"Disciples Listen" (September 14, 2025 Sermon)
/Text: Luke 15:1-10
Jesus and his followers lived during a time of intense political violence. The culture they inhabited was filled with tension between competing visions for power. The Romans were the dominant force, occupying the land they called home. Among the Jewish community, different groups had varying ideas on how to deal with the violence of the Empire. The Pharisees, for example, believed that strict adherence to the Torah would bring the Messiah's presence and salvation. The Sadducees believed that collaborating with the Romans was the safest way to avoid the harsh consequences of opposition. The Zealots favored violent resistance, trusting in liberation through force. The Essenes, possibly including John the Baptist, believed in leading an ascetic lifestyle, withdrawing from society, while waiting for divine intervention.
When you consider it, it’s not that different from where we are today. This week, another act of political violence reminded us of one of the few things all Americans can agree on these days: that something is deeply broken in our country. Like Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots, and Essenes debating the right response to the Roman occupation, it feels like we’ve all retreated into our own “camps.” The wagons are circled. The litmus tests are set. In this fractured landscape, we often find ourselves questioning not just the state of our society, but our own roles within it—are we meant to stand firm in our beliefs, work together for common ground, resist injustice, or withdraw in search of peace?
And in the midst of this turmoil, God gives us a word, and we pray that the Spirit might bless it to cut through the clamor and speak to our weary hearts. We have before us two parables that are probably familiar to many of us: a lost sheep and a lost coin. Though it wasn’t included in today’s reading, there's a third parable in this trio: the story of a lost son you and I know as “the Prodigal.”
The first is a story that would upset any practical person. Instead of calling this story the parable of the “lost sheep,” I sometimes jokingly call it the parable of the “idiot shepherd” because it offends our senses. What shepherd in their right mind would risk the safety of 99 to save the one? It reminds me of one of Mr. Spock’s many Vulcan proverbs shared throughout the Star Trek series: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” The “good shepherd” in Jesus’ parable clearly never received Mr. Spock’s memo.
A second parable perplexes us with an equally odd story. A woman loses a coin, searches feverishly for it in the dark of night, finds it, and then calls her friends over to celebrate finding the coin with a huge party that probably costs more than the coin she found!
Both of these parables, in different ways, communicate the same truth about God: God rejoices when a community is made whole. And that joy is disproportionate, almost offensively so. But then again, I think that’s all a matter of perspective. What may seem disproportionate to the 99 sheep or the 9 coins might be viewed differently by the one sheep or the one coin that goes missing. It has been said that these parables sound foolish and careless until we have experienced the feeling of being that lost sheep or that lost coin. The complexity of this passage is that in a world where we try to define ourselves and communities by who is in and who is out, these parables make the case that God doesn’t rest until everyone is “in,” until everyone is “safe,” until everyone is “found,” until all are fed. God rejoices when a community is made whole.
And if God rejoices when a community is made whole, then God weeps when it is fractured. Jesus knew his followers lived in a culture full of violence, discord, and division. That’s why he told these three stories of lost things—lost coins, lost sheep, and lost sons. The text tells us that two different groups of people were present as he told these parables. On one side, there are the tax collectors and the “sinners.” On the other side, there are the Pharisees and the scribes. Culturally, the tax collectors and the “sinners” were on the “outside,” looking in, while the Pharisees and the scribes were on the “inside,” looking out.
The passage presents two significantly different verbs. Both groups have gathered in Jesus’ presence, but Luke describes them in very different terms. The tax collectors and the “sinners,” we’re told, came near to Jesus “to listen to him.” Conversely, the Pharisees and the scribes are described with a different verb. They, we’re told, were “grumbling.” Listening and grumbling—those are two profoundly different postures. And those two postures were on display during yet another violent week in the life of this fractured nation.
It should be no surprise to any of you that I oppose almost everything Charlie Kirk stood for. But he was a beloved child of God, just like me and just like you. And you and I cannot praise God and glorify violence in the same breath. I will say from this pulpit what I’ve said many times before: political violence is contrary to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, no matter how much we may disagree or even despise the people on the receiving end. As a progressive faith leader, I fully condemn all forms of political violence. Charlie Kirk, even though he publicly claimed that gun deaths were an acceptable price to pay for our Second Amendment rights, did not deserve what happened to him last week.
And so, you and I are left to hold two things in uncomfortable tension: on one hand, we affirm that the violence done to him was wrong; and, on the other hand, I believe that the nature of his death doesn’t erase the fact that much of what he did and said was itself an act of violence against women, persons of color, immigrants, our Muslim neighbors, and our LGBT neighbors. How do we hold these two things together? How do we honor our Christian values of inclusivity while loving our enemies and holding one another accountable? That’s a lot to juggle. But I do know that there are at least two ways we can approach this when trying to maintain a healthy balance: we can grumble or we can listen.
Like the Pharisees and scribes, we can grumble. Grumbling comes in many forms:
We can turn to social media and yell. Instead of seeing social media as a way to connect, we can view it as a place to vent frustrations, hide behind anonymity, and feed an algorithm that promotes extreme, provocative, and inflammatory content.
Grumbling can also show up as pointing fingers instead of offering solutions. We’ve created a culture where we define ourselves by what (or who!) we oppose rather than what we support.
Grumbling can also manifest as judgmental attitudes. We might cling to stereotypes or preconceived notions about certain groups without taking the time to learn their stories or struggles.
These forms of grumbling come easily to us. We don’t need to “train” ourselves to do them; they happen naturally, especially because we’re shaped by a culture that rewards conflict and discourages compromise. The harder choice, the road less traveled, is the one of listening.
Listening can look like empathy and compassion. It can also involve embracing the theological truth that gentleness is not a sign of weakness. In fact, it’s one of the most powerful actions we can take in this callous culture.
Listening means taking the time to educate yourself. TikTok is not a substitute for medical advice from your doctor regarding vaccines. Just because something is on Facebook doesn't make it true! Don’t be so quick to share that post until you’ve verified it with a reputable source. Sometimes, listening means resisting the urge to jump into the fray and contribute before doing the work to discern whether our voice is needed, helpful, or appropriate.
Sometimes, listening means taking a chance and reaching across the divide. About this time last year, I began my research in full for my doctoral thesis. We also had a four-week sermon series on what it means to be neighborly toward one another during another especially bitter election season. My research focused on how collaborative congregational song can help reduce the division that has inevitably infiltrated all kinds of faith communities. Part of our work together included a congregational exercise in writing “hymn-ku’s,” simple short verses written in the same meter as a haiku, the Japanese poetry technique. After inviting folks to write their own verses, we sang some of those verses and printed the authors' names in the bulletin insert. Fast forward three or four months, and it was time for me to collect data through anonymous surveys, individual interviews, and a focus group here at the church. One of my favorite pieces of data was an anecdote from someone who was especially moved by the haiku exercise. You may remember that each person was invited to write a “hymnku,” a general prayer for our congregation or nation during this election season. This person told me that as we were singing the verses, they looked at the authors’ names and noticed that one was someone they knew who voted very differently than they did. But what struck them was what the other congregant wrote. They said, “[as we were singing the hymn, I noticed that] what they wanted for the world was so kind. [This inspired me to reach out to them] to have a meaningful conversation with them about their hopes and how they see the world, and why they see it that way.” Friends, that’s what listening looks like. I don’t know what the outcome of that conversation was, but I do know that without having more conversations like that and actively listening to each other, we’re not going to turn away from the violent path this country seems to be on.
This sermon was meant to focus on evangelism, a word that makes those of us on the more progressive end of Christianity deeply uncomfortable. Because of this week’s bloody events, the focus of this sermon changed. However, I do believe that modeling a kind of community that actively listens to one another is actually a very powerful way that you and I can evangelize. You and I can commit today, here and now, to doing our best to be like the sinners and the tax collectors and “listen” instead of “grumbling” like the Pharisees and the scribes.
And one way we can listen is by opening our holy curiosity to these two parables Jesus shares with his church today. One parable features a shepherd who throws caution into the wind to find the one lost sheep, and the other describes a woman who spends more on celebrating the discovery of a coin than the value of that very coin itself!
I mentioned earlier that Mr. Spock would have been puzzled by today’s parables. After all, they contradict his Vulcan logic, which holds that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. You see, that particular Vulcan proverb gains special significance at the end of the 1982 Star Trek film, “The Wrath of Khan.” Captain Kirk’s arch-nemesis Khan activates a deadly weapon whose impending explosion threatens the USS Enterprise. However, the ship’s warp drive is damaged, endangering their chance to escape the blast. Spock sacrifices himself on a suicide mission by entering the radiation-filled engine room to repair the warp drive just in time for the Enterprise to escape, saving its crew. As Spock dies, he tells his friend, Captain Kirk, that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
But the next movie in the series provides a beautiful reversal to that Vulcan logic. The 1984 sequel to “The Wrath of Khan” was a film called “The Search for Spock.” Spoiler alert: Spock gets miraculously reincarnated but in danger, but the crew of the USS Enterprise, his closest friends, defiantly choose to disobey Starfleet’s orders to abort their mission to save him. Their decision to risk their lives to rescue him contrasts with his Vulcan sensibilities. According to his friends, sometimes caution must be thrown into the wind when one of their own is lost and needs to be found. Sometimes, they counter, the needs of the few (or the one) outweigh the needs of the many.
Friends, God rejoices when a community is made whole. After weeks like this one, it might seem like we’re as far from that goal as a nation can be. But you and I can choose a different path. We can decide to live as a community of Christian disciples who understand that our work isn't finished until all are found. Jesus and his followers lived during a time of intense political violence; so do we. But we won't let that stop us from our calling to listen to one another and do the messy, hard, but beautiful work of seeing the image of God in every coin, every sheep, and every person.
In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s lost and found sheep, say: Amen.