The picture must have hung in a Sunday School classroom of my youth. I can see it somewhere through the dust and cobwebs of my imagination. Jesus, with just a hint of smile, is carrying the lamb on his shoulders. The lamb is cute, cuddly, clean, as if just picked up from the 4-H exhibit at the county fair where it had been lovingly cared for and so carefully groomed by a 12 year old girl named Mindy. Jesus the good shepherd bearing the one sheep that was lost. Of course the trouble is a lost sheep would be dirty, scared, injured, maybe with an impish look, not resting on the shoulders like a kitten, but bound and held so as not to run again in fear. As someone has said, in such wilderness a lost sheep was more often a dead sheep.

I’ve never seen a picture of Jesus as the caretaker of the house with a broom in one hand and a lamp nearby. Jesus in an apron, face all a-smudged, holding that coin for others to see. A lost coin. A lost sheep. One lost in the wilderness. Another one lost right there “in the house.” Apparently neither one simply wandering away on its own accord; as in a bad sheep, or a bad penny. But lost a the hands of the shepherd. Lost by the woman. And then a diligent search. A gathering of friends and neighbors. Community experienced. The lost found. Followed by great rejoicing there in the field, and in the house, and within the gates of heaven. Boundless rejoicing, I would guess. Except among some of those listening to Jesus. Except among that one part of his intended audience. Except among the Pharisees and scribes who had been grumbling and saying “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” I can’t imagine they were convinced by the coin or by the sheep. They couldn’t have been very pleased about the diligent, searching, grace of God. There must have been quite a bit of grumbling in the house.

Once again this summer I found myself watching a round of political conventions from the perspective of one who makes a living as a public speaker. I chuckled and thought about distributing signs for you to hold up when a refrain comes in a sermon. Or I could distribute sermon manuscripts ahead of time, so even you presbyterians could engage in some call and response. I worried that maybe I should point out that there are no ghostwriters around here, no speech writers in service to the church’s proclamation. I wondered what happened to Sousa and Stars and Stripes Forever and other inspiring civic music as I listened to selections in Boston and New York from Bruce Springsteen to Amazing Grace.

One couldn’t help but be aware of the politics of it all. But I was also observing delivery, and content, and context. The rhetoric of the public square; the oratory of our time. Maybe not... “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.” But rhetoric nonetheless. The work of Aristotle still applies for those who study such speech-making. Aristotle’s characteristics of the rhetorical event. Ethos.... the character of the speaker. Logos...the content and proof of the argument. Pathos... the emotions that effect the souls of the audience. Pathos. A concern for the listener. The spirit that envelops the speech. The context. The emotional temperature of the room. That which characterizes the soul of the listener. And in the public square that frames this presidential election, such pathos reeks of division, anger, clear boundary lines, mean-spirited disagreement, finger-pointing and a whole lot of grumbling in the house. When it comes to writing about one of this summer’s speeches for the next generation to study, someone ought to be concerned about pathos; in Boston, in New York, in the nation.

When it comes to one’s encounter with Jesus and the parables of the lost coin and the lost sheep, the gospel writer Luke invites the reader to attend to the pathos: the tension there in the room as Jesus told them a parable. The audience was full of tax collectors, sinners, Pharisees and scribes, and at least some of them were grumbling. It’s a bit of a theme in Luke, actually. In the 5th chapter, Levi the tax collector/disciple gave a great banquet for Jesus in his house. The Pharisees and the scribes complained to the other disciples. “Why do you people eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” (5:30) Later when comparing himself to John the Baptist, Jesus quotes what some had been saying about his own choice of company. People were saying “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” (7:34). When Jesus called Zacchaeus out of that tree, when he not only had dinner with that chief tax collector, but he breathed salvation on his house that day, Luke records that “all who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner!’” (19:7). You cannot listen to the parables of lost coin and sheep (and prodigal son) without pondering the grumbling of those Pharisees and scribes. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” More often than not, when Jesus stopped to break bread and share table fellowship, someone was grumbling,

Just when the boundaries lines have been drawn between the righteous and the unrighteous, just when some are prepared to take a deep breath-- finally coming to some certainty about who is in and who is out, just as it is becoming clear who are the saints and who are sinners, that the sheep are on this side and goats are on the other, just about the time when those who are gathered are convinced that they have blocked out any who would somehow lower the quotient of faithfulness, just when the religious leaders have convinced themselves that they are in position to define and chart the steadfast love of God, just when the arrogant assurance and self-righteousness confidence has filled the house to the brim, just about the time when the church looks a lot less like the body of Christ and a lot more like a political convention, Jesus sits at table with a whole host of sinners. And as the grumbling reaches a level that threatens to drown out the very message of the gospel, Jesus stands to tell a parable about one lost sheep, and one lost coin.

One sheep. One coin. One taste of the diligent, searching grace of God. That one taste of grace redefines the community’s false and arrogant pride. That one encounter of transforming forgiveness leaven’s the community’s ability to welcome sinners and breaks down the community’s lust for self-righteousness. One. The one soul who finds herself stiff and sore from wandering in the world’s wilderness. The one child of God who finds himself bounced around and tossed for heads and tails by the powers and principalities. One lost is found. One finds Eternal Light amid the dark despair. One leans on a strength divine amid the endless struggle for peace. One claims resurrection hope amid the painful reality of death.

The healing, life-giving, grace-celebrating community of God’s people called out and called to be the church, the Body of Christ. A community wholly dependent upon the mighty power of God and the experience of that one. A community dependent upon the gift of the Holy Spirit and that one taste of God’s grace. An environment dependent upon the blessed Sovereignty of God and that one witness to the abundance of God’s mercy. A faith community with a shared sense of hospitality and inclusion dependent upon the presence of Christ and you. That one sheep. That one coin. The diligent, searching grace of God. Friends and neighbors called together. Community defined. And the rejoicing stretches from the house to the sanctuary to the great halls of heaven.

Homecoming at Nassau Presbyterian Church. And the temperature in the room, the quality of our fellowship is a gift of God and so utterly dependent upon your taste of God’s grace. Near the end of Luke’s gospel Jesus again stopped to break bread and share table fellowship. This time it was with the two disciples he had met along the Emmaus Road. The Risen Christ came near and went with them asking them what they had been talking about. They didn’t recognize him. Luke tells us “they stood still, looking sad.” (24:17) Jesus taught them from the scriptures “the things about himself.” As they came near to the village he was about to keep moving on but the two invited him to stay. They “urged him strongly” to stay with them. “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him.” (24:30-31)

Since Jesus had stopped to break bread and share table fellowship. He sat at table with them. And since he was once again welcoming and eating with sinners, someone must have been grumbling. Luke doesn’t tell us. There’s no mention of it. But I bet somewhere, somewhere that evening, somewhere in a far off corner, grumbling could be heard. Maybe over there, outside the city, far away from fellowship, over there by the booth and the dead bush. Over there where Jonah still sits. Now with an ever widening gaggle of his friends. Angry enough to die because they can’t control the grace, mercy and steadfast love of God.

At this Table the Risen Christ is host. You are invited to break bread and share table fellowship. Here where we know ourselves to be the church, the body of Christ. Here where your taste of grace and the depth of our community life come together. Your place is set here at the Table. Where would you like to sit?

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