Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost September  14, 2025

Prayer  of the Day

O God, overflowing with mercy and compassion, you lead back to yourself all those who go astray. Preserve your people in your loving care, that we may reject whatever is contrary to you and may follow all things that sustain our life in your Son, Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.

The Gospel – Luke:15:1-10

1 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus.] 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
3 So he told them this parable: 4 “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? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 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.

8 “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? 9 And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbours, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Reflections: The grumbling is justified. Jesus publicly befriends people who have colluded with the empire that has occupied their homeland. Jesus invites sinners to dinner— sinners might mean about anything from being a misfit to someone who has brought shame to the community somehow. In light of this week’s troubling news about white nationalists demonstrating at the Brock Monument, one might wonder if Jesus would invite them to dinner too. What about people who believe that the US Civil rights act was a mistake and that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a bad person? What about the man arrested for gunning down Charlie Kirk….who not incidentally publicly declared his opposition to civil rights for people of colour and who spoke ill of Dr. King.

It’s hard to believe that Jesus was naive in his actions or even in the stories he tells to defend them…Parables, after all are meant to trip us up—Fun fact the world scandal comes from an older word than means something that trips us up.

Sometimes God’s mercy is scandalous. We might be happy for the woman who turns the house upside down to find a lost coin. Does she turn around and spend the coin for the party she throws to celebrate the finding if it? Who would actually abandon 99 sheep to their own devices and toddle off to search for one that went AWOL?

The coin nor the sheep get lost on purpose. They don’t come to their senses and try to find their way back either.

The heart of these stories is in the joy of finding—and true to Luke’s Gospel, the stories end with a party. God’s perspective over the lost being found is joyous and maybe in the abstract we think we’re rejoicing too.

One of my classmates used to say the kingdom of God is like a party—Yeah, Dave, but sometimes I have trouble with the guest list. Sometimes I’m like Jonah who objects to God’s mercy toward those who have caused harm. Sometimes, I scratch my head at the prophet Hosea who keeps taking back his unfaithful spouse. Thepsalmist says “surely Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life”. How nice for the psalmist or for you and me maybe. But what about God’s goodness and mercy when it pursues the tax collector, and the sinner (however you define it). As the preacher and teacher Fred Craddock used to say, sometimes God’s mercy looks a lot like condoning when you view it from a distance. If repentance is about a totally revamped perspective and a way of life to go with it, maybe God would rejoice when grumblers like me finally come around.