Proper 19C: Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; Psalm 14; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10

A hot wind comes from me out of the bare heights in the desert toward my poor people, not to winnow or cleanse—a wind too strong for that.

Well, that isn’t exactly what we experienced this week. But we’ve had some days hot enough to make us stew in our juices a bit and remind us that judgement is in fact being rendered. We know that we human beings have had a lot to do with causing our climate weirding. And we’re starting to figure out ways to reduce our malign influence on the planet. But it’s not simple or convenient or quick or cost-free. We find we have some repenting to do, some change of heart. We have to learn how to behave as collaborators with the world around us. We can’t be just freeloaders any more, helping ourselves to the world’s riches. 

This is a good thing and a faithful thing and a matter of religion. The Torah treats it as an integral aspect of godliness and righteousness. According to Leviticus 25, the land gets a sabbatical every seventh year: no plowing, no sowing, no reaping; just what grows on its own. And Leviticus understands that the human community is a vital part of the world at large. Societies that have vast discrepancies of wealth (as is increasingly true of our own) don’t take good care of the world around them. So Leviticus also proclaimed that every 49 years there was to be a Jubilee, when the human community also did a reset. People who had lost their traditional family farms and been reduced to poverty were entitle to reclaim them without further ado. 

Jeremiah was as concerned with human renewal as he was with the renewal of the earth. And, indeed, there’s no workable alternative. Repentance on both scores is our only hope. I don’t mean to oversimplify. The current troubles of our world have many causes. All the things that have always bedeviled human society—arrogance, hatred, lust for power, etc. etc.—are still at work. But if we can cultivate, together, respect for the world around us and respect for one another—including the people at the bottom of the social heap—we will be in a much better position to deal with the coming judgement. And these are things we can start on, individually and togethr. There’s plenty of room to contribute, to join in the work. And I know that everybody here is involved in a variety of ways. Maybe we even feel a little satisfaction about that. If we’re not exactly perfect, we’re at least getting better.

Our Gospel reading, though, can come as something of a shock. The Parable of the Lost Sheep is a beloved passage—particularly close to our hearts here at Good Shepherd, even if we’re city people and don’t really know anything much about sheep or shepherding. We’ve got it in front of us at every service in our Good Shepherd window. And for us urbanites, Luke pairs it with the Parable of the Lost Coin. Ten per cent of your savings have suddenly disappeared? Oh, we can feel the pain of that one and the hoy of finding. But then we have: “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” 

Well! I beg your pardon! We’re just trying to help out here. Can’t we get a little credit for good intentions, at least? Does this mean that a repentant Donald Trump would get a bigger celebration in heaven than people like us, who’ve at least been trying to live faithfully? No wonder some of Jesus’ hearers were offended. I confess that I’m not exactly amused at the possibility.

The context, of course, was an encounter between Jesus and the devout group of people who were called Pharisees, “people set apart,” because they were very serious about their religion and preferred to keep their distance from ordinary people. And they were grumbling about the fact that Jesus associated so comfortably with tax collectors and sinners—the religiously indifferent people of their day. We can understand why they were irked. They worked hard at being faithful. They were, in fact, meticulous about it. They were committed to it. One would like to have one’s devotion given a little acknowledgement. It doesn’t have to be anything grand or showy. A simple “Thank you” would do nicely. But, really, the angels dancing and singing with joy as Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin enters heaven? It’s a bit much, isn’t it? 

Well, maybe we can take refuge in the sheer unlikelihood of repentance ever worming its way into the heart or mind of either of those two. But the reading from I Timothy this morning reminds us that such strange things can happen. Paul was not altogether unlike them. He seems to have gotten a great high out of persecuting people who disagreed with him, and I’m sure he thought he was serving God as he did it. It’s hard to imagine the sheer trauma of the experience that turned him from a persecutor into a member of the group he’d been persecuting. There is hope, it seems, even for notorious sinners. 

And I see another side to it all as I think about it. For the truth it that, even if my own sins are not as ostentatious as Mr. Trump’s or as bloody as Mr. Putin’s, they’re still real—my failures of trust, my failures of hope, my failures of love—not to mention lapses of attention, lack of due diligence, sheer stupidity and all the rest that occasionally keep me awake in the middle of the night. The truth, I dare say, is that I’m not likely to get into the age to come on my own merits. But I have done—and am still doing—some repenting, some change of mind and heart. So why begrudge the more noted sinners a celebratory greeting? The angels are ready to treat any and all of us to the same. 

Jesus is telling us that God’s delight in us can see through our sins. It doesn’t depend on our own superior goodness. God loves us because God made us. God grieves over us when we turn away. And God is rejoices over us when God somehow manages somehow to break us out of our isolation, our closely guarded ramparts, our protective arrogance, our greed— whatever it is that keeps us from knowing and recognizing and responding to God’s love. All God wants is to have us back! And that”s a great reassurance in the middle of a sleepless night. And the angels are all ready for it with a big-time celebration: music, dancing, the works! 

May it be so!