Jesus Encounters The Religion Police
Sermon
Sermons On The Gospel Readings
Series I, Cycle C
Back before the ways of the Taliban became common knowledge, there was a fascinating little article about how they jailed barbers when they didn't do culturally correct haircuts.1 The newspaper reported that young men in Kabul, Afghanistan, have started wearing their hair the way the actor Leonardo DiCaprio wears his. Long, not only on the sides, but so long in the front that hair can drop over the eyes. They call the style, "the Titanic," named for the blockbuster movie starring DiCaprio about the 1912 sinking of the cruise ship by that name.
The Taliban, the military rulers of Afghanistan, believe this hairstyle offensive to the Islamic religion. They claim long bangs interfere with the ability to keep one's eyes clear when bowing low for prayer. The Afghan government's Ministry of Vice and Virtue has banned that haircut. When bowing to say prayers, one's hair is not supposed to flop down into one's face. That mocks the seriousness of the moment by setting a bad example for other young men of Kabul.
To correct the problem, the Ministry of Vice and Virtue dispatched what the newspaper article called the "Religion Police." These enforcers of good behavior fanned out across the capital city of Kabul and arrested 22 barbers accused of leaving long bangs on teenage boys.
By American standards, a Leonardo DiCaprio haircut hardly illustrates the extremes of American teenage fashion. If the Taliban want to see adolescent rebellion as an art form, they need to check out the orange and blue spike hairdos worn with five pounds of metal body piercings.
Of course, we can discern the underlying principle. The Taliban want to keep their culture pure. To do that, they believe they must control everything they consider contradictory, or inappropriate, or unsavory, or socially disruptive, or in violation of the nature and purpose of pure Islam. By the standards of the religion police, those Kabul barbers had to be stopped. They were undermining Afghanistan's moral and religious purity.
Having religion police in charge of maintaining moral values and religious purity is an ancient idea. In fact, that is the issue at stake in our scripture lesson for today. As Luke 15 opens, we are told that Jesus is preaching to a large crowd. Most in the crowd are, as expected, nice religious people. They long for a closer relationship with God. They are solid citizens. Some in the crowd, however, are rather unsavory characters. Luke lumps them together by referring to "tax collectors and sinners." In ancient Israel, these were the kids with Leonardo DiCaprio haircuts and the barbers who failed to cut their bangs.
As expected, Jesus' audience includes religion police from the Ministry of Vice and Virtue. Specifically, the scribes and Pharisees monitor Jesus' ministry on behalf of the religious establishment at the Temple in Jerusalem. These fellows voice objection to having tax collectors and assorted other sinners in the crowd. They complain about the bad example this sets. "These unsavory characters will affect the youth. Bad apples spoil the whole barrel," they reason. "Get rid of them," insist the first century religion police, the scribes, and Pharisees.
Jesus responds by telling three of the most familiar parables in the Bible. The morning lesson covers two of them: the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. Since context determines meaning, let me suggest that we need to listen to these stories as though we are among the scribes and Pharisees. We need to listen as though we believe the religion police do an important job. Listen as though you believe that it is very important to maintain religious purity.
As with all the parables of our Lord, these stories contain some genuine surprises. Jesus begins by asking, "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?" (v. 4). When he finds the sheep, he rejoices.
Lest you miss the obvious, in the story, the shepherd represents God. The sheep that wanders represents sinners and tax collectors. The 99 sheep with the good sense to stay close represent all the good religious people in the audience. The message is simple: All the shepherd's sheep are equally important and all God's children are equally important.
This parable is also found in the Gospel of Matthew 18:10-14. There are, however, a couple of very significant differences. In Matthew, the shepherd leaves his flock in the relative safety of the side of the mountain. In Luke, the sheep are left alone in the danger of the wilderness. In Matthew, it says "if" the shepherd finds the lost sheep, he rejoices. Luke says, the shepherd keeps looking for the lost sheep "until" he finds it. Although the message is essentially the same, Luke's version describes God's love as being even more radical and persistent.
To paraphrase the message in Luke: "You are tending sheep in a very dangerous place -- the wilderness. Ninety-nine of your sheep have the good sense not to wander. One, however, wanders off where it could lose its life to snake bite, lion attack, poisonous weed, or falling off a cliff. As a loving shepherd, would you not leave the 99 to those same dangers of the wilderness in order to find that wandering sheep? Certainly you would continue to expose the 99 to danger until you found that one. Certainly you would never give up on it."
What goes through the mind of the people in Jesus' audience who have more than a thimble of common sense? "Well, no, Jesus. I don't think I would do that. I would not risk 99 sheep for the sake of one. That just doesn't make sense."
Yet Jesus insists that God will do that. God's love is reckless. By most worldly standards, God's love is even foolish. For God is so concerned about these tax collectors and sinners that God will never give up on them. That is the difference between God and us members of the religion police. God believes each child is so valuable that God is willing to risk 99 for the sake of one. God will keep searching until that lost one is found.
Jesus follows with a nice inclusive gesture. After the story about the male shepherd, he tells a parable about a housewife who has misplaced one of ten silver coins she owns. Each of those coins represents about ten days' wages and would have taken months to save. They are valuable. This woman is understandably concerned for her loss and she responds appropriately. She tears the house apart looking for the coin. She eventually finds it and is so excited that she throws a party for all her friends, family, and neighbors. Jesus says that woman's joy over finding the coin is like God's joy when one of those sinners repents (v. 10).
Consternation must have swept across Jesus' audience. "Why would that woman throw a party for a lost coin? The party costs must have been equal to the coin's value."
Yet, that is the point Jesus makes. Even as that single coin was important to the woman, so one person is of ultimate importance to God. God's grace is radical. God's love is reckless. God can really surprise religion police like you and me.
A few years ago, one of the major Protestant denominations had a serious debate over whether or not there can be salvation outside of faith in Jesus Christ. A minister I know took a conservative position on the question. "Only those who accept Christ are saved. All others are outside of God's redemptive grace."
Then that minister's father died. The minister had to admit that his father was not a Christian. He did not accept Christ as Savior. His father was not even a particularly moral person. In fact, by almost any standard, his father was an unrepentant scoundrel. He was never faithful to any woman to whom he was married. He drank to excess. He consistently cheated on his taxes and in his business. He barely stayed ahead of law enforcement. He even cheated his own children out of their inheritance.
At his father's death, the minister realized that in spite of everything, he had never given up on his father. The minister still loved his father. In the midst of all his failing, the man still had redemptive qualities. In a moment of insight, the minister realized that God must continue to love the minister's father. In fact, if God didn't love his father, then the minister's love would be greater than God's. The minister had never given up on his father and neither had God. That is the message, after all, of the parable of the lost sheep. God's risky love and radical grace is downright amazing.
One of the most divisive issues in our society today revolves around the place of gay and lesbian persons. Every mainline denomination argues about it. Almost everyone has a story to tell about how the issue has touched his or her family. Nearly everyone has a strong opinion one way or the other. Homosexuality is simply one of those issues about which it is almost impossible to have a calm discussion.
A minister I know has always been on the negative side of the issue. He has been fond of saying, "God created a couple named Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." Then the minister changed churches. His new church is in the heart of a major East Coast city and has an active gay and lesbian group in it. After he made the move, he discovered that the chairperson of his board of directors was gay.
This minister made a 180-degree turn. He no longer makes angry pronunciations. Instead he speaks with amazement at what wonderful people these are. He talks about how all God's children are loved and how God doesn't abandon any of them. The grace of God is far more risky, radical, and even reckless than those of us in the religion police like to admit.
As a young woman, Carroll was full of promise. She graduated near the top of her high school class. She went to college, received Bachelor's and Master's degrees. She even started work on a Ph.D. before, in her late twenties, the dark cloud of mental illness descended over her life. For the next thirty years Carroll struggled. She could not hold a job for more than a couple weeks. Her personal hygiene seldom rose above the marginal. Her aimless wanderings through the city streets, endless hours spent reading at the public library, and the sight of her sponging handouts in the local shopping area made her a well-known sight in town.
Many with Carroll's illness end up homeless, living under a bridge. Had it not been for people of her church, Carroll might have met that fate. The church folks encouraged her, supported her, transported her, fed her, and befriended her. It was not easy. When her illness was at its worst, she would call church people and ask they give her $10,000. Her minister became infuriated each time she sat in the front pew, waited until the sermon started, then stood up and slowly put on hat, gloves, and coat before marching down the center aisle -- totally disrupting the worship service. She regularly called members of the congregation in the middle of the night to ask for a ride home. Almost everyone who knew her thought at least on occasion, "I wish that they would just put her in a mental hospital and throw the key away."
It would have been very easy to give up on a person like Carroll. The religion police demanded it. She was not a good example for the young. She was never going to get any better. She was never going to make a positive contribution. The folks at church, however, did not do that.
Carroll died recently. At her funeral, a large crowd gathered. Hardly anyone was a member of her biological family. She had not been capable of a relationship of reciprocity for decades. Consequently, she really didn't have friends -- at least in the sense of friends to whom she gave as much as she received. The people at her funeral were the ones who had given of themselves to her care and in return were given still another opportunity to give to her care. Among that group, there was a theological consensus. God loved Carroll in the same way the shepherd loved that one sheep that wandered away from the flock. God never gave up on her and we should not give up on her.
Part of the acceptance of Carroll, however, might have been the realization that "but for the Grace of God, there go I." Any of us could be become the one the religion police want to exclude. Thanks be to God whose radical grace and reckless love never give up on us.
____________
1. Kansas City Star, January 26, 2001, p. A14.
The Taliban, the military rulers of Afghanistan, believe this hairstyle offensive to the Islamic religion. They claim long bangs interfere with the ability to keep one's eyes clear when bowing low for prayer. The Afghan government's Ministry of Vice and Virtue has banned that haircut. When bowing to say prayers, one's hair is not supposed to flop down into one's face. That mocks the seriousness of the moment by setting a bad example for other young men of Kabul.
To correct the problem, the Ministry of Vice and Virtue dispatched what the newspaper article called the "Religion Police." These enforcers of good behavior fanned out across the capital city of Kabul and arrested 22 barbers accused of leaving long bangs on teenage boys.
By American standards, a Leonardo DiCaprio haircut hardly illustrates the extremes of American teenage fashion. If the Taliban want to see adolescent rebellion as an art form, they need to check out the orange and blue spike hairdos worn with five pounds of metal body piercings.
Of course, we can discern the underlying principle. The Taliban want to keep their culture pure. To do that, they believe they must control everything they consider contradictory, or inappropriate, or unsavory, or socially disruptive, or in violation of the nature and purpose of pure Islam. By the standards of the religion police, those Kabul barbers had to be stopped. They were undermining Afghanistan's moral and religious purity.
Having religion police in charge of maintaining moral values and religious purity is an ancient idea. In fact, that is the issue at stake in our scripture lesson for today. As Luke 15 opens, we are told that Jesus is preaching to a large crowd. Most in the crowd are, as expected, nice religious people. They long for a closer relationship with God. They are solid citizens. Some in the crowd, however, are rather unsavory characters. Luke lumps them together by referring to "tax collectors and sinners." In ancient Israel, these were the kids with Leonardo DiCaprio haircuts and the barbers who failed to cut their bangs.
As expected, Jesus' audience includes religion police from the Ministry of Vice and Virtue. Specifically, the scribes and Pharisees monitor Jesus' ministry on behalf of the religious establishment at the Temple in Jerusalem. These fellows voice objection to having tax collectors and assorted other sinners in the crowd. They complain about the bad example this sets. "These unsavory characters will affect the youth. Bad apples spoil the whole barrel," they reason. "Get rid of them," insist the first century religion police, the scribes, and Pharisees.
Jesus responds by telling three of the most familiar parables in the Bible. The morning lesson covers two of them: the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. Since context determines meaning, let me suggest that we need to listen to these stories as though we are among the scribes and Pharisees. We need to listen as though we believe the religion police do an important job. Listen as though you believe that it is very important to maintain religious purity.
As with all the parables of our Lord, these stories contain some genuine surprises. Jesus begins by asking, "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?" (v. 4). When he finds the sheep, he rejoices.
Lest you miss the obvious, in the story, the shepherd represents God. The sheep that wanders represents sinners and tax collectors. The 99 sheep with the good sense to stay close represent all the good religious people in the audience. The message is simple: All the shepherd's sheep are equally important and all God's children are equally important.
This parable is also found in the Gospel of Matthew 18:10-14. There are, however, a couple of very significant differences. In Matthew, the shepherd leaves his flock in the relative safety of the side of the mountain. In Luke, the sheep are left alone in the danger of the wilderness. In Matthew, it says "if" the shepherd finds the lost sheep, he rejoices. Luke says, the shepherd keeps looking for the lost sheep "until" he finds it. Although the message is essentially the same, Luke's version describes God's love as being even more radical and persistent.
To paraphrase the message in Luke: "You are tending sheep in a very dangerous place -- the wilderness. Ninety-nine of your sheep have the good sense not to wander. One, however, wanders off where it could lose its life to snake bite, lion attack, poisonous weed, or falling off a cliff. As a loving shepherd, would you not leave the 99 to those same dangers of the wilderness in order to find that wandering sheep? Certainly you would continue to expose the 99 to danger until you found that one. Certainly you would never give up on it."
What goes through the mind of the people in Jesus' audience who have more than a thimble of common sense? "Well, no, Jesus. I don't think I would do that. I would not risk 99 sheep for the sake of one. That just doesn't make sense."
Yet Jesus insists that God will do that. God's love is reckless. By most worldly standards, God's love is even foolish. For God is so concerned about these tax collectors and sinners that God will never give up on them. That is the difference between God and us members of the religion police. God believes each child is so valuable that God is willing to risk 99 for the sake of one. God will keep searching until that lost one is found.
Jesus follows with a nice inclusive gesture. After the story about the male shepherd, he tells a parable about a housewife who has misplaced one of ten silver coins she owns. Each of those coins represents about ten days' wages and would have taken months to save. They are valuable. This woman is understandably concerned for her loss and she responds appropriately. She tears the house apart looking for the coin. She eventually finds it and is so excited that she throws a party for all her friends, family, and neighbors. Jesus says that woman's joy over finding the coin is like God's joy when one of those sinners repents (v. 10).
Consternation must have swept across Jesus' audience. "Why would that woman throw a party for a lost coin? The party costs must have been equal to the coin's value."
Yet, that is the point Jesus makes. Even as that single coin was important to the woman, so one person is of ultimate importance to God. God's grace is radical. God's love is reckless. God can really surprise religion police like you and me.
A few years ago, one of the major Protestant denominations had a serious debate over whether or not there can be salvation outside of faith in Jesus Christ. A minister I know took a conservative position on the question. "Only those who accept Christ are saved. All others are outside of God's redemptive grace."
Then that minister's father died. The minister had to admit that his father was not a Christian. He did not accept Christ as Savior. His father was not even a particularly moral person. In fact, by almost any standard, his father was an unrepentant scoundrel. He was never faithful to any woman to whom he was married. He drank to excess. He consistently cheated on his taxes and in his business. He barely stayed ahead of law enforcement. He even cheated his own children out of their inheritance.
At his father's death, the minister realized that in spite of everything, he had never given up on his father. The minister still loved his father. In the midst of all his failing, the man still had redemptive qualities. In a moment of insight, the minister realized that God must continue to love the minister's father. In fact, if God didn't love his father, then the minister's love would be greater than God's. The minister had never given up on his father and neither had God. That is the message, after all, of the parable of the lost sheep. God's risky love and radical grace is downright amazing.
One of the most divisive issues in our society today revolves around the place of gay and lesbian persons. Every mainline denomination argues about it. Almost everyone has a story to tell about how the issue has touched his or her family. Nearly everyone has a strong opinion one way or the other. Homosexuality is simply one of those issues about which it is almost impossible to have a calm discussion.
A minister I know has always been on the negative side of the issue. He has been fond of saying, "God created a couple named Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." Then the minister changed churches. His new church is in the heart of a major East Coast city and has an active gay and lesbian group in it. After he made the move, he discovered that the chairperson of his board of directors was gay.
This minister made a 180-degree turn. He no longer makes angry pronunciations. Instead he speaks with amazement at what wonderful people these are. He talks about how all God's children are loved and how God doesn't abandon any of them. The grace of God is far more risky, radical, and even reckless than those of us in the religion police like to admit.
As a young woman, Carroll was full of promise. She graduated near the top of her high school class. She went to college, received Bachelor's and Master's degrees. She even started work on a Ph.D. before, in her late twenties, the dark cloud of mental illness descended over her life. For the next thirty years Carroll struggled. She could not hold a job for more than a couple weeks. Her personal hygiene seldom rose above the marginal. Her aimless wanderings through the city streets, endless hours spent reading at the public library, and the sight of her sponging handouts in the local shopping area made her a well-known sight in town.
Many with Carroll's illness end up homeless, living under a bridge. Had it not been for people of her church, Carroll might have met that fate. The church folks encouraged her, supported her, transported her, fed her, and befriended her. It was not easy. When her illness was at its worst, she would call church people and ask they give her $10,000. Her minister became infuriated each time she sat in the front pew, waited until the sermon started, then stood up and slowly put on hat, gloves, and coat before marching down the center aisle -- totally disrupting the worship service. She regularly called members of the congregation in the middle of the night to ask for a ride home. Almost everyone who knew her thought at least on occasion, "I wish that they would just put her in a mental hospital and throw the key away."
It would have been very easy to give up on a person like Carroll. The religion police demanded it. She was not a good example for the young. She was never going to get any better. She was never going to make a positive contribution. The folks at church, however, did not do that.
Carroll died recently. At her funeral, a large crowd gathered. Hardly anyone was a member of her biological family. She had not been capable of a relationship of reciprocity for decades. Consequently, she really didn't have friends -- at least in the sense of friends to whom she gave as much as she received. The people at her funeral were the ones who had given of themselves to her care and in return were given still another opportunity to give to her care. Among that group, there was a theological consensus. God loved Carroll in the same way the shepherd loved that one sheep that wandered away from the flock. God never gave up on her and we should not give up on her.
Part of the acceptance of Carroll, however, might have been the realization that "but for the Grace of God, there go I." Any of us could be become the one the religion police want to exclude. Thanks be to God whose radical grace and reckless love never give up on us.
____________
1. Kansas City Star, January 26, 2001, p. A14.
