Way back in 2013 when I was still pastoring in Hadley, there was a bit of a dust up over here in Northampton.  The Pioneer Performing Arts School staged a production of the “Most Fabulous Story Ever Told,” at the Academy of Music and let’s just say it caused something of an uproar, even here in the valley. 

The play is a biblically inspired, gay affirming satire featuring Adam, Steve, Jane and Mabel rather than Adam, Eve, Cain and Able and, believe it or not, the Preforming Arts School received over 3500 e-mails and letters asking them not to proceed with the performance.

Word on the street was that local churches were going to come out en-masse on opening night to protest the use of “tax payer dollars to mock the Bible,” and everyone was on edge about it.

But then the members over at First Church in Amherst came up with a brilliant idea. They invited all the faith communities they knew of who were open and affirming to come out and join them in a counter protest. 

Our mission was to be a positive Christian presence rather then a negative one. So rather than the usual “God hates blah, blah blah” signs, we carried placards that said things like:

“God is love,”

“Jesus loves LGBTQ,”

“God is Pro Art,”

And - my personal favorite- a sign that simply said, “God Loves Plays.”

I went back and looked at old pictures on Mass Live and saw that the First Churches banner was there with our former pastor, Todd Weir, holding up a corner. And I remember that the good folks over at Edwards Church, which for anyone who doesn’t know is right across the street from the theater, changed the words on their wayside pulpit to read: "God loves us all, gay and straight."

I sang with the Amherst Area Gospel Choir back then, so I invited them to come out and sing with us. And I have to tell you, that night is one of my most joyful memories of pastoring here in the valley.

There were just so many of us out there laughing and singing. But the best part was watching people as they approached the theater, because you could tell from their body language that they were nervous.

They could see the crowd and hear our songs and you could see how they were steeling themselves to walk through a gauntlet of shame and outrage. It was so wonderful to see the look on their faces go from grim resolve to joyful surprise when they got close enough to read our signs and realized that the Christians singing: “Jesus loves the little children, ALL the children of the world,” actually meant it.

It felt so good to hug the students as they arrived and high five the parents, many of whom kept coming back out of the theater to thank us for our support. And it was deeply moving when queer folks who had come out to see the play lingered outside with us and joined us in song - songs they knew by heart but hadn’t sung in ages because it had been so long since they’d felt safe or welcome in a church. Many sang with tears streaming down their faces.

Contrary to everyone’s expectations, although there were a handful of Christians who had come out to protest the event, it turned out that the majority of churches present were actually there in support of it. The protesting Christians stood on their side of the picket line looking pinched and disapproving. Our group, on the other hand, was overflowing with joy.

As they prayed for the souls of sinners like us we sang Amazing Grace for the sake of sinners like them, and there is no doubt in my mind which side of the line I would have rather been standing on.  No one was rushing over to hug those folks. I, on the other hand, got to sway and sing in line with beloved colleagues and some gorgeous women who were a heck of lot taller than me and dressed a whole lot better.

It was wonderful and joyous, but also a little sad. We were in heaven; the other group, not so much. We ended up having an impromptu party, a party to which everyone was invited. But as I looked across the picket line it was clear that not everyone wanted to come.

We succeeded in standing up for the students and our community but my sadness stemmed from the fact that we didn’t make any friends on the other side of that picket line. The real protesters gradually faded away and eventually went home. Which is to say: we won the day but we didn’t win them, and friends, that was a loss…a loss that haunts me… especially on weeks like this one when our divisions lead beyond rhetoric to violence.

Roughly 2000 years prior to that night, Jesus found himself in a similar situation. As usual, he was hanging out with the sort of people you wouldn’t expect a holy man to acknowledge, let alone associate with. Luke tells us that; “the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him,” which sounds shocking – what with all the sinning and the taxing - but actually the most surprising verb in that sentence is the word listen. ^[1]

It’s shocking because these corrupt ne’er-do-wells who are gathered around Jesus in this story – these sinners who really had, let’s be clear, done bad things – are not just hearing Jesus talk, they’re really listening to what he has to say. They are taking Jesus’ words about God’s love and mercy to heart. They are starting to believe that in spite of all they have done wrong that they might still have a chance to make things right.

These embezzlers and traitors, men of loose morals and even looser tongues, are starting to believe that regardless of who they have become they might have a shot at starting over and becoming something more, something new: someone acceptable, someone honorable, someone who could once again be welcomed back into the community, maybe even welcomed home.

Which sounds lovely and all, except for the fact that Jesus hasn’t exactly cleared this invitation with the ones who will need to do the welcoming. He hasn’t talked this through with any of the good people in the community who would have to forgive this sorry lot in order for any of these new beginnings to become a reality.

It was one thing to say that God would forgive these people.  It was a whole other thing to say that the rest of the people had to forgive them too, especially when the truth was that they didn’t.  Not even a little.

There was no love lost between good loyal men like the scribes and the Pharisees and all the traitors Jesus was inviting back into the fold.

The Scribes didn’t want to worship with them anymore than the Pharisees wanted to eat with them. 

And it’s hard to blame them.  I mean these were not the sort of people you’d bring home to mother, and if you did, you certainly wouldn’t leave them alone with her.

The Pharisees and the scribes knew it, and they resented Jesus for trying to look past it.

“This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them,” they grumbled.

And they weren’t wrong.

But unfortunately, for all of us, that didn’t mean they were in the right. And so, because Jesus loved them too, he told them all some strange little stories we all need to hear: a story about a terrible shepherd who lost his sheep, a story about a spendthrift woman who lost a coin, and finally a story about a loving father who managed to lose both his sons. You heard the first two today and I think you all know the third, because it’s the parable of the Prodigal Son.

"Which one of you,” asked Jesus, “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?”

In case you’re wondering, the correct answer is no one. No one would do that. Seriously, no self respecting shepherd, faced with the loss of one sheep, would abandon a flock of 99 to go after one measly stray. Absolutely not. He’d cut his losses and move on. But Jesus’ shepherd is weird. As weird as a woman who would turn her whole house upside down to locate one lost coin and then, having found it, spend that much and more in celebration with her neighbors.

These little stories worm their way into your brain precisely because they don’t make sense, and the more sense you try to make of them, the weirder they get. Typically the key to understanding Jesus’ parables lies in figuring out who is who and what is what and he often gives us a clue at the outset.

But notice that in these stories Jesus never says anything like “the kingdom of God is like a shepherd,” or “God is like a woman who lost a coin.” The only clue he offers this time around is a claim that “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.”

Now I’d like to think of God acting with the same loving abandon as the shepherd or the same level of diligence as this woman when it comes to finding the lost, but as obvious as that interpretation is, I admit that once you take a step back it’s actually hard to tell exactly how God fits into the parable. 

And maybe that’s ok since it would seem that the real focus of this parable is our need for repentance. After all, that’s where the joy kicks in.

Thankfully, we’re all at least clear about who it is that needs to repent, right? Who it was, in Jesus’ audience that day, that needed to change? The lost coin and the lost sheep were definitely meant to represent the tax collectors and the sinners, right?

I mean they are tax collectors and sinners, so of course they need to repent.

And yet, as one of my favorite theologians – Sarah Dylan Brewer - likes to point out: if, at the end of the story, the shepherd is home partying with the lost sheep and the 99 are still out in the wilderness, maybe it’s actually the 99 who have gone astray.^[2]

Another theologian I love, Amy-Jill Levine, points out that if anyone in this story needs to repent, it’s actually the shepherd and the woman. After all, you can hardly fault a sheep or a coin for getting lost and neither is even capable of repenting. But that gets awkward real fast if you’re still thinking the shepherd and the woman represent God.

And finally, if a shepherd invited you over for dinner to celebrate, what do you think he would serve?

You see what I mean? The more you sit with these parables the more confounding they become. 

I mean, is the point of these stories that God loves us no matter what and will go to any lengths to bring us back into the fold?

Or is Jesus pointing out that those of us who think we are righteous are fooling ourselves and need to repent?

Or is the point that we belong to each other, that it’s not ok when we lose each other, and if one of us goes astray none of us can fully rejoice until the lost one is found and brought back home?

UHHHH….I’m going to go with YES.

Which is to say that I think these parables have multiple meanings and I think they are as much for the lost as they are for the found. In fact, I suspect that if you think you’re found, at least more found than other people, you might well be more lost than you realize. Which sounds bad but may actually be good because it’s only the lost who can be found, right? Relax. Now I’m just messing with you.

Actually, what I really think, is that we’re always a little bit of both. We’re all a little lost and we’re always being found.

Likewise, we all listen and we all grumble.

Sometimes, when we really listen and understand what Jesus is saying, we’re able to love the ones who have gone astray, forgive, and welcome them back the way we have been forgiven and welcomed back by God.

And sometimes we’re so sure we are in the right that we can’t help but grumble about the people we know are wrong, so wrong we’d rather they just got lost. Which feels right but leaves us far from them and even farther from Jesus.

Something tells me that if we could go back in time to this very moment in Luke, right after these parables were told, and ask all the people gathered around Jesus who the lost ones were, I think - at least initially - that there would have been a lot of finger pointing.

I mean it’s pretty obvious that the scribes and Pharisees would have pointed at the tax collectors and sinners. What’s maybe not so obvious is that the tax collectors and sinners might well have pointed right back.  After all, it was the sinners who were listening to Jesus and the religious people who were grumbling at him.

Likewise, if you went back to 2013, told this parable to all of us standing outside of the Academy of Music, and then asked all of the Christians present who the lost ones really were, I’m pretty sure we all would have pointed too as we grumbled about the people on the other side of the line.

Which makes me think that maybe Jesus told these stories in the hopes that we’d all come to realize that it’s actually the line itself that is the problem… the line that makes me think I am somehow better or more worthy of God’s love than anyone else.

Maybe he told us these stories to help us see that at the end of the day there actually are no righteous people at all; not even 99.  There are just a whole lot of sheep knocking around down here doing our best to love our neighbors and failing at it in ways both large and small.

You know, I went to that counter protest to show love, and I can tell you that wherever that love was felt rejoicing sprang up. But I know in my heart that my love stopped short of the people with whom I disagreed. I didn’t win their hearts and in truth, I don’t think I even bothered to try. So yes, there was joy, but my joy was not complete…and at least half of that is on me.

Which brings me to the third story Jesus told that day, the one we didn’t read, the one about the prodigal son. You may remember that his final story in the triptych ends with the loving father and his good loyal older son standing outside a party being thrown for the prodigal who has finally come home.

The father wants his good son to come in and join the party. The father wants his family to be made whole. But that wholeness requires more grace and forgiveness than the good son wants to give. Because, you see, his little brother really had behaved badly… very, very badly. He has said and done horrible things. The older brother has every right to grumble. But not being in the wrong is not the same thing as being in the right. The story ends with the good brother standing outside the party. We’ll never know what he ultimately decided to do.

All we know is that we still have a choice.

We can listen or we can grumble.

We can hold ourselves apart or step over the line and into the place of love and grace and rejoicing.

And so I invite you to pause in this moment and consider: Who is the sinner you can’t stand right now? Who is the traitor, the prodigal, the last one with whom you’d ever want to party… the one you just wish would go away … get lost?

Friends, when we’re grumbling about them, we’re not listening to Him.

And when we stoop to actively harming or destroying them, we’re the ones who have completely lost our way.

So here is my word for you and for me today: when we find ourselves grumbling, I think it’s time to start praying. It’s time to ask Jesus to help us to love them the way Jesus loves them; which, at the end of the day is the exact same way Jesus loves you and me, unconditionally.

That doesn’t mean we agree with their beliefs or condone their actions. We can pray and in many cases must pray that they change.

But if we pray that prayer than we will need to change too, change into the sort of people who can ultimately forgive and love and welcome them home even as they forgive and love and welcome us. Forgive and love and welcome one another until the purse, the flock - this family God has made and God so desperately loves - is finally made whole. Amen