The scribes and the Pharisees said "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." You can practically hear them sniff with disdain, can't you? "This fellow welcomes sinners [sniff] and eats with them [eewww!]." And Jesus replied "Yes of course I welcome sinners and eat with them! How could I not welcome people who turn away from the path of destruction and come to me instead? How could I not eat and drink and rejoice with people who have chosen to live rather than to die?"

Of course, Jesus doesn't say that to the scribes and Pharisees in so many words. As he so often does, as any good wisdom teacher would do, Jesus gives the scribes and Pharisees his answer in the form of a parable. Three parables, in fact: the story we hear in today's Gospel reading is really the third and final parable in a whole series of parables, which Jesus tells in an effort to get the scribes and Pharisees to wake up to what God is doing in their midst.

First Jesus tells a parable about a shepherd who has a hundred sheep. One of them, only one of them, goes astray and gets lost out in the wild places. So the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine where they'll be safe for the moment, and goes out searching for the one lost sheep. And when he finds the lost sheep, he hoists it up on his shoulders, carries it home, gathers together all the rest of his flock, calls in all the other shepherds in his neighborhood, and says "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost." When what was lost has been found, the thing to do is to rejoice.

Next Jesus tells a parable about a woman who has ten silver coins. One of them, only one of them, slips out of her purse and rolls away behind the furniture and gets lost somewhere in her house. So she puts the other nine up on the shelf and pushes up her sleeves and lights a lamp and gets her broom and moves the furniture and sweeps out the entire house until she finds the one lost coin. And when she finds it she calls all her neighbors together and says "Rejoice with me, for I have found my coin that was lost." When what was lost has been found, the thing to do is to rejoice.

And that brings us to the third and climactic parable, about a man who has two sons. One of them, only one of them, takes his share of the estate and travels off to a foreign country and gets lost: lost morally, lost emotionally, lost financially, lost in self-indulgence. And when he hits rock bottom--feeding hogs, which, for a good Jewish kosher-keeping boy, is a fate worse than death--when he hits rock bottom, he comes to himself, he remembers who he is, who his true self is, where his true home is. He figures even being a hired hand on his father's farm would be better than slopping hogs for a stranger, so he sets out for home. And when he's still a long way down the road, his father sees him, and runs out to welcome him, and dresses him up like a proper heir of the estate, and calls together the entire household, the entire neighborhood, for a huge party, a huge party, and he says "The son that I had lost has been found." When what was lost has been found, the thing to do is to rejoice.

But remember: the man has two sons--and one of them, only one of them, doesn't like the idea of rejoicing when the younger son comes home. The older brother is out in the field--where, apparently, he spends most of his time, working like a dog for his father and resenting every minute of it--and when he hears the music and the dancing and rejoicing for his stupid, lazy, wastrel brother, he is so outraged that he refuses to go in. The older brother is lost out in that field: lost in his anger, lost in his resentment, lost in his jealousy, lost in his stifling sense of self-righteousness. And so the father goes out to him--just like he went out to his younger son, now the father goes out to his older son--and he tries to remind him of who he really is, tries to recall him to being a proper heir of the estate who shares in everything his father has, tries to explain that when what was lost has been found, the thing to do is to rejoice--and he can be found by rejoicing, too. The parable doesn't tell us what the older brother does, whether he insists on staying lost in his anger, or whether he is willing to be found and come in and join the party. But the cliffhanger end of the parable makes the message doubly clear: When what was lost has been found, the thing to do is to rejoice.

So what does that say to us? The fact that the parable leaves us hanging has the effect of putting the question squarely to us: How do we get lost? How do we get found? Are we willing to come in and rejoice?

How do we get lost? How do we go astray in the wilderness? How do we roll behind the furniture and fade out of view? How do we waste ourselves in self-centeredness and self-indulgence? How do we get trapped in self-repression and self-righteousness? I think sometimes we get lost by forgetting who we are, by forgetting who we are called to be--forgetting that we are heirs of God's household, that we are the people of Christ, that we are gifted and empowered by the Holy Spirit to do extraordinary things in the midst of ordinary lives. I think sometimes we get lost by being scared of our own potential, by not taking the risk to stretch ourselves and see what we could do. I think sometimes we get lost by taking the easy way out, by choosing the lesser good that seems to be satisfying at the time, but cuts off possibilities for even greater good later on. I think sometimes we get lost by getting stuck in ruts, by getting stuck in "we've always done it that way," getting stuck in habits that feel comfortable, habits that worked well enough at one time, but habits that blind us to the new ways we might try doing things now. I think sometimes we get lost by getting so wrapped up in caring about the church that we forget we're supposed to be caring about Jesus, and the church exists to help us care about Jesus and not the other way around. Whether we're concerned about the Anglican Communion and human sexuality and primatial authority, or whether we're anxious about St George's finances and how to maintain all this infrastructure we've built up--sometimes I think we can get lost in the church, if we care about church more than we care about Jesus.

What do you think?--how do we, individually and collectively, how do we get lost?

And how do we get found? In the story, the younger son comes to himself, he remembers who he is, and his father comes running out to welcome him. How do we remember who we are, and how do we recognize the One who is coming out to welcome us home? I think we remember who we are by concentrating on the practices of the faith, we remember we are Christians by doing Christian things--things like hospitality and discernment and contemplation and justice and worship and thinking theologically and celebrating beauty. I think we get found when we have the courage to admit when we've been wrong, and then not to get stuck in that but to move on to new ways of being more right. I think we get found when we realize we can't do it all on our own, and we trust in the Holy Spirit to come in unexpected ways and make us able to do what needs to be done. I think we get found when we climb up out of the ruts we sometimes get in, and take the risk to be enthusiastic about trying something new. I think we get found when we decide to give up being afraid. I think we get found when we do our very best, confused and mixed-up as our best may be, I think we get found when we do our very best to follow Jesus.

What do you think?--how do we, individually and collectively, how do we get found?

And how do we rejoice? In the story, the music and dancing of the younger son's coming-home party is so loud the older son can hear it all the way out in the field. Wouldn't it be wild if the music and dancing and celebrating at St George's on a Sunday morning was so loud the people could hear it out on Minnetonka Blvd? Wouldn't it be wild if the sound of our joy in serving God was so loud that people could hear it in the Loaves and Fishes kitchen, on the Habitat for Humanity construction site, in the nursing home room on a pastoral care visit, in the bowling alley on a Sunday School outing, in the hospitality of opening up our space for nursery schools and synagogues and AA groups and Girl Scout troops and neighbors of all sorts and conditions? Wouldn't it be wild if the sound of our rejoicing in being found in Jesus Christ were so unmistakably clear that everyone who came through our doors on any given Sunday morning could not help but have their own joy resonate in return? Wouldn't that be great?

What do you think?--how do we, individually and collectively, how do we rejoice?

The scribes and the Pharisees complained about Jesus, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." And Jesus replied, "Of course I do. When what was lost has been found, the thing to do is to rejoice." And we are welcomed by Jesus here today, and we eat with Jesus here in this communion, and we rejoice with Jesus, here and now and everywhere. Amen.