Luke 15:1-10
1 Now all the tax
collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And
the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow
welcomes sinners and eats with them." 3 So he told them this
parable: 4 "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them,
does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is
lost until he finds it? 5 When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 6 And
when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them,
"Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' 7 Just
so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents
than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. 8 "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? 9 When
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.' 10 Just so,
I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner
who repents."
Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of
the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
·
How do I begin to talk about grace? Grace is what saves us and it is in
grace that “we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) Yet
grace is quite alien to us. We live in a world of merit, of earnings, of profit
and loss and economy.
·
The parables Luke relates to us today shows that Jesus had no concept of
cutting one’s losses. Leave 99 perfectly good sheep in the dangerous and
predator-infested wilderness to seek out one lost one? That’s ridiculous! Throw
a party to celebrate the finding of one coin, a party that would cost more than
the value of the one coin? Now that’s just silly!
·
Ridiculous? Silly? No… that’s Gospel! Jesus isn’t telling his listeners
how to be a shepherd or how to run a household. He’s telling them about his
Father and in that, about himself. The example are ridiculous to us because we
see things from our own perspective rather than God’s. If we can’t wrap our
minds around that, all well and good. It is beyond our understanding and always
will be. It is, however, not beyond our experience.
·
The point of Jesus preaching is not hard to discern. He is speaking to
his disciples while the Pharisees and scribes grumble about how he welcomes
sinners and has table fellowship with them. Both the disciples and those who
criticized him were listening and each one might have taken his point
differently.
·
The real point of both of the parables is the persistence of God. Like
the shepherd who leaves the 99 to search for the lost one, or the woman who
turns the house upside-down searching for the one lost coin, God never stops
searching for the lost.
·
The setting of the parables is unexpected. What appears to be a sort of
false economy (spending more time, effort, and money to find and celebrate the
find than the find was actually worth) truly reflects the effort and
persistence of God in seeking out the “lost”, some of whom were obvious to
those listening and some who were not so obvious.
·
The examples had something to say to each of the groups listening to
Jesus. The “sinners” knew they were on the outs and they could rejoice over the
reconciliation they would know from the words of Jesus. The grace of God was
and is for them, something they believed they could never merit. It’s now
theirs as a gracious gift of a loving God, who is reflected in the shepherd who
seeks the lost sheep or the woman who moves all the furniture in search of a “twonie.”
(What the woman in the parable lost was FAR more than a twonie, but that
example will have to do.)
·
The people who considered themselves “righteous” don’t find quite the
same comfort in the words of Jesus. Yet the same words of grace are for them as
well. They might not have realized their own need for grace, and they might’ve
assumed that their righteous life earned them God’s pleasure and praise. Jesus
has taken them to task for what could be called hypocrisy any number of times. There’s
no need to bring up all those Gospel quotes about such attitudes.
·
No matter if someone is declared righteous or sinner, all are in need of
the Good News of the Gospel. This is a good example of what is called the
Law/Gospel principle. The Law condemns in order to drive the hearer to the
Gospel with gives life. The Law condemns sin while the Gospel provides a remedy
for sin, namely, grace.
·
In today’s parables, the shepherd looking for his lost sheep and the
woman searching for her lost coin are not worried about the worthiness of what
they search for. Neither one has earned the search. To the searchers, the lost
sheep and the lost coin have value TO THEM and that’s all that counts. That is
the Gospel message: God searches out the lost because of their value to God!
·
Do you ever wonder why we use the confession and forgiveness at the
beginning of almost every worship service here? It isn’t to remind us all of
how sinful we may be. That’s a useless exercise and it can be a painful one. The
Confession and forgiveness is a reminder and proclamation of the freedom from
sin that Jesus has promised us. One of
the versions of proclamation of forgiveness says just that. We are even told “By
grace you have been saved.”
·
In the same way, we are not disciples in order to be forgiven our sins
and transgressions; we are forgiven and so we are disciples. God always makes
the first move. It is also the decisive move. When grace is given and accepted,
there is joy in the presence of the angels of God as Luke says.
The joy shown by the shepherd and the woman in the parables today are simply a
reflection of what our God knows. We have no real word for this, accept that
Jesus has promised that this is the case… and we have no reason to doubt it.
·
Those who are considered lost or consider themselves lost are not
forgotten, nor are they written off as “the cost of doing business” by our
Father. Jesus’ presence among his disciples in his body while on earth and his
presence among us still in Word and Sacrament and community are signs of this
continual concern and care.
·
“By grace you have been saved.” There
is no greater message to us.
Just
so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one
sinner who repents.
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