How appropriate that preachers all over the world will be preparing sermons this week on the gospel text Luke 15. These parables of the lost will have us remembering the work of a beloved scholar whose work on the parables influenced generations of preachers. Robert Farrar Capon died on Friday and looking over the various sermons that I have prepared over the years on Luke 15, I for one am grateful to have been influenced by such a great theologian! I am also indebted to two beloved seminary professors for the formation of this sermon: Dr. Donna L. Seamone and Dr. Ed Riegert. All preachers stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before us!!!
Jesus was and is an absolute fool! An absolute fool, I tell you!
Among the teachings of Jesus, the parables of the lost and found are so well known, so familiar that we are in peril of failing to hear the foolishness they advocate.
Although only a few of us have had the opportunity to tend a flock of sheep, most of us at one time or another have been responsible for the welfare of a flock. Whether that flock be sheep or co-workers, clients, customers, students, friends, or children none but the foolish among us would leave 99 to the perils and dangers of the wilderness in order to go looking for one idiot who’d been stupid enough to get themselves lost.
We may not keep our coins at home, but I daresay that most of us have felt the sting of loosing a drachma or two or three in this recession. Only a fool would waste a moment searching for our losses when our portfolio’s are so full. I dare say that if we managed to find or recoup our loss, we’re hardly likely to invite the neighbourhood to a party that would in all likelihood eat up more than we had found. Continue reading
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