St George's Cathedral, Cape Town

A sermon preached by The Revd Bruce W. B. Jenneker in the Cathedral Church of St George the Martyr, on the Twenty-fourth Sunday of the Year, 16 September2007

The purpose of our Lord's life and ministry was clear and unambiguous, simple and direct: his mission was to proclaim in word and deed the meaning, power and depth of God's love. His calling was to announce to the world that the love of God creates, redeems and sustains the universe, that the love of God embraces every hidden corner of loneliness, darkness and despair to make it radiant with faith and hope, that the love of God penetrates furthest reaches of isolation and wretchedness to bring back home those who have lost their way, giving them the oil of joy for their mourning, a garland for their ashes. God's love, our Lord proclaimed in his preaching and healing, is as wide as the universe, so deep that it penetrates and includes the most abject suffering, so encompassing that no sin can prevent its embrace.

This is the good news of Christ's Gospel: that at the heart of the heart of the universe there is a Love that chooses all things, that yearns to nurture and protect everything, that holds all things together, that takes delight in everything, honours and cherishes all things. This is Christ's Gospel.

Somehow this good news is very hard to grasp. We remember how unloved we are. We recall how infrequently it is love that shapes our experience, how seldom love seems to be behind the actions of people, society, the world. If we are honest we remember how unloving we are, how very often it is pride and greed and selfishness and revenge that shape our actions, not love.

Because his good news is very hard to grasp, Jesus tells stories to open our minds to a truth that lies beyond our ken, shake up our assumptions that are by nature narrow and selfish, to give us a new perspective for our threadbare and unexamined outlook. These are not stories about lost sheep and lost coins. These are stories about the nature of God and the worth of every human person in the eyes of God. Jesus tells them so that we can come to understand who God is, and know the nature of the love with which God embraces us.

The story Jesus tells begins like any one of the great, classic tragedies. Someone possesses a great deal – a hundred sheep, ten valuable coins – not just a few sheep, or a single coin. No, many more than one, more than enough, an over abundance, one might even say. Amplitude of possessions can shape one's view of the world. Whether it is friends, or things, or status, if we possess them, we let them define us. They also define those round about us. We have, they don't; we are better, they are inferior; we deserve prosperity, they deserve their wretchedness. Our complacency renders us completely self-absorbed, driven by a distorted view of ourselves, of the people around us, and of the world in which we live. We lose ourselves in things and in status. The more we have the less we value ourselves and the less worth we find in ourselves. This is the beginning of tragedy.

It sounds frighteningly familiar, doesn't it? It's my story, its your story. It's the story of Israel and Palestine, of Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, of India and Pakistan, of Tibet, Burma and Timur, of Somalia, and Sudan and Burundi and Congo and Zimbabwe – the list seems interminable. of taxi-wars, and township gangs, and cash-heists, and car-jacking, of violence against women and children, and white collar crime, and corruption in government - the list seems interminable. But more immediate than any of that – it is happening in my relationships, in my family, at my workplace - every time my pride and selfishness undermines trust, every time my competitive spirit derails community. And it is happening in yours.

That's where the story begins – with the overabundance of my stuff, with all my stuff that messes things up, with my selfish insistence on my own way, with my narrow, self-seeking view of reality.

But is that in fact where the story begins? Is the first thing about this story really my stuff? Is it about my hundred sheep and my ten coins? No, not really – that's just the human point of view. The stories that Jesus tells to give us a hint of who God is begin as they end - with God's love. It is God who has a hundred sheep, it is God who has ten coins. From a human point of view this is a story about loss and alienation, from God's point of view it is about a love that loves and seeks and finds, and finding, rejoices. If only we could know God's love as intimately as we know our unworthiness. You do not need me to stand here this morning and enumerate the long list of things that you think are wrong with you – you know them well and rehearse them to yourself often enough. And don't worry, I will not be going down the list of my own failings, God knows what's wrong with us – and that knowledge doesn't put our relationship with God at risk. Rather it is the beginning of our being brought home to the goodness, truth and beauty that we were made to be.

You are quite sure that you will never find true love because of how bad you are. You are quite sure that you will never know professional success because of how deficient you are. You are quite sure that something awful is going to happen tomorrow because of the terrible person you are. You are quite sure that you are not worthy, that you don't count, that you don't matter. Yes, we camouflage our self-doubt, we cover-up our self-disgust. But deep down where we know ourselves, we are convinced that we are not the best, that we will be left behind when all are gathered in, that we will be excluded, rejected, forgotten.

Our Lord's stories of the lost sheep and the lost coin tell us about a stupendous Love that shatters the prison walls our pride has built. Jesus proclaims a stupendous Love that reaches tenderly into our circles of fear to pick us up and set us free to live in the wideness of God's mercy. Can you risk believing in a Love like this? Can you dare to say Yes to it and live confidently in its embrace? Can you say Yes to the Love that seeks you and finds you, and wants you and loves you? And then, are you ready to hold onto that Love, no matter what?

When life's storms erupt around you and hurl you about, when you lose what is dearest and best, can you hold onto this Love and let it be your strength and stay, your guide and blessing? Can you dare to live your life from a new beginning – not yourself, or your unworthiness, or even your goodness? Can you dare to live your life from a new beginning – from this Love that will not let you go, that holds you when everything else falls apart, that weeps with you when the bottom falls out of your life, that finds you when you have completely lost your way, embraces you, picks you up and bring you home rejoicing?

Jesus told the stories of the lost sheep and the lost coin to let us know who God truly is. And God is Love now and always. Love always and for ever. No matter what. No matter what.

Jesus told these poignant stories because those who thought they were right and righteous, decent and virtuous, were scandalised because he kept company with those who were of no repute, the outcasts, the dregs of society. The good news of Christ's Gospel is both redemption and judgement. It condemns our self-righteousness at the same time that it redeems our unworthiness. God's love is the great equaliser – no one is left out, no one is left behind, no one is excluded ad no one is forgotten.

Our God is the Love that holds the universe together, who is bound to us with cords that can never be broken, who loves is with a love that will never let us go, no a single one of us, ever. This is the Gospel of Christ.

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