Sermons from
Mission Hills UCC
San Diego, California
Rev. Dr. David Bahr
david.bahr@missionhillsucc.org
March 30, 2025
“The Joy of Being Found”
Luke 15: 1-7 – The Message
By this time a lot of men and women of questionable reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, “He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends.” Their grumbling triggered this story.
4-7 “Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn’t you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it? When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing, and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Celebrate with me! I’ve found my lost sheep!’ Count on it—there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner’s rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.
Why was that sheep lost? Did she just wander off mindlessly until she didn’t know where she was? Did he run off because he was spooked? Did they try to grasp for just one more particularly delicious looking blade of grass and accidentally tumble into a hole? If we really dig into the parable, it might not have been so innocent.
There was very little Jesus did without upsetting the stuffy religious types of his day – often quite deliberately. You know the types who would call naked people shameful rather than asking why, and “are you OK,” and providing them with clothes. It seems pretty clear that today’s parable is directed at those who grumbled about such things. They grumbled that Jesus shouldn’t be spending so much time hanging out with people who, let’s be honest, were probably a lot more fun to be around. Would you rather have deep philosophical conversations while hanging out at a biker bar or spend an hour with the self-important, self-righteous sitting around the dinner table gossiping about “those” people – probably just jealous that Jesus was having a much better time.
Aware of the criticism, Jesus asked the grumblers, “if you had a hundred sheep and lost one, you’d leave the 99 to go find the one. Right?” Yes? Hello?? As Sarah Speed asked in her poem, surely some in the crowd were rolling their eyes. “What fool leaves 99 behind to look for one?” And in a business sense, that would be logical – otherwise you risk losing more of the 99. But none of the grumblers answered.
Because, again, why was that sheep lost? Did she just wander off mindlessly? Did he run off because he was spooked? Did they try to grasp for just one more particularly delicious looking blade of grass and accidently tumble into a hole? Or maybe the self-important, self-righteous grumblers had thrown her out?
Unfortunately, one doesn’t have to dig very far before encountering such stories, for example, of people who are divorced and no longer allowed in some traditions to receive communion.
Or like Joe Murray who was involved in the Rainbow Sash Movement in the early 2000s. It was an international effort by faithful LGBTQ Christians to counter discrimination in their denomination. Every year on Pentecost, participants wore a rainbow sash as they went forward for communion. Clergy were forewarned and instructed not to serve them, as happened again one year when Joe went forward and was refused. He walked away with his hands open and empty, showing the congregation that he had been denied. But this time, one of the choir members saw this and was moved with compassion. She went back in line and took another communion wafer and brought it to Joe. In another church, an elderly man saw what happened. He too had compassion and set aside his cane so he could take his own wafer and break it into pieces to share with those left out, put out, or shut out from grace.
Or like Cameron who felt drawn to attend a service, but was excluded from communion. Afterward she wrote a letter to the pastor asking why. He responded, “You spoke about ‘exclusion.’ In some circles, exclusion has taken on such a pejorative meaning, as if all exclusivity is wrong. The State has no difficulty in excluding people with no vision from obtaining a driver’s license. The State excludes bars from serving a shot of whiskey to a 10-year-old, and thus you would be acting exclusively. Exclusion protects citizens. So, it is with the Church and Holy Communion.”[1] Ummm…
Jesus asked the grumblers, “If you had someone excited to receive the sacrament, you’d jump right up and personally escort them to the front of the line. Right? Yes? Hello?! If you had a hundred sheep and lost one, you’d leave the 99 to go find that one. Right?”
But maybe Jesus wasn’t talking about the one who was “lost” – those of questionable reputations. Maybe he was talking about those who labeled them lost and shut the door. Who is really lost? It’s the kind of thing Jesus would ask because there was very little Jesus did without upsetting the soberly religious types of his day. And such exclusion was the kind of thing the people of “questionable reputation” listening to Jesus had experienced. They identified with feeling lost, or rather, being labeled lost.
But that’s only one part of the parable. Then Jesus said, “And when you find the sheep, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing, and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Celebrate with me! I’ve found my lost sheep!’” Right? You’d do that?
Parables always have lots of meanings and layers and multiple ways to interpret. And as Sarah Speed’s poem says, “Maybe God wasn’t talking about us.” About our actions. How we should go and search.
“Maybe God was talking about her own reckless love.
Maybe God was talking about her own willingness to
Turn the world upside down just to look for me.”
And thus, the parable shifts from about being lost or searching for what is lost to the joy of finding and the joy of being found.
Marcus was an addict, “is” an addict to be more correct, and had descended into his own personal hell which resulted in a combination of being put out and running away to avoid being put out. He disappeared. Everyone gave up on him, except one who kept searching and finally found him. Marcus described how surreal it felt when he was found:
Upon first sight, there was this strange disorientation. For so long, I didn’t even remember what it felt like to be seen. And then, realizing that someone, something, looked for me, I felt this overwhelming sense of gratitude that rose up in my chest. Like what I would imagine as breathing for the first time after nearly drowning. That you hadn’t just been forgotten or left behind. There was someone who looked until they saw me. Gratitude. Joy.
But then, Marcus said, almost immediately, fear. Being found isn’t just about rescue. It’s about being exposed, no longer able to hide in the shadows. You have to trust that the person who’s found you is there to care for you and help you move forward, not just to take you back to where you were. I love that description. To help you move forward, to do more than take you back to where you were.
Like Victoria, whose mom died and her dad was in prison so she went to live with an uncle’s family. But Victoria didn’t feel like she belonged there, that her cousins didn’t want her there, so at 15, she ran away to live with her boyfriend. But his mother forced her to return home. She said, when I reluctantly and fearfully walked back into the house, no one expressed anger that I had run away – just joy that I was back home. And from that day forward, they worked hard to make me feel like I belonged. No longer did I live with my cousins. They were my brothers and sisters.
When Jesus healed, often it wasn’t just to take away their disease but to reunite them with their communities from which they had been separated. Healing as restoration not only of body, mind, and spirit, but restored to one another. The importance of belonging… it just can’t be overstated how important that was to Jesus. Just like the joy of the one sheep being back with the 99.
Jesus ends the parable, “Count on it—there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner’s rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.” But wait a minute, after all that you still call them a sinner?! What do you mean “sinner?” Or rather, who do you mean? Who does Jesus say needs to repent? The people of questionable reputation? Or the grumblers.
And yet, one day, as the grumblers repent and begin to experience the joy of welcoming others home, they too will finally understand the parable isn’t just for “those people” but for themselves too:
this overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God
it chases us down, fights 'til we’re found, leaves the ninety-nine
I couldn't earn it, and I don't deserve it,
Oh, the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God[2]
Love for anyone the grumblers grumble about, even Jesus, and the grumblers, too – key to the story. And me, I pray, and all of us who grumble about the grumblers. You won’t give up on them either. Right?
I know I’m doing a lot of grumbling these days. How can we help it? However, while you and I are feeling despair at the state of our world and those dismantling it, imagine the joy we will feel when all is one day restored and we are a nation at peace with one another. Yeah, I know, kind of impossible to imagine right now. But, as Dr. King said, “I refuse to accept despair as the final response.”
And so imagine the joy of our reunion, but don’t just imagine. In the meantime, there’s too much to do: join resistance and support groups, write to political leaders and sign petitions. Show up for rallies, protests, and marches. Boycott, strike, and donate to causes that help people who are being harmed. Be a thorn in the side of abusive power and don’t stay silent because silence equals complicity, and that’s exactly what grumblers want. Refuse to be paralyzed.[3]
Do all this because we imagine the joy of being reunited, but not just to go back where we were. To continue the ongoing pursuit of building a more perfect union, where there actually is life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for people of every race, creed, nation, ability, sexual orientation and gender identity; a nation with actual liberty and justice for all. Where Lady Liberty is allowed to proclaim, and we believe it, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Imagine the joy in heaven when we’re not just reunited, but that we became the dream of all being found and free.
[1] https://catholictimescolumbus.org/news/father-paul-keller-op-s-t-d/why-does-the-church-exclude-some-people-from-communion
[2] https://genius.com/Cory-asbury-reckless-love-lyrics
[3] Adapted from a list by The Naked Pastor https://nakedpastor.com/blogs/news/how-to-survive-a-challenging-era
