Sermon at Saint Margaret’s Anglican Church, Budapest (2025.09.14)14th Sunday after Pentecost, Year C

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; Psalm 14; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10

Scrupulousness vs Scrupulosity

Our Gospel Reading begins with significant tension – the Pharisees and scribes were grumbling because Jesus was breaking long-standing rabbinical rules by also welcoming tax-collectors and sinners to the table. For them, this was a dangerous breach of purity. Israel had been called to be holy, to be a light to the nations. Purity mattered..

Sadly then, as now, the lack of righteousness and moral failings of religious leaders has a massive impact on the credibility of their teaching and the community they represent. So striving for purity is not, in itself, a bad thing. Indeed it is essential.

Being scrupulous – taking holiness seriously – is good. But when scrupulousness hardens into scrupulosity – an obessive-compulsive adherence to rules untethered from the “spirit of the law”, the overarching purpose they were designed to achieve – scrupulosity becomes destructive. The Pharisees had crossed that line.

Grumbling in the wilderness

Second, we’re told that the religious leaders were grumbling. 

My kids often grumble when we assign them chores. But grumbling in Scripture is a loaded term. 

Grumbling was the cardinal sin of the Israelites in the wilderness – which not coincidentally is where the shepherd leaves the 99 sheep to go after the one; the wilderness. 

Throughout the 40 years in the wilderness, the Israelites grumbled against Moses, against God, against their lack of food – they grumbled about seemingly everything that wasn’t going according to the way they hoped life would go.  And sadly, they were often punished because of it, with sickness, plagues, and even death in some instances. 

So when Luke tells us the Pharisees grumbled, it signals more than discontent. It marks resistance to God’s saving work.

The value of sinners?

Jesus responds with two parables. A shepherd leaves ninety-nine sheep to find one that is lost, and a woman turns her house upside down to recover a lost coin.

In the first, a sheep gets lost, which already tells us something, because sheep don’t often get lost on their own. They are the epitome of herd animals and always stay together (unlike goats).

The shepherd, however, leaves the other 99 sheep in the wilderness to go after the lost one, and after finding it, brings it back on his shoulders and hosts a feast for his friends and neighbours to celebrate its recovery. 

The question lingers: is one worth all that trouble? Wouldn’t it be wiser to protect the ninety-nine, or cut your losses and move on? After all, it’s only 1% of the total investment.

Let’s imagine Saint Margaret’s keeps growing and next year we average 100 people on Sunday. What if one of those newcomers gets into some real trouble – steals some money from their workplace or has an affair with their colleague – and word spreads? Should we, as clergy, set aside preparing the sermon and Order of Service, skip our planned pastoral visits, etc., and run after that person who wandered off? 

And what impact would integrating them back in the community have, even if they were repenant? That’s the question the Pharisees were asking. Don’t you risk polluting the whole thing?

The second parable addresses that question of worth. Instead of 1%, the lost coin is one out of ten – 10%. And if your pension suddenly loses 10% of its value, that is cause for concern.

Interestingly, both parables end with joy, with a feast, which probably cost more than the worth of the sheep or the silver drachma. The math doesn’t add up, but the algorithm of grace doesn’t follow human calculations. Heaven rejoices when even one sinner repents.

How should we interpret this passage?

Over the course of history, theologians have interpreted these parables in various ways.  

• The Patristics saw in the coin the image of God, stamped on us, and the woman as the Church persistently seeking the lost as the Spirit illuminates our hearts.

• The Medievals emphasized themes of penance, Christ bearing our sins, and the diligence of the woman as a metaphor for the mystical search for hidden grace through contemplative prayer

• The Reformers emphasized grace over works, and God’s initiative in our salvation

• Modern Critical theologians gravitate toward social inclusion, redefined community boundaries, and the restoration of human value

All make important contributions but the common denominator is that God takes the initiative to seek the lost, and heaven rejoices when they are found.

But that still doesn’t answer the question of why. Why do lost sinners matter to God?

Jesus came to “seek and save the lost”

Jesus is not random in his imagery. Ezekiel spoke against the leaders of Israel as having neglected their responsibility as shepherds, leaving Israel scattered “like sheep without a shepherd.” Furthermore, Ezekiel proclaimed:

For thus says the LORD God: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness … I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak. (Ezek. 34:11-16)

In other words, the whole point of Christ’s incarnation – his life, death and resurrection – was to “seek and save the lost” as he says a few chapters later in Luke. Jesus didn’t come to preach nice homilies on the beach for the 99, but to seek after the one. 

So if you are here today and you identify with the lost sheep – let’s schedule a time to get together and talk. 

On the other hand, if you identify with the 99, Isaiah reminds us that “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way” (Isa 53:6). The truth is, all of us need carrying.

But that’s not the main point for Jesus here. In calling out the religious leaders, Jesus is simultaneously inviting each of us to follow in his footsteps – to be shepherds that seek after the lost.

Saint Margaret’s can’t merely be a home for the 99 Anglican expats in Budapest. Christ calls us to be a community that seeks after those who have lost their way, whoever they might be. And I’m excited about continuing to discern together what that means for us as individuals as well as for us as a church.

Amen.