Jesus Would Go

 

The Script

 Today, we move into the Gospel of Luke’s fifteenth chapter. 

 For our reading today Buddy has left off the familiar story of the father who had two sons which concludes the chapter. 

 He invites our attention to the first two parables: the one about the lost sheep and the other one about the lost coin. 

 In Luke’s arrangement of the material, Jesus tells these parables in response to complaints that he fraternizes with the unsavory element.

 Our reading includes a few behind the scenes whispers.  Close your Bible.  Just listen---

 

Tax collectors and (“other generally recognized”) sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus.            So Jesus told them this parable to the comfortable never get your hands dirty crowd:    [Psst!  It’s unlikely any of them would be able or willing to imagine themselves in such a degrading position as shepherd.  OK.  Continue.]   [in a stage whisper]  No.     [in a stage whisper]  Not likely.       [in a stage whisper, but shocked, a little louder]  Excuse me?  You leave the ninety-nine?     [in a stage whisper, overwhelmed]  Whatever.      Maybe, I’d just strangle it and cook it.       Cute Jesus. Cute.         At least he didn’t say, “Imagine you were a woman.”       I thought we were talking about Jesus’ consorting with sinners.

The (well read, scrupulous and generally admired) Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling.  They were saying, “This man ought to know better.  Look!  He actually welcomes sinners to his table.  He eats with them.     “Imagine you were a shepherd.          Can’t you see this?    You are responsible for a hundred sheep.      O.K.  One gets lost.  You leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go.       So, you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until you find it.  Don’t you?      And when you find it, wouldn’t you carry it home and rejoice?    And wouldn’t you call your friends together and say, ‘Great news!  The lost sheep…the found sheep.”       Or what woman having ten silver coins,  if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?      9When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’

 

The Message

 When we first came to Kailua, I was intrigued by a bumper sticker I kept seeing on cars, vans and pickups.  “What is the ‘Eddie Wood Company’ anyway,” I wondered.  Woodworking supplier?  Outdoor clothing? 

 After getting stronger corrective lenses, I realized the bumper sticker was even more mysterious.  It wasn’t the Eddie Wood Company at all.  The logo was “Eddie Would Go.”

 It turns out therein lies a story that helps us interpret Jesus’ parable of the shepherd that left the ninety-nine sheep to find and bring back the one that had gotten separated.

The second voyage of the Hokule’a was launched from Magic Island on March 16, 1978.  Most of this information comes from reports in The Honolulu Advertiser.  The governor was there.  Television news crews were there.  The craft was loaded, overloaded by some accounts.  One other thing wasn’t quite right---the weather.

A few hours after getting underway, a large wave broadsided the Hokule’a.  It flipped over  “like a pancake.”  After clinging to the overturned hull overnight and being missed by nearby ships and planes, thirty-one year old Eddie Aikau offered to paddle on his surfboard an estimated twelve miles to Lanai for help.  He guessed it would take five hours.

 It wasn’t an unreasonable idea.  He was a strong paddler.  Hokule’a’s officers decided it was worth a try.  Eddie was adamant anyway.  He leashed the board to his ankle, took a portable strobe light and some oranges and paddled away as crew members held hands and prayed.  It was the last time anyone ever saw him.

 They say that the phrase “Eddie would go” arose from a period earlier than this star crossed voyage.  Because of his considerable water skills, he was the first person without a high school diploma ever hired as a north shore life guard. 

 He pulled people out of waves that were so large no one else was able or willing to attempt a rescue.  Only Eddie would go.  In 1971, his peers voted him Lifeguard of the Year.  His brother died in an accident a month after returning from Vietnam.  After that Eddie began to explore his Hawaiian roots and spirituality.  He took an active interest in the Hokule’a project and Hawaiian cultural renewal.

 A few hours after Eddie disappeared, the Hokule’a crew was spotted and rescued.  The experience had a profound impact upon all were close to it.  Clyde Aikau said, “His legacy is not to live solely for yourself, to help each other, to be of service.” 

 Last night after Taize, Ann Bell told me that the story didn’t stop there.  Nainoa Thompson and Bruce Blankenfeld, current navigator and sailing master of the Hokule’a were members of that crew in 1978.  For a year, everyone considered whether or not to shut down the whole program.  It might just be too dangerous.  Nainoa and Bruce emerged with an even deeper dedication to the work of sailing Hokule’a, learning and teaching the lore of navigation. 

 As everyone knows, the Hokule’a crew has just returned from their most recent project.  It was a 1,200 mile journey called “Navigating Change.”  They wanted to share with children and youth the environmental and ecological lessons and challenges represented by the Hawaiian northwest islands.  Ann was a key crew member.  She set up classroom conference calls with hundreds of children each day.  In due course, Ann will share with us the lessons she took from this pilgrimage.

 Quoted in the paper this morning, Nainoa Thompson said, “I have a lot of questions right now.  This voyage has changed me.” It has raised the issue of our values and our vision back home.”  Bruce Blankenfeld said, “What we’re doing with ‘Navigating Change’ is [trying] to get people to do a little.  If everybody did a little thing, it would make a big difference.  Like using biodegradable soap, because everything ultimately goes to the ocean, and all you have to do is change brands.”

 Tava Taupu, another Hokule’a veteran crew member reflected that “the environment can be protected if people think of it as crew members think of each other and of the canoe.  We need to check on each other, take care of each other.  The canoe is home for you.  If you take care, it takes you 1,000 miles, you go far, far.  If not, you break apart.”

 Thinking of the Hundred Sheep Again

 It was never about sheep, was it?  It was always about people---who and what is important.  Luke puts these parables in the context of complaining about Jesus’ spending so much time with people on the margins.  He thought of it as Jesus coming to seek out the lost.  To my mind, it’s not so much about finding the lost as it is about reuniting those which have become separated.

 I used to wonder about the wisdom of leaving the ninety-nine sheep.  It doesn’t say that they were left in a corral or shelter.  They were just abandoned.  I can just hear them (I have heard them), “Hey want about us?  Who’s going to take care of us?  Don’t leave us.”

 Through the interpretive lens of the “Eddie Would Go” bumper-sticker, I think I can see that Jesus may have left the ninety-nine for their own good.  They are left so that they can learn to work together, just like the crew of the Hokule’a had to and did. 

 So, what about our situation today?

 According to Luke, Jesus’ charter was expressed in words from the prophet Isaiah.  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.  He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, sight to the blind, release to the captives and to proclaim the Jubilee.”

 People all around us are poor, starving for food and good news.  Jesus would go.

 People all around us are blind, groping about for safety, for direction.  Jesus would go.

 People in our neighborhood are captive, enslaved, imprisoned, abused, and forgotten.  Jesus would go.

 No wait!  Actually, Jesus went.  Eddie went.  Nainoa, Bruce, and Ann went.

 What about us?  Would we?  Will we?