Joy Breaks Out; a sermon for the seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 15.1-10

All the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around Jesus to listen to him. ² The Pharisees and legal experts were grumbling, saying, “ This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. ”

³ Jesus told them this parable: ⁴ “Suppose someone among you had one hundred sheep and lost one of them. Wouldn’t he leave the other ninety-nine in the pasture and search for the lost one until he finds it? ⁵ And when he finds it, he is thrilled and places it on his shoulders. ⁶ When he arrives home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Celebrate with me because I’ve found my lost sheep.’ ⁷ In the same way, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who changes both heart and life than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need to change their hearts and lives.

⁸ “ Or what woman, if she owns ten silver coins and loses one of them, won’t light a lamp and sweep the house, searching her home carefully until she finds it? ⁹ When she finds it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Celebrate with me because I’ve found my lost coin.’ ¹⁰ In the same way, I tell you, joy breaks out in the presence of God’s angels over one sinner who changes both heart and life. ”

Let the words of my mouth
    and the meditations of my heart
    be pleasing to you,
    Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

I want to live in a world in which joy breaks out.

When we turn on the news, we’ve found out that war has broken out.

When we sit down to dinner, a fight breaks out.

When Wall Street’s crimes come to light, protests break out.

I want to live in a world in which peace breaks out.

I want to live in a world in which joy breaks out.

But that doesn’t happen in our world, does it?

Jesus is clearly talking about the Kingdom of God today, not the kingdoms of humankind.

I left my entire flock to fend for themselves and found the one that was lost! Let’s break out in joy!

I’ve found the one coin I’d lost! Let’s break out in joy!

We’ve seen God turn someone’s life around! Let’s break out in joy!

That’s just not our automatic response.

We’ve seen God turn someone’s life around. Yeah, let’s see how long that lasts. Let’s hound her until she slips. Let’s leer over her so the weight of being watched is so overwhelming she can’t help but collapse.

And then let’s go back to our churchy friends and complain about how people can’t change, about how she was always a hopeless cause, about how we don’t want her kind of people here anyway.

I get so sick of that.

I want to live in a world in which joy breaks out.

I want to live in God’s Kingdom.

Because I believe it’s happening today. The problem is that we get so caught up in our snobbery and navel-gazing that we can’t recognize where God is moving.

And when we’re caught up in our own stuff, whether it’s our judgment or our busyness or our worries or anything else, we aren’t looking around to see God’s Kingdom. We aren’t looking around to see where God is moving.

I believe heaven is, though. I believe that God is well aware where lives are being changed. I believe the heavenly court is keenly attuned to transformation happening in the world. I believe the Holy Spirit is seeping into lives that are awakening to grace.

I believe joy is breaking out in heaven.

And here we are, worried about how bad things are getting, clamoring about how the latest event in the news was proclaimed in Daniel or Revelation, as though nobody’s done that before.

The Church is supposed to be the place that proclaims Christ’s resurrection, but today we’re just the worrywarts of creation.

We are the very wall keeping people away from God’s Kingdom.

We are the ones keeping joy away from people.

I don’t want to proclaim that life any more. I don’t want to live in that world anymore.

I want to live in a world in which joy breaks out.

I want to see a Church that welcomes sinners and eats with them.

I want to see a Church that not only houses meetings, which we don’t, but provides for people suffering from the disease of addiction.

I want to see a Church that will embrace you whether you’re wearing a three-piece tailored suit or a pair of donated, ratty jeans and an AC-DC tee-shirt.

I want to see a Church that won’t pick a fight with you because you’re a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or Socialist.

I want to see a Church that celebrates color.

I want to see a Church that affirms the grace in everyone, and celebrates the call of God to everyone who has recognized the work of grace in them.

I want to see how the world, which only knows a judging, hypocritical, snobbish, navel-gazing, closed-door Church; I want to see how that world reacts when it sees this welcoming, affirming, celebrating, listening Church and realizes, “Holy cow! That’s what Jesus has been on about this whole time!”

I want to see how the Church goes viral again when that happens. (Do we know that term?) I want to see how the Church becomes so insanely popular and respected again that we don’t know what to do with all the people who are recognizing Jesus in us.

I want to live in a world that is changed by the love of Jesus, that is inspired by the Holy Spirit, that is reshaped into the image of God.

I want to live in a world in which joy breaks out.

It’s a difference that happens in subtle shifts, you know. In every moment, we face a choice to welcome or reject, to celebrate or to mourn, excitement or apathy, screaming or listening.

And each time we make those choices, we subsequently choose to either break in or block God’s Kingdom.

If we are going to take seriously our prayer, “thy Kingdom come”, then we need to not only expect that it’s coming, but we need to make it happen.

We spend hours, days, probably years of our lives complaining about how the world is going against God, but the people who are really blocking the Kingdom are the people sitting right here in this God-box.

I don’t want to live in a world in which the Church is blocking God, because then God is going to forsake the Church and speak and act through someone else.

I’m not in the business of breaking the Church. I’m in the business of helping her come back to her calling. And maybe, at this point, that means doing CPR and administering electric shock to the Church’s heart.

And we know how frequently CPR actually works, right?

I’m tired of being part of a dying Church, y’all. I don’t want to live in a world so full of hate and shouting.

I want to live in a world in which joy breaks out.

I want to see God’s Kingdom coming today.

That’s my choice today. I can’t sit back and watch the Church die any more. I need the life-giving breath of the Holy Spirit. I need the heart-restart of Jesus.

“ This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. ”

Yeah. Good. Let’s do that.

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