amount set for the region regardless of the real population base. People lower on the pyramid also had to skim of the tax for their profit. As a result, the local tax-collector, who is at the bottom of the pyramid scheme, had to charge way more than what the local person was designated to pay.
Tax collectors would often resort to gouging an exorbitant amount of tax from the locals by any means necessary. In the eyes of the local Jews, the tax collectors were lackeys of the hated Roman Empire. They were one of the most despised in Palestine in Jesus’ time.
The sinners were those who failed to observe religious laws and those who were guilty of moral failings. Many women who turned to prostitution as means of survival after their husband’s death or family misfortune fell into the category of sinners. Women’s status and survival depended on men in Jesus’ time. And it continues to be a reality in many parts of the world today. The poor – the destitute known as People of the Earth – also fell in the category of sinners. How do you not cook when you find food on the Sabbath and you have been starving for days? How can you judge a woman for prostitution when no one is there to help her to survive?
As in our society, rules and regulations were made by those who can afford to keep them. For the Pharisees and the scribes – those who were able to afford to follow the religious rules – anyone who did not observe the rituals according to the prescribed rules, regardless of one’s circumstances, was condemned to the outside of the boundary of their faith community.
Well aware of the religious and social contexts of his time, Jesus chooses a shepherd, an undesirable to the religious leaders, as an image of God. Jesus also chooses a woman as another image of God and went against the social and religious norms of his day. Portraying the woman seeking for a lost coin as image of God seeking the lost must have shocked the audience.
To “welcome” – translated from Greek – could be actually mean to “host.” Jesus did not only eat with the undesirables of the society at someone else’s party, he actually hosted them at his place and threw a party for them. Jesus was not committing a transgression against the religious rules to not to eat with the sinners by happenchance. He was wilfully committing transgression by inviting the undesirables to his own party. According to a Biblical Commentary, “the Hebrew word (and perhaps the Aramaic) for coins, zuzim, can also mean those who have moved away, departed.”[ii] No wonder the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
The two parables of Jesus indicate that Jesus came for those the society labelled as outcasts and undesirables. That God searches and seeks out the ones who are not worthy in relations to the rest of the community is the point Jesus was making through the two parables. Jesus came to seek those who are lost and who are denied by the norms of the society.
Many of the sermons preached on the two parables in North America often skip over the contexts of the story told in Jesus’ time.
For a poor shepherd who is looking after sheep for someone else, losing one sheep may have meant having his wage garnished from his pay. “Life is hard for men who are poor, but even more so for women,” Elsa Tamez, a feminist liberation theologian born in Mexico, says in her book, Jesus and Courageous Women.[iii] She estimates that a person in Jesus’ time needs 200 silver coins a year. A silver coin would provide two days worth of meals and housing.
There is a sense of desperation in the story we often miss as those who are living in North America. Preachers and theologians in Latin America and Africa understand what it means to lose a sheep or a silver coin in their contexts. A value of a sheep may not have meant much for a wealthy person but it could have been few weeks’ wage for a poor shepherd who are looking after sheep owners. The value of a silver coin may equal the value of dinner at a fine restaurant for some. But it is enough for a poor family to sustain themselves for two days.
After all, a silver coin – about $50 to $100 in today’s term – could pay wages for two to three people for a month in Cuba today. DeeAnn reminded us last week that $50 will educate a child for a year in Mexico. I read from the Saturday Star that at Susur, a fine dining establishment in Toronto, a dinner for two with wine, tax and tip is about $500.[iv]
Just the way the shepherd and a woman search desperately for the lost, God seeks us with desperation. For each one lost is of tremendous value. For each one lost is precious. For without one, the rest is not complete. This is the context of the story that the tax collectors and sinners understood. God loves them with desperate passion and intense longing to reunite with them. “No transgression is too deep, no infidelity too severe, and no alienation too long that God’s justice and love cannot repair.”[v]
But for those who were law abiding citizens and middle class religious, the parables were mere stories of paradox Jesus was using to provoke them. Why waste time and risk the 99 in danger by going after 1? Why be so dramatic by inviting your neighbours to rejoice with you after finding a mere silver coin?
The same question echoes through our time. Why bother with the poor? Why do we spend so much of our resources on mission for outsiders than on our church? People who are outside of the church often wonder whether church is a self-serving place or a community-serving place.
The ministry of Jesus Christ we are engaged in is about seeking the lost with desperation and with passion. There is a sense of urgency and desperation in the ministry of Jesus Christ. It is not about engaging in a leisurely theological debate about who God is and where God is.
The two parables challenges us to move beyond our wants and needs and to address the needs of our neighbours and those who are within the community who feel lost and experience absence of God in their lives.
We are found when we welcome the lost. We rejoice when we welcome one another. Such is God’s compassion – desperate, passionate, intense, mutual, and joyous. “There are no insignificant people. There is no one who isn’t supposed to be here.”[vi]
God never gives up until we are found. We are called to be the shepherd and the woman in the parables – seeking the lost to be whole again and rejoicing together when we find one another.
The KRU Council met last Wednesday. One of the Agenda items was the acceptance of Ian Kellogg as an Inquirer for ordained ministry in the United Church.
Ian shared with us his faith journey and how the KRU community has impacted his faith and his sense of Call to ministry. As Ian shared his moving acceptance of his Call, many of us around the room also had tears in our eyes as we listened to his story.
We heard of a man who felt distant from a Christian faith community who found himself resonating with the Gospel preached at KRU when he came to worship here on Sunday, September 16, 2001 – the Sunday after 9/11.
In our listening and in our celebration with Ian as he took steps toward ordained ministry – the way Ian’s Dad, the late Rev. Claire Kellogg did – each member of the Council embraced him as each person shared the joy of Ian’s decision to accept the Call to ministry of Jesus Christ.
God continues to seek us and searches for us to be reunited with God-self. There are no insignificant people in our faith community or in our neighbourhood. There is no one who isn’t supposed to be here.
Amen.
---------------------------------
[i] Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV, The Anchor Bible, (Doubleday: News York, 1985), 1071.
[ii] Chris Haslam, Comments, Revised Common Lectionary Commentary – Clippings: Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 16, 2007.
[iii] Elsa Tamez, The Woman Who Won’t Rest Until She Finds Something Precious She Has Lost: Luke 15:8-10, http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/jesusandwomen/lostcoin.html.
[iv] Ashifa Kassam, Who is Susur Lee?, Toronto Star: Saturday, September 15, 207, A24.
[v] Marlinda Elizabeth Berry, LivingtheWord, Sojourners Magazine: September-October 2007, 54-57.
[vi] Hugh Prather, Love and Courage, (MJF Books: New York, 2001), 3.
[i] Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV, The Anchor Bible, (Doubleday: News York, 1985), 1071.
[ii] Chris Haslam, Comments, Revised Common Lectionary Commentary – Clippings: Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 16, 2007.
[iii] Elsa Tamez, The Woman Who Won’t Rest Until She Finds Something Precious She Has Lost: Luke 15:8-10, http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/jesusandwomen/lostcoin.html.
[iv] Ashifa Kassam, Who is Susur Lee?, Toronto Star: Saturday, September 15, 207, A24.
[v] Marlinda Elizabeth Berry, LivingtheWord, Sojourners Magazine: September-October 2007, 54-57.
[vi] Hugh Prather, Love and Courage, (MJF Books: New York, 2001), 3.
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