August 24th, 2025 - "Bible on Broadway: Rent" - Rev. Dr. T. Ray Wheeler

Matt Nelson: Welcome to the Sermon podcast from First United Methodist

Church in downtown Bentonville.

If you have questions related to what you hear today or just want to find

out more about the ministries of First United Methodist Church, please visit us

online at FUMCbentonville.org or check us out on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok.

Rev. Dr. T. Ray Wheeler: Thank you choir.

They make a pretty good rock opera chorus up here, don't they?

So, uh, today we're looking at Luke 15, one through 32.

It's kind of when Jesus opens up a couple of barrels on the Pharisees and scribes

and tells 'em three different parables in a row about why they need to love people.

And we're also thinking about the story of rent.

It's a story that has, uh, just about everything.

It has family, it has tragedy, it has sorrow, it has joy, and

it has a lot of celebration.

So I think it goes really well with this scripture.

Hey, I invite you to listen for the word of God and this holy scripture

from Luke 15, one through 32.

All the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around Jesus to listen to him.

The Pharisees and legal experts were grumbling saying, this man

welcomes sinners and eats with them, and Jesus told him this parable.

Suppose someone among you had 100 sheep and lost one of them, wouldn't

he leave the other 99 in the pasture and search for the lost one until he.

Finds it.

And when he finds it, he is thrilled and places it on his shoulders.

And when he arrives home, he calls together his friends and neighbors saying

to them, celebrate with me because I have found my lost sheep In the same

way I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who changes

both heart and mind than over 99.

Righteous people have no need to change their hearts and lives.

Or what woman, if she owns 10 silver coins and loses one of them, won't light

a lamp and sweep the house, searching her home carefully until she finds it.

And when she finds it, she calls together her neighbors and friends

and says, celebrate with me because I have found my lost coin.

And the same way I tell you, joy breaks out in the presence

of God's angels over one sinner who changes both heart and life.

And Jesus said a certain man had two sons.

The younger son said to his father, father, give me my

share of the inheritance.

Then the father divided his estate between them and soon afterward, the

younger son gathered everything together and took a trip into a far land.

There he wasted his wealth through extravagant living.

When he had used up all his resources, a severe food shortage arose in that

country and he began to be in need, and he hired himself out to one of the

citizens of that country who sent him out into the field to feed the pigs.

He longed to eat his fill from what?

The pigs?

Eight.

But no one gave him anything.

When he came to his sense, he said, how many of my father's

hired hands have more than enough food, but I'm starving to death?

I will get up and go to my father and say to him.

Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you, and I no longer

deserve to be called your son.

Take me on as one of your hired hands.

So he got up and went to his father.

While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and

was moved with compassion.

His father ran to him and hugged him and kissed him, and then his

son said, father, I've sinned against heaven and against you.

I no longer deserve to be called your son.

But the father said to the servants, quickly bring the best robe and put it

on him, and put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet and fetched

the fatted calf to slaughter it.

We must celebrate with feasting because this son of mine was dead

and he has come back to life.

He was lost in his found and they began to celebrate.

Now his older son was in the field coming in from the field.

He approached the house and heard music and dancing, and he called one of the

servants and asked what was going on.

And the servant replied, your brother has arrived and your father has

slaughtered the fatted calf because he received his son back safe.

And.

Out.

Then the older son was furious and didn't want to enter in, but his

father came out and begged him.

He answered his father, look, I have served you all these years.

I've never disobeyed even one of your instructions yet.

You've never even given me as much as a young goat so I could

celebrate with my friends.

But when this son of yours returned after gobbling up your estate on prostitutes,

you slaughtered the fatted calf for him.

Him and then his father said, son, you are always with me,

and everything I have is yours.

But we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of

yours was dead and is alive.

He was lost and is found.

This is the word of God for us, the people of God and be God.

I'd love it if you'd have a quick prayer with me this morning.

Holy God.

I ask you to open our hearts and minds.

Either because of me or in spite of me.

Let your message go out and bear fruit for your people.

In Christ's name we pray.

Amen.

So as I've been thinking about rent and all of these parables in Luke, there's

a meme that's been going around on social media and it just keeps popping

up, and I keep thinking about it.

It's a picture of Jesus preaching you.

Maybe you've seen this when he's preaching, looks like he's preaching

maybe the Sermon on the Mount.

And he says, love your neighbor.

And from the crowd around him, someone yells, who is my neighbor?

And Jesus says, it's whoever you were hoping I wouldn't say.

And that's a pretty good starting point for a sermon based on Jesus's

parables from Luke and the musical rent.

The question that kept rolling around in my head was, which

humans on this planet are worthy of love and acceptance and safety?

Who is worthy?

So I wanna take a a minute and look at the characters in Luke, who are the Pharisees?

And the legal experts, well, the Pharisees were religious leaders.

They were guardians of the law.

They were well respected for their knowledge and their piety,

and they represent those who see themselves as righteous and

set apart from unclean people.

But they were well respected by the middle and lower class.

It was more of the Sadducees that were the wealthier priest class.

They were in the temple.

But the Pharisees would talk to the regular folks out on the street.

They would keep them apprised of the law and the sayings of Moses,

and they were their entrance into being pure to being right with God.

So the lower class and the middle class Jewish community

respected the Pharisees a lot.

They valued that law.

That was their entrance to being right with God.

And if Jesus hadn't been who he was, he might've been a Pharisee, or he might've

been a big supporter of the Pharisees because they were for the common folk.

But Jesus is the Son of God and he's preaching a gospel that liberates

people from the purity laws and opens the kingdom of God to those who are

marginalized and those who are outcasts.

So who are the tax collectors and the sinners?

I'm always kind of amused.

It's always tax collectors that get the bad rap.

They're, how are you eating with tax collectors?

It was a little different back then.

These tax collectors were probably Jewish people, Hebrew people who

were collecting taxes for the Romans.

They were taking in money and maybe taking a little extra and keeping that.

They were betrayers of their own people.

So that's pretty low.

And then sinners is just a broad term for people who are living

outside of religious respectability.

They're, they're not following the law, and certainly they were very

offended that Jesus would eat with these people who were unclean.

So when the Pharisees grumble about this, you know, you're eating with tax

collectors and sinners, we think about rent because in the opening of rent,

we meet eight characters and we're gonna follow them for a whole year.

They will become a chosen family, a community, if you will.

And these characters are outcasts.

Most of them live in poverty.

They there, there's a group of them that live in a building

that's mostly abandoned.

It really kinda looks abandoned to me.

Electricity's a little iffy.

Don't always pay the rent.

If they get coal, they build a fire in a barrel.

They're just basically living subsistence.

So most of these folks are artists.

One's a filmmaker, one's a singer.

Four of these folks are HIV positive.

Some are in the queer community.

Some have been addicts, and they kind of fall in and out of addiction.

They're outcasts, like the sinners, that Jesus' table.

They don't look respectable.

Both Jesus and the story in Wr confronts his questions.

Who matters?

Who is worthy?

Then Jesus tells the lost sheep.

He's not done with these pharisees and scribes.

He tells the story of the lost sheep.

You have a hundred sheep and one goes wandering off, and you leave

the 99 and go and find that sheep and put it on your shoulders and

bring it back and have a celebration.

The lost is found.

I've found my lost.

She.

And when I was rewatching that musical, I really thought of

the character angel in rent.

She's a young drag queen.

She's kind of, society would miss her importance.

She makes her living playing a five gallon bucket on the street, but she becomes

the heart of this chosen community.

She's the one that others overlook, but she's the most precious in this story

because she brings all of them together.

Her and I think Angel represents that lost sheep from the parable.

God goes after those who are left behind.

Love seeks out the least and the lost, and then Christ tells

the story of the lost coin.

The woman who loses the silver coin, she has 10 but can only find nine,

and she sweeps the house and she lights lamps until she finds the coin

and says, come and let's celebrate.

I found what was lost.

And I kind of see in Rent the song that made me think of This is No Day,

but today that kind of echoes this.

They're saying each moment is precious and every moment is a cause for celebration

because God is valuing every soul in that moment and nothing or no one is

too small or too outcast to celebrate.

You see that in all of those parables because every parable ends with a party.

What is lost is found, and what is broken is restored because God measures

in love and that is worth celebrating.

And finally, Jesus tells the story of the prodigal.

And it's only found in the gospel of Luke when he's given the business

to these Pharisees and scribes.

The younger brother takes his inheritance and he goes into a far

country, squanderers his money, and then he gets a job feeding the pigs.

If you were a Jewish audience listening to that, you'd be pretty

offended that he's feeding pigs.

So he gets this job and he comes to his senses and says, I need to go back home.

Even the servants eat better than I'm eating.

And so he goes back.

He expects to tell his dad.

Don't take me in.

I can't be your son.

I have sinned against you and against heaven.

But his father sees him from a long way out, sees this dirty character coming

and recognizes his son, and runs and embraces him with joy and with love,

and says, bring the best role, bring a ring, and bring sandals for his feet.

This is my son who is dead and is alive again.

This is my son who is lost and is alive again.

So despite brokenness, forgiveness and love always win in God's kingdom.

'cause grace doesn't calculate, it welcomes home, it heals wounds,

and it restores community in the kingdom of heaven while was lost,

is found while it was broken, is restored because God measures in love.

And at the end of the prodigal son's story, you know, the.

Older son, we can kind of see his position.

He comes in, they're partying, he's told this, and he goes, wow,

I, I've been here all this time.

I've been doing everything you've asked, and you're gonna celebrate

this bum who goes over to another country and spends all of his money.

And the father says, we have to celebrate and rejoice because this brother of

yours who was dead has come to life.

I've gotten my precious son back.

Okay.

And in rent, we see, even in grief toward the middle of the

story, two thirds of the way.

In Angel, one of the main characters dies of hiv aids.

And there's kind of a celebration even when Angel's in the hospital,

they're bringing balloons, they're singing, they're lifting one another's

spirits and lifting angels spirit.

And then when they gather for the funeral, they sing and dance and

demonstrate the love that they had for Angel and that Angel had for them.

Their celebrations are acts of defiant joy.

God's kingdom is like a party where the lost are found, the broken are

healed, and love is celebrated.

The reoccurring theme, God's love measures differently than the world comes to play.

All through this story, the refrain from rent asks, how do

you measure a year in a life?

And the gospel answers.

We measure it in love like the Father and the prodigal son.

God welcomes us home with joy and like the friends in rent, we're called to

build communities of radical love.

'cause in the end, the only true measure of our life is love.

God doesn't measure life in money or power or success.

God measures lives in love.

Glory be to God.

Amen.

Matt Nelson: Thanks for listening to the Sermon podcast from First United

Methodist Church in downtown Bentonville.

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Grace and peace.