Swept Up

 

for the September 9 Chapel Service at MTS

Swept Up

Luke 15:1,10 · Proper 19, Year C

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”¹

So I'm doing something this fall I've never done before. This week I registered to attend the reunion at Vanderbilt Divinity School. I started there 38 years ago and earned my MDiv in 1990. I've been texting with old classmates this week and have been reflecting on those professors who, when I was a mere lad, shaped me in ways that even now I'm only coming to understand. It’s possible you’ll hear me wax nostalgic a little during this sermon.

Let us pray: Of all the words spoken today, may it be your living Word that remains. Give us the grace to receive it, and the charity to let all the other words slip away. Amen.²

You’re known by the company you keep.  Isn’t that the sage advice of fables, philosophers, the scripture itself, to say nothing of momma? 

What are we without our reputations? 

Shoot, what are we with them?

Jesus is eating again. That’s how this starts.

It always starts with a grumble. Not a loud one. Not the kind that splits the room, but you hear it. You know what those 'church whispers' sound like, don't ya? It’s amazing how audible self-righteously indignant whispered consternation can be. A raised eyebrow. A slight shake of the head.

“He’s eating with those people,” apparently, and people notice.

What Jesus does next isn’t at all random. It has purpose.  Meaning.

It’s a response to the kind of murmuring that always shows up when God does something disorienting to those convinced they know who God is and what God wants. Luke places it squarely in the context of table fellowship and holiness codes. The text says Jesus 'welcomes sinners and eats with them.' In Luke’s Gospel, that’s not just a description, it’s an accusation. Because in Luke, to eat with someone is to declare them part of your community. That’s why it’s dangerous.

Now, Jesus could’ve scolded them. Could’ve quoted a Psalm or two. Could’ve drawn a line in the dirt like he does sometimes.

But instead?

Instead, he tells stories. And not neat little fables. They’re stories that don’t quite sit right. Stories that mess with your categories.

Stories that don’t let you stay where you are.

“Let’s see,” he says, …” have you heard the one about the shepherd who had a hundred sheep and one goes missing?” 

 

It’s easy to judge whether or not he was any good at it by leaving ninety-nine perfectly fine sheep to search for one lost, little lamb.

But that’s not even the scandalous part of the story.  He actually finds the darn thing, throws it over his shoulders, gathers his friends and throws a party.  Weirdo.

And then there’s the one about this woman. Loses a coin. Lights a lamp. Sweeps the floor. Crawls around on her hands and knees.

You’d think she’d pocket it and move on.

But instead, she calls her neighbors. Throws a party. For a found coin? What is going on?

David Buttrick was my homiletics professor.  In Speaking Parables: A Homiletic Guide he writes:

“Parables are not illustrations. They are acts of speech that can overturn the world of hearers, dislodging fixed assumptions and evoking the new world of God’s reign.”³

The stories Jesus tells are not about what’s rational.  The math doesn’t work.  But grace never concerns itself with such things. It’s not about accounting. It’s about recovery.

Dr. Buttrick was a towering figure to us newbies in his class, not just intellectually but in his presence. Most often, he’d amble into the classroom just as we were due to start, if not a couple of minutes past start time. And we knew better than to scurry or wonder if he’s going to show up. He’d wear the same red plaid shirt and khakis, always had a Styrofoam (it was the 80’s) half-full cup of coffee that had been on the burner so long it could have been mistaken for molasses, with the smoke of the just extinguished cigarette swirling into a halo above him. His voice was gravelly, his eyes mischievous. And when he said something that undid our tidy theologies (which he did a lot), he seemed to take no small amount of glee in doing so.

In his New Testament Rhetoric and Homiletical Theory class, I remember him addressing this story by asking, not as a throwaway line, but as a charge:

“If the sheep follow the shepherd, why didn’t they go with him?”⁴

Why didn’t they?

That question stayed with me. Still does.

I guess if we play faith safe, spending more time doing cost/benefit and SWOT analyses than holy boldness, we'd never go.

We'll hold down the fort. Keep the books. Wait for the one to come crawling back.

But the Gospel isn’t about waiting. It’s about going. About joining God in the search.

And what’s this story again about a woman tidying up to find a lost coin?

This isn’t just about finding something that was lost. It’s about whose hands are doing the finding. About where the Spirit chooses to move. In kitchens. In basements. In everyday acts of grace.

Maybe she lit that lamp because those ten coins were all she had to live on. Maybe the floor she swept wasn’t her own. Maybe she had already lost too much in life to risk letting this go.

 

In this light, her action is not only practical, it is courageous.

Faithful. Political. And holy.

I think about Joretta Marshall, who was unquestionably the professor who formed me most in the field of pastoral care and the theological impetus that drives it. She was my professor, field ed small group facilitator, if she offered a course, I took it, and someone for whom I have deep admiration, affection, and respect. I have continued to learn from her over the years.

Marshall insisted that pastoral care is never abstract but always particular:

“Pastoral care is attentive to the uniqueness of persons and their stories, and to the contexts of community and culture that shape their lives.”⁶

In that spirit, I would say: to offer care is to notice what is usually ignored — the unspoken grief, the unswept floor, the lost thing that matters deeply to the one who lost it.

When we sweep with intention, light lamps with hope, or refuse to stop searching, we’re not just tidying up. We’re practicing presence. We’re proclaiming what others might dismiss is, in fact, holy.

She doesn’t wait for grace; she partners with it.

And when she finds what was lost? She throws a party.

That’s the scandal, isn’t it? Not just that God finds the lost. But that God’s response to the finding is lavish!

No doctrine check. No backstory exam. No Enneagram analysis to explain why someone does what they do (spare me, please!).  Just pure unmitigated joy.

Now, as we all know, there’s another story in this chapter pulled from Jesus’ “Lost and Found” story bin. You may have heard it, but that’s for another day. The thing about parables is less about figuring out the answers to what they mean and learning to pay attention to the questions they ask. 

So, I have a few for us to ponder.  Where are you in the story? Where is God? Are you the ninety-nine? Are you under the couch, covered in dust? Are you grumbling in the corner, arms folded?

In our comfort, the way of Jesus can be discomforting, can’t it?

Perhaps you're part of a community like MTS, caught in a liminal season —a place between what has been and what is, with what will be not yet clear. But even here, we are called to embody our vision: to center scholarship that listens deeply, piety that seeks God in the dust, and justice that joins the search. Maybe the call right now isn't to have every answer, but to stay open to the stories that unsettle and reshape us.

What are we going to do? Stay put with the ninety-nine? Light a lamp, sweep the floor, and step into the search with God?

Maybe it’s time to get up off our 'Blessed Assurance,' and go after what matters to God.

Because this much I know: God is seeking. God is sweeping. God is rejoicing. And when the lost are found, you best believe the next thing you hear is the sound of God — swept up with laughter.

Footnotes

1.  Luke 15.1-10, NRSVUE.

2.  David Lowes Watson.  A prayer he often used before preaching.

3.  David Buttrick, Speaking Parables: A Homiletic Guide (Louisville: WestminsterJohn Knox, 2000), 13–14.

4.  David Buttrick, New Testament Rhetoric and Homiletical Theory, class notes, 1989.

5.  Joretta L. Marshall, Counseling and Pastoral Care (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998).