Last week, we heard two of a series of three parables from Luke 15 about losing and the limits of meritocracy in the parables of the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin. I hinted (ok, actually I promised) that we’d get the story of the lost son today. Apparently, the Revised Common Lectionary had another idea! It’s supposed to go: lost sheep, lost coin, lost son. The lectionary says: lost sheep, lost coin … dishonest manager??!! Really? WTF: “Where’s the flow??!!” This is just shifting gears without a clutch! I understand the reasoning behind why the lectionary drops the Lost Son (a/k/a the Prodigal Son) story. They have, of course, rightly deduced that ALL of you were sitting right here on the Fourth Sunday in Lent (Year C) to hear me preach that text … right? Of course … and I know because I can pretty much “take roll” of who is here by where you sit each Sunday. Want to mess with me? Sit in different seats next Sunday … it will totally blow my roll taking system to pieces … which is entirely consonant with the theme of grace in these parables.

Those of you from more Protestant traditions are familiar with pastors who do preaching series where they take a topic, make several sermons on it and weave Scripture into their sermons. I don’t roll like that. I’m a Lectionary based preacher and I start with the readings and work my way back into life. But today … I’m going to make an exception and continue a series … AND … (“But wait! There’s more!!”) weave in today’s Gospel reading too. So we’ll get Lost Sheep, Lost Coin, Lost Son … and Lost Scruples.

So catching up from last week, we have sinners and tax collectors coming from all around to listen to Jesus and in the background, like a Greek chorus, are the Pharisees and scribes who say, “This man welcomes sinners … and eats with them!” Jesus then launches into three parables claiming how being lost is exactly what is required for grace to find you. He tells of a lost sheep (1 out of 100 – a 1% loss), a lost coin (1 of ten drachma – a 10% loss) and now he tells of a lost son (1 of 2 – a 50% loss). In each parable, the loss mounts. In this last one being both lost and dead come together.

One of my favorite authors, Father Robert Farrar Capon, in his book Kingdom, Grace, and Judgment: Paradox, Vindication and Outrage in the Parables of Jesus calls this parable a “festival of death.” I love that! And he is right … pretty much everybody, with the exception of the eldest son, dies … at least metaphorically. It is a parable where the youngest son acts in a shameful way by telling his father to drop dead by giving him his share of the inheritance – and amazingly the father does just that. He divides the wealth between his sons: youngest son getting one third and the eldest getting the two-thirds double portion which was first century Palestine’s version of social security – eldest son would now take care of dad in his dotage. But in essence, the father ceases to be the pater familias – he is no longer in charge, he has dropped dead. The younger son goes off and “squandered his wealth in a wild lifestyle.” The Greek says he “scattered his substance” on a “riotous life.” In essence, he blew it all … and then some. It wasn’t just the money … it was his whole substance. In addiction parlance, we might say he was heading for rock bottom. And then a famine came and he had to take a job … feeding the … pigs! How low can a nice Jewish boy go? Evidently, just a bit lower because looking at hog slop and thinking, “That looks good!” is probably slightly worse. So he has figured out that living life on his terms is over - he's dead. He devises a way to go home by saying, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” It may sound like he’s still trying to eke out some shred of dignity with that last contrivance of being a hired hand. But I think there is another dynamic at work. Adding that little phrase on to the end gives his father a face saving way of taking him back. Let’s face it, he shamed the old man and the son knows it. He’s giving dad a way to take him back and recover his dignity. He's actually thinking of his father's well-being - getting out of his own selfish head for once. But we know the father’s dignity doesn't matter – he’s dead, remember? When you've died, you don’t worry about saving face. So when this son comes home his father runs to meet him, kisses him and the son gets out, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” That’s it … game over. There’s the unvarnished truth – he’s dead and he knows it. Now grace steps in. His father clothes him in a fine robe, puts a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet and kills the fatted calf for a party.

But then … queue the ominous music … the older brother shows up. Yes, Captain Buzzkill has reported for duty! He’s not dead yet. He’s still in the merit badge business of keeping score. He throws a hissy fit and complains to his father that he’s worked hard, played by the rules and never had a party … “But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!”

Freeze frame … hold it right there … let’s admit it … we totally get the older brother. It doesn't matter how prodigal we may have been in our lives, we still see the inherent unfairness of this, don’t we? But the point of the parable isn't fairness – it’s about grace and grace is NEVER, EVER fair. Grace is … that’s all. Grace just is and we never, ever earn it. The older brother thinks we do, and sometimes we think we do … and the Pharisees overhearing this story definitely think we do … but that’s not how it works. What works is being a loser and dropping dead. God can work with that because it gets us and our small, finite, dead egos out of the way.

Which brings us to a really weird parable: the Dishonest Manager. Jesus is now going to use a really smarmy guy as an example … as if the Pharisees don’t have enough of a burr in their shorts already. This manager is brought up on charges he is squandering the rich man’s property – and the word for “squander” is exactly the same as the one in the parable of the Lost Son. Without an investigation or fair trial, the rich man fires the manager – so like the lost son, this manager is dead … or any semblance of his life is over. The manager (who is Jon Lovitz’s Tommy Flanagan in this version) thinks it through: “So … fire me will you? Well … two can play at that game. I’ll give you an accounting … after a few adjustments. Yeahhh! That’s the ticket!” I think he cooks the books for a couple of reasons. First, he ingratiates himself with the debtors who just might look favorably on him when he finally is out of a job (“Hey, you remember when old Tommy did you a favor??”). Second, he may actually have been able to collect some of this debt by reducing it and thus given his boss at least some return on the money and goods owed. The latter might explain why the rich man commends the dishonest manager in the end – not for his dishonesty, but for his shrewdness: his ability to think on his feet and get out of an impossible situation. This guy who flouts the rules ends up exalted for his creative solution to an intractable problem.

And isn't this just what Christ does for us? Yes, I think the dishonest manager is the Christ figure in this story. Who else steps outside the lines of propriety, meritocracy and score keeping in order cook up a clever solution to the intractable problem of our lost, dead lives by getting nailed to a cross? Try as we might, no matter how we try to dress him up, Jesus is not a respectable guy! Remember? This is how the whole narrative starts … “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them!” No respectable person would cavort with the riff-raff Jesus does! He has no scruples … at least according to human standards. That’s the point … Jesus is disreputable by the measures of polite society precisely because he blows off the merit badge system of earning “brownie points,” following the rules, and hanging out with the A-listers to dive straight into grace by a dishonorable death on a cross … which in the end is the only thing that saves us.

So for all of us lost sheep, lost coins, lost sons and daughters … are you ready to lose your scruples too and turn your lives over to a shady manager who stands ready to erase your debt?

Last Thursday marked the 5 year anniversary of the fall of Lehman Brothers – you know, the investment firm that started the domino chain of events resulting in our most recent economic crash; ironic this happened 7 years and 1 day after the attacks of 9/11. Both 9/11 and the market crash of 2008 have produced fundamental shifts in our culture. They both mark the end of a way of life we’ve known: a way marked by our country being a political and economic superpower. Oh, we’re still pretty powerful … but it isn’t the same and our world isn’t the same and if we are honest, it’s left us feeling anxious, vulnerable and even fearful.

And so last Thursday when I was listening to NPR’s Morning Edition, I overheard an interview with an economist from George Mason University name Tyler Cowen. Like most folks on the interview circuit, he’s promoting his new book in which he makes some predictions about our economic and social future. The first thing he says is that income inequality is increasing. Really? How could I have missed that??!! I guess being an economist is like being a priest – a major part of our vocation is pointing out the glaringly obvious (the difference, I suppose, is in the royalties). But he also goes on to say that he believes there will be a different kind of meritocracy emerging in America. Now we are a country founded on the mythology of meritocracy – the idea that one can work hard and get ahead because you are rewarded on your merit. Now in theory, that sounds great, right? Work hard, play by the rules, and get rewarded for it. Slack off, screw up and … well … you’ll get “rewarded” alright … but with a very different kind of reward. Now don’t get me wrong – we are a country where meritocracy does exist to some extent, imperfectly but that’s the nature of human experience. And hey, I’m a parent, rewards and consequences are something we need to teach our children so they can hopefully cope in this world.

But meritocracy has its limits … and the kind of meritocracy that Tyler Cowen sees coming I find profoundly disturbing. He believes that there will be a larger class of people who become “wealthy” (not sure what his definition of wealth is, but that’s another sermon). And he believes we will be recognized on our merits at earlier ages as long as we work hard and play by the rules. But (and this is a big BUT) the information age is creating a very ruthless form of meritocracy because of the sheer amount of data being collected on each and every one of us. And we’re not talking about the government collecting data – we are talking about corporations: JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, TransAmerica, Google, Yahoo, and others who are tracking all your commercial transactions – what you buy, where you buy it, your likes and dislikes, your credit score and whether you’ve declared bankruptcy. Add to this the for-profit insurance companies, doctors and hospitals who know your entire medical history and the legal system who knows whether or not you’ve been sued or arrested. There is a lot of data being collected on you and me … and most of it held by for-profit companies. Cowen’s theory is this data will be used to ruthlessly scrutinize us to see if we “play by the rules” and whether or not we get rewarded … with a job, a promotion, a good interest rate on that next loan, a pay raise. Cowen posits that for those who toe the line, the rewards will be great and for those who fall down, either through their own fault or by circumstances beyond their control, there will be no second chances … let alone third and fourth ones. One screw up and you are … finished. How do you feel about that meritocracy now? Makes me glad I got most of my screw ups out of the way before the internet came along!

But in all seriousness, this Orwellian vision of the future crashed headlong into today’s Gospel reading because it’s all about the futility of meritocracy and finding the lost. Luke tells us how the outcasts (sinners) are all flocking to Jesus to listen to him. This generates grumbling among the Pharisees and the scribes – you know, those guys who toe the line and play by the rules … the “A listers” of religious and political meritocracy. I mean really … this Jesus guy not only welcomes sinners but he EATS with them! Ewwww!! Like being a sinner gives you “sinner cooties” and you can catch them if you get too close. So Jesus, hearing the grumbling, tells two parables about why their merit badge system doesn’t count for much.

Now before we talk about the main point of the parables, I want to deal with what they are not about. They are not about repentance. I know, I know, Jesus talks about there being joy in heaven over the sinner who repents at the end of both stories. But the bulk of the wording of the stories focuses on being “lost” not repenting and the idea that a sheep or a coin can repent is just silly. I’m convinced the closing shot about repentance is kind of a snark-o-rama crack from Jesus aimed at the “play by the rules” gang who think they are not lost (they are, you know, they just haven’t figured it out yet).

Both of these stories focus completely on grace and how being lost is the key to receiving it. In fact, there are three stories in a row about “lostness” in Luke 15: a lost sheep, a lost coin, and next week we’ll hear about a lost son. Jesus, being a good rabbi, asks them a question: “Which one of you, 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?” Now I’m no expert on sheep, but this sounds like a really stupid idea. Leave 99 sheep in the wilderness?? What, so they can wander off and get lost too? In practicality, this doesn’t sound like a “good shepherd” at all … sounds like a dumb one to me. But that’s because I’m not the “Good Shepherd” – God is. And God isn’t worried about the 99 getting lost. So what if they do? God’s best work is in finding the lost. That’s the point! This is the same God who, even if all the coins get lost, will sweep the floor until she finds every last one. The one lost sheep or coin … or the 100 lost sheep and 10 lost coins (it doesn’t matter) … will be relentlessly pursued by God who is both Good Shepherd and peasant woman until they are found. All the sheep and the coin have to do let themselves be found.

You see, being lost is completely counter to the culture of meritocracy. Meritocracy says you can redeem yourself by your own efforts: your own cleverness, intelligence, and rule keeping. Oh, you may even buy into this myth for a time … until that day comes when your rule keeping efforts don’t seem to matter. You get laid off from that job through no fault of your own. You have a serious illness even though you followed the rules of eating right and getting exercise. You make a bad investment and lose your savings. Your spouse cheats on you or a loved one dies. You see, even if you play by the rules, you are still lost … and still dead. Lost and dead are closely connected in the parables. The lost sheep is as good as dead by itself in the wilderness and the lost coin is a dead asset.

The paradoxical good news of this is that no matter how much we want to resist being lost or dead by our merit based games, the truth is that God’s redemptive power can only work with the lost and dead. It is only when we hit that wall and the curtain is drawn back to expose that merit based living is a fraud with no lasting value that we can accept our being lost and dead as a good thing. In giving up the pretense that “merit badge” systems are important to God (which they aren’t), we surrender to being lost and dead and we come to know that getting found and brought back to life is going to happen not through our own efforts, but through the grace of a power outside ourselves.

And this is why these parables are even beyond good news … they are great news. These parables of lostness are not calls to repentance. They are not telling us that we need to have a moral change of heart before God will find us. No! As Paul said in Romans 5:8 – “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” We do not have to get our act together to be found (as if we could … and we can’t!). All God needs from us is to be lost and dead … and we’re actually quite good at that. When we own our lostness and deadness only then can we be found by God and receive the gift of grace. God finds us, not in the garden of merit and self-improvement, but lost in the desert of death; and through the power of the resurrected Christ, God carries us home across her shoulders rejoicing.

It’s back-to-school time … so that means it is fair game to open a homily with a pop quiz. Fill in the blank: “Six degrees of …” what? … that’s right … six degrees of separation. This is a theory which states that any two living people anywhere in the world can be linked by a maximum of six relational connections. Take me and … Archbishop Desmond Tutu - whom I have never personally met. I have a cousin in England who worked at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and knows the Bishop of London was at Lambeth Conference with Archbishop Tutu. In that case … just two degrees of separation. Then there was the movie by the same name. And eventually someone misheard “Six Degrees of Separation” at a party as “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” which spawned the Kevin Bacon Game where you could take any actor and link them to Kevin Bacon in six hops or less.

Well … it’s my theory (and probably mine alone) that the writers of the Revised Common Lectionary probably played the Kevin Bacon Game somewhere in their seminary careers because I’m not sure you could get more disparate readings than todays … but I could be wrong. First we have this reading from Luke with Jesus talking about hating everyone and even life itself (way to welcome people back from summer!). Readings like this make a preacher think, “Hmmm … wonder what’s in the Jeremiah reading?? Oh … potter with clay … ok. What’s the epistle? Um … runaway slave Onesimus returns. Greaaat!” After wrestling with this all week, I think there is a way these all come together and it has to do with the cost of discipleship and some reassurance when we are asked to give something up to be people of God’s kingdom.

Let’s look at Luke. We are still in the traveling narrative and Jesus is coming near to Jerusalem. I think the key to this passage is that “large crowds were traveling” with Jesus. People are basically herd animals, aren’t we? If there’s a crowd, we tend to be compelled to go over and join the crowd just to see what’s going on, right? And when there’s a crowd around somebody popular, there are a lot of people there for the wrong reasons. Maybe they are just curious or maybe they want to be cool and look good. No matter … it’s pretty clear that this large crowd had a significant bunch of posers in it and I think Jesus is firing a metaphoric shot across the bow about what his message and ministry really means. Hate is sure to separate the believers from the phonies! So Jesus speaks in hyperbole about what the cost of discipleship is. In essence, he’s challenging them with the question, “What are you willing to give up for the sake of the Kingdom of God?” … what are you willing to give up? It’s not that you’ll be asked to give up father and mother … but you might. Are you willing to do so?

He then goes on to tell two parables: one about a tower builder and another about a king. In both cases, each of these characters may be challenged to give up their dream or vision. In the case of the tower builder, if he doesn’t have enough money to build the tower, no amount of vision and imagination will make it happen. He may have to give up his dream. In the case of the king, if he’s outnumbered, he must relinquish the idea of expanding his territory. In both cases, these characters must let go of their plans for the sake of something greater. Jesus ends this passage with an exhortation to sell all your possessions – another bit of hyperbole but one to remind us to hold our possessions lightly and be willing to let them go for the sake of the Gospel.

In Paul’s letter to Philemon, we hear about a very concrete example of the cost of discipleship. This is a wonderful letter and shows not only Paul’s persuasive rhetorical skills, but also his vision of a new kind of family based on faith not blood ties or social privilege. He is taking up the cause of one runaway slave, Onesimus, whom he refers to as “my child.” We do not know the reason why Onesimus ran away from Philemon. However, we do know that under Roman law, Philemon as “pater familias” had the power of life and death over his entire household – wife, children, and slaves. Onesimus’ return would have been frightening for him as Philemon would have had the legal right to put him to death.

Instead, Paul writes this impassioned letter full of familial imagery. He speaks of Onesimus as his “child” and his “own heart.” He implores Philemon not only to receive Onesimus back as Paul’s equal but “confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.” Paul is pressing for Onesimus’ manumission. The lectionary writers left out the next verse which says: “One thing more – prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping through your prayers to be restored to you.” Not only is Paul making an appeal, he’s letting Philemon know he’ll be coming to check up on this situation!

In essence, Paul uses the rhetoric of honor towards Philemon to remind him that the cost of his discipleship is that he will give up his legal rights under Roman law. The law of Christ demands love – not beatings or death. The cost of discipleship requires Philemon to be transformed from identifying himself as a Roman citizen to knowing himself as a citizen of the Kingdom of God. This transformation requires change.

And this kind of transformative change is what our faith in Christ is all about. We may not have the power of life and death over others; however, we are still being called to change for the sake of God’s love. At the end of the Gospel of John, Jesus asks Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” In essence, Jesus asks us something similar: “My child, do you love me more than                   ?” … fill in the blank. That is our question and we will each fill it in differently. My attachments and yours are different … but we both have them. One that comes up for me periodically is when Christ asks me, “Do you love me more than … being right?” Oooooohhh! Yeah, that’s a gut punch … but a necessary one at times. Jesus is so like that! But it is a call to relinquish life on my terms to live for God’s terms.

But letting go of things is scary. I mean, if I give up this part of my identity, who will I be? How will I relate to the world around me if I change? This can be disconcerting and … this is where Jeremiah comes into play. Jeremiah is told to go down to the potter’s house. Now I’m sure many of you have made something out of clay at one time or another (think back to third grade art class). When you work with clay, it is malleable. If you make something and you don’t like how it’s turning out, you can squish it all up and start over. And this is the image Jeremiah sees and it becomes a metaphor for God’s reworking of his people through the catastrophe of the Babylonian conquest and exile. But it also is an image for us because even though the form of what the potter made changed it was still made of the same substance: clay. Clay didn’t stop being clay. And this holds a promise for us because when we are transformed throughout our lives and called over and over to give things up for the sake of the Kingdom of God, we need not fear this transformation because the real underlying substance of our true nature as children of God does not change. Our form may change … but our substance is not destroyed.

The cost of discipleship at times feels very high but it is necessary for us to relinquish our way in order to live more fully into God’s kingdom vision. We will be reworked as clay … but it will always be for the purpose of forming something more pleasing and useful to God.