Gospel: Luke 15:1-10
I’ve got two questions for you, questions with which I hope you’ll continue to wrestle in the days and weeks ahead.
First, what does community look like? And second, what can community look like?
What does community look like, and what can community look like?
First, let’s consider what it does look like. In one way or another nearly all of us belong to various types of communities: our families; groups of friends; professional colleagues; clubs or community organizations. It’s certainly no secret that this congregation – all who gather here for worship and fellowship – is an important community.
In today’s world, where virtual encounters often replace personal ones, social media has severely redefined the idea of community by dramatically skewing it. People praise those with whom they agree and mercilessly attack those with whom they disagree. In the past few weeks and months – especially in the past few days – we’ve watched it play out again in the divide in responses to the murders of legislators and influencers.
Interpersonal relationships and meaningful conversations are damaged more each day when people pick up their devices and try to see how aggressively they can drown out, degrade, or diminish someone else. All the while, they’re able to maintain a level of anonymous separation because it’s all done outside of personal contact or relationship. Yes, the online world may provide a sense of community, but I believe it’s a very false sense of community.
Over the years I’ve thought about the many types of communities and the requirements that sometimes must be met before we’re brought into them. What do I mean by requirements? Well, consider this. With families, we see communities into which we are born, married, or adopted … groups we enter in a particular set of circumstances. Our communities of professional colleagues grow out of having applied for and been hired into a specific job or vocation or being brought into a group with those in a similar profession. Many times the clubs or organizations to which we belong require some sort of membership or initiation fee or approval by a committee to take part.
It’s been my experience over the years that even with our churches and faith communities, people sometimes feel they must dress a certain way, live a certain way, or believe very particular things – agree with very particular things – before they’ll be welcomed. Simply seeking a place to worship and a place to be with others who believe in God is – regardless of the reasons why – superseded by feeling that that’s not all they have to believe. The sign may say that the church welcomes you, but they don’t feel it because of what they see as requirements found between the lines painted on the sign.
For all those who feel they’re on the outside looking in, requirements often mean restrictions, and to them restrictions mean they’re not welcome. To them, communities – in whatever form they may take – appear as something to which they can never belong.
And that is where Jesus enters, and we begin to consider what community can look like. In today’s reading from Luke, he uses two short parables as a way of responding to those criticizing him for directly engaging with tax collectors and sinners – those who existed on the margins of community, and who even found themselves outside of community altogether. What we find in these two parables, together with the story of the prodigal son that follows soon after, is what is referred to as ‘the heart of the Third Gospel.’”[1] It could be considered “’the Gospel of the Outcast,’ a deliberate attempt to show God’s concern for those human beings whom people tend to despise or condemn.”[2]
One thing I notice about the passage is that the community moves in two directions. First, there are those who come to the community; “All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus.”[3] But then the parables flip that completely: the shepherd goes out to where the lost sheep can be found, and the widow goes to search those places in her home where the lost coin may be hidden. The margins are being pulled toward Jesus, and Jesus is showing God’s love through a move to the margins. And here we find the key to what community can look like.
Some may find the courage to overcome their fear of not belonging and look for an entrance into a community. They’re the ones who come to us. But what about the many others whose fear pushes them even more away from community – farther away by physical space and further away in a spiritual or emotional separation? They are the ones who have moved away from God, or who feel God has moved away from them.
But like the sheep who has become separated from the flock or the coin that has become lost, Jesus reminds us that God will drop everything to find them. “This is the long, loving reach of God … [t]he God who will travel into the thicket to pull you out [and] the God who crawls into the hole you have dug for yourself and lifts you out.”[4] What a community is is based on who’s already there; what a community can be is based on ensuring that all who are present can be part of it. Whether they’re just outside the door or living in isolation and fear down the road, “those on the fringe of the community are integral to what the community in all its fullness should be.”[5]
As Christians, I believe we’re tasked by God to be parable-like followers … those who will drop everything to find the one who’s been lost, or living in fear, or who sees community as a challenge rather than an opportunity. We’re tasked by God to be those who show the world that there’s only a single requirement to being part of a community: let us love you; let us welcome you; let us make you one of our colleagues; let us make you part of our family.
As we continue looking ahead in the future of this place, what can we do … what should we do … to welcome all those coming near to listen to us? What can we do … what should we do … to continue reaching out beyond these four walls to our neighbors, to show the face of Christ and build a broader, deeper and stronger community?
I invite you to pray about these opportunities. I invite you to pray about ways that you can contribute. I invite you to pray about what we can do to be like Jesus, welcoming those who draw near and going to those who have wandered far. And may we all pray for the day when it becomes second-nature … to us and to the world … “that we cannot see a community as whole until all are included and none are ‘lost.’”[6]
Amen.
[1] Joseph Fitzmyer. The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV, p. 1071.
[2] Fitzmyer, p. 1072.
[3] Luke 15:1 (NRSV).
[4] G. Penny Nixon, “Luke 15:1-10: Homiletical Perspective.” Feasting on the Word: Year C, Vol. 4, p. 71.
[5] Helen Montgomery Debevoise, “Luke 15:1-10: Pastoral Perspective.” Feasting on the Word: Year C, Vol. 4, p. 72.
[6] Nixon, p. 73.