Yesterday was the fourth Sunday of Lent. Easter is three weeks away.

That may feel surprising to you. It does to me. Time is confusing right now. Everything is confusing right now.

In the Gospel text for yesterday, Luke 15, there are three stories that may be familiar to us, even if we haven’t spent much time in church. A lost sheep, a lost coin, and a father and two sons. In the posts today and tomorrow, I’m going to make three observations from those stories.

1. Jesus chooses to go to people who admit they aren’t perfect.

The story starts with the Pharisees and teachers of the law complaining about Jesus’s choice of audience. As if he had control over the people who loved to hear him teach. 

There was something compelling about what Jesus was teaching. People who were condemned by the religious people found willing relationship with Jesus. These were people who knew, deep down, that they felt far from God and that it didn’t feel good. People who knew deep down that Jesus seemed to put a face on the invisible God people were talking about, fearing, working to measure up to. People who deep down, didn’t even know what they were going to do about anything. Lost sheep, misplaced coins, runaway sons.

Those were the people Jesus was talking to. We are the people who Jesus is still talking to.

He’s willing to be guilty by association to draw people into relationship.  

Tomorrow, we’ll look at the rest of the story. But here are the observations, in case you miss it.

2. But it’s pretty clear that Jesus isn’t willing to leave people where they are, in lives that don’t work.

3. Jesus is begging people to come home.  You may like a different word. Prompting. Imploring.