FIRST READING Exodus 32:7–14
7 The LORD said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; 8 they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!'” 9 The LORD said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. 10 Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.” 11 But Moses implored the LORD his God, and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? 12 Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. 13 Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'” 14 And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.
PSALM Psalm 51:1–10
1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; in your great compassion blot out my offenses.
2 Wash me through and through from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin.
3 For I know my offenses, and my sin is ever before me.
4 Against you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are justified when you speak and right in your judgment.
5 Indeed, I was born steeped in wickedness, a sinner from my mother’s womb.
6 Indeed, you delight in truth deep within me, and would have me know wisdom deep within.
7 Remove my sins with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be purer than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness; that the body you have broken may rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my wickedness.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
SECOND READING 1 Timothy 1:12–17
12 I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, 13 even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners — of whom I am the foremost. 16 But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life. 17 To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
GOSPEL 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.”
SEEKING THE LOST
There are times when we find ourselves identifying with individuals or teams for a variety of reasons. Whether it’s our hometown favorites, a family member is the couch or the team or individual is the underdog in a sport, we find it easy to align ourselves with their situation. Sometimes we find that we identify with others because of their situation. We feel like we can relate, easily putting ourselves in their position. Sometimes it’s a simple association, other times it’s more complicated.
As many of you know I’m a fan of Auto racing, and here in the south that means NASCAR. In many cases, a fan will not only root or pull for a driver, but for a race team as well. In multicar teams, an enthusiast will be a supporter of the entire line up of drivers. Yet there are times when things aren’t so simple. I, for example, find my support or association more complicated. For example, I like Carl Edwards but not the team owner Jack Roush. On the other hand I like Joe Gibbs as an owner, therefore pull for Matt Kenseth, but I don’t like Kyle Bush his teammate. This same complicated association can be seen in TV and movies as well as books and stories. We find that we identify with others, whether fictional characters or real, for a variety of reasons. And Biblical stories are no different.
Our gospel lesson for today is taken for the 15th chapter of Luke, and can be seen as one of the most important chapters in all the Bible. It includes three of the most famous parables ever told. When examined closely, there are three stories with a total of 12 different characters or groups of characters. In the first parable, we have Jesus, the Tax Collectors and sinners, the Pharisees and Scribes, the 99 sheep and the lost sheep. In the second parable we have the woman, coins in the purse and a lost coin. And in the parable of the Prodigal son, we have the father, the older brother, the Prodigal son and the foreign pig farmer. And depending on what’s going on in our lives when we read these parables, we find it easy to relate to one, if not more, of the characters.
Contingent to our situation, at times we find it easy to identify with Jesus, the woman or the father of the Prodigal son. These are seen as the compassionate or diligent seekers in the stories. At other times we put ourselves in the place of the lost sheep or the Prodigal son who have allowed the things of this world to captivate our attention and thus have wandered away God. Or, at times, we find that we associate with the lost coin.
As a lost coin, we find ourselves misplaced and aren’t sure why or how we’ve strayed. We find that circumstances in our lives have left us isolated, overwhelmed or confused. All we know is that we can’t get back on our own; we must be found and brought back. Then there are the times when everything seems to be going well.
Like the 99 sheep, or the nine coins in the purse, we feel safe and secure under God’s care. Our worship, Bible study and prayer life are consistent and we see evidence of God’s presence and mercy in our daily lives. Then there are the times when we find that our secure feeling of God’s presence, leaves us feeling a bit judgmental.
Like the religious leaders and the older brother, we become critical of others who aren’t in the same place spiritually we are, or who find themselves struggling. Feeling religiously perfect or self-righteous, for whatever reason, we look at folks, who have strayed, for any number of reasons and we condemn them. And rather than lend a helping hand, we sit in judgment, looking down our sanctimonious noses, criticizing them for their circumstances. Or, we may find that we identify with the foreign pig farmer who sees and opportunity to exploit another for personal gain, seeing the person as simply a means to achieve a goal. These parables, like all the stories Jesus told, are multi-layered, filled with lessons to be learned, allowing us to place ourselves into the parables, no matter what our situation is.
Hopefully, the majority of the time, we find that we identify with the Tax collectors and sinners: Those who recognize their need for God and are at His feet to learn and seek His mercy. It’s when we see our need before us and our need for God that we simultaneously can identify with the 99 sheep and the secure coins. The thing we need to bear in mind is, our way of identification can blind us to who we are, or who we could be, to where we’re at, and to where we could be.
I love how this chapter begins. “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus . . .” They weren’t coming out of idle curiosity, or to merely observe, or to find fault with Him; they were coming out of a deep spiritual need. They needed His message of salvation. And secondly, they were acknowledging that need. That may be the most surprising part of this story. Many people need to come to Christ; relatively few are willing to admit it. Publicans, that is, tax-collectors, worked for the Roman government, the nation that had conquered Israel. And they had a reputation for being unscrupulous. They were considered traitors to both Israel and God. Consequently, they were despised by the people and were cut off and shut out by the religious authorities.
The tax-collectors and the sinners . . . Those lumped together as sinners were the immoral and unjust who didn’t keep the Law, such as prostitutes, liars, thieves, murderers. Because of their waywardness, they also were rejected by society. So when Christ came along preaching deliverance from sin and hope of the Kingdom of God, they too flocked to hear Him.
The tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus, says Luke. But listen to what he says next, “But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” Think how different the narrative might be if we read that the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law rejoiced that the tax-collectors and the sinners gathered to hear Jesus’ teachings. That’s the way the story ought to read, but there was something dark in the heart of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, just as there was something dark in the heart of the tax-collectors and the sinners. The difference was, the tax collectors and sinners were aware of their need.
The Pharisees and the teachers felt it was beneath the dignity of any respectable person to associate with persons who did not obey the Law, and they were offended by Jesus’ actions. Rather than having a heart for reaching out to those whom society had rejected, they wanted to keep them at arm’s distance. We shouldn’t have any difficulty understanding their attitude. They weren’t much different from you and me. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law wanted to associate with people who shared their values, people who were like them. Nothing could be more human than that. That’s the way all humans design their society. People want to stay in their own comfort zone. But Jesus won’t allow us to stay where we’re comfortable.
He told them these parables: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
These two parables and the one that follows them, the parable of the prodigal son, defined Christ’s mission in the world. Jesus came to save that which is lost. That is the heart of the Gospel. Earlier in Luke’s Gospel Jesus sees a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed Him.
Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to Jesus’ disciples about the Master’s conduct. They asked, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (5:30-31).
The sinners, those who are lost, that’s Jesus’ target audience, everyone who has ever gone astray. St. Paul writes in his letter to Timothy, “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.” This is good news because we’re all sinners. The tax collectors and the murderers and the prostitutes were sinners. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were sinners. And you and I are sinners. We look at ourselves and think to ourselves we’re pretty good folks, and compared to some people, maybe we are. But that doesn’t mean we’ve arrived. That doesn’t mean that the 99 sheep don’t need a shepherd, that the 9 coins don’t need the security of the purse. At heart we still have a problem, a flaw, a weakness. St. Paul once described his own situation: “I do not understand my own actions,” he wrote. “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Romans 7:15). Yet we find in this passage that Paul is doing more than describing himself, he’s also describing us.
The Bible is very realistic about the nature of humanity: Abraham was the father of the Hebrew people, but he was far from perfect. Read the story and you’ll find him willing to give his wife to Pharaoh in order to save his own skin. Jacob found favor with God and his name was changed to Israel. That’s good because his earlier name meant “conniver” or “supplanter,” and he lived up to it, or down to it, as the case may be. David was a man after God’s own heart, and yet David was an adulterous murderer.
Peter was Jesus’ closest disciple and most outspoken friend, yet Peter denied him with a curse. Even St. Paul, as he writes words of encouragement to Timothy and gives God thanks for finding him worthy to serve God, confesses to Timothy that he himself is the chief of sinners (I Timothy 1:15).
You and I, like the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law and the tax collectors and the sinners who gathered around Jesus are flawed creatures. We’ve become so adept at rationalizing our basic nature that we may not be conscious of it. Dr. Menninger wrote a book, years ago, with the title, Whatever Happened to Sin? It’s a good question. We seemed to have shelved the concept of sin long ago. We minimize our adulteries as petty and meaningless affairs. We compromise our business ethics with the conviction that everyone is doing it. We fill our lives with the cheap and the trivial while the call to take up a cross and follow Jesus goes unheeded and unanswered. There’s a deep flaw within us and that’s what the Bible calls sin.
A reporter once asked the evangelist of an earlier age, Dwight L. Moody, what people gave him the most trouble. Immediately he answered, “I’ve had more trouble with Dwight L. Moody than any other man alive.” It’s a profound statement; he was speaking for you and me, was he not? We’re all sinners in need of a Savior.
It’s easy, like the Pharisees, to divide the world into saints and sinners, the lost and the found and to conveniently place ourselves among the righteous, those who are safe in the open country or purse. But that’s not the way the world shapes up. As someone once said, “There’s so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it hardly becomes any of us to talk about the rest of us.” It’s true. We take comfort in the fact that we’re baptized believers in Jesus Christ, and we should, we should remember our baptisms daily. That the old Adam was drown and that we were raised as Christ was raised, to new life. But that doesn’t give us license to reject those who may not be as fortunate as we. In fact, Jesus wants us to care for our brothers and sisters who are lost, just as much as He cares for them. We must recognize that He cares for them every bit as much as He cares for us.
There was an article in the 1965 edition of Life magazine about a Lieutenant Dawson who went missing in action when the reconnaissance plane he flew went down in Vietnam. When his brother Donald heard about this, he sold everything he had, left his wife with $20, and went to Vietnam to look for his brother. He equipped himself with soldier’s gear and wandered around the guerilla-controlled jungle looking for his brother. He carried leaflets in Vietnamese picturing the plane and offered a reward for news of the missing pilot. For nine long months, Dawson risked his life looking for his brother in the war-torn jungles of Vietnam, until he obtained proof from the Viet Cong that his brother died in captivity.
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law took great pride in their righteousness. They worked diligently to keep themselves separate from those who were not as fastidious as they. But this isn’t what Jesus wants out of His people. He wants us to reach out to the sinner, to embrace those who have wandered into the far country, as if they were our long lost brother or sister, for that is indeed who they are.
Pastor John W. Yates tells of the heart-breaking images which came across our TV screens a few years ago when a terrible tsunami swept across the coast of Asia. Perhaps the most heartbreaking of all were the scenes of mothers and fathers weeping over lost children. Yates writes, “I can’t get out of my mind the image of one gentleman who, having lost his parents, his wife, his three children, after nearly three weeks of searching, hope against hope, found his youngest daughter, a little three-year old girl. She’d been rescued and sheltered and was safe against all odds. The joy and the uncontrollable sobs of delight and gratitude were caught by a cameraman. It was deeply moving . . .” as you might imagine. Do we really comprehend that God weeps over His lost children just like those parents who lost their children to the tsunami?
Listen again to how Jesus ends these two parables: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” God weeps over any of His children who are lost.
That’s why it’s important that we should reach out to those who are lost as well. It makes no difference whether people are lost to the idols of society, to various addictions or to prostitution or to various betrayals of character or to self-righteousness and pride. We’re all sinners and God longs for all of us to come home.
Imagine how the sinners and tax collectors felt as they listened to Jesus tell these stories. Because of their position in society, they were outcasts and estranged from family and “polite” company. Imagine their joy, comfort, and relief in knowing that someone loved and accepted them, that God was eagerly searching them out. No wonder the tax collectors and sinners gathered around to hear Jesus. They knew what it’s like to be lost and have no one looking for them.
Society told them that they were too unworthy to stand in the presence of the Father. Then Jesus comes telling them that they’re deeply loved and valued, precious in His sight, and that God is eagerly seeking them, to bring them back home. It must have sounded too good to be true. Yet that’s the good news of the Gospel. Jesus came to save the lost. We, you and I, are the ones, called by Christ, to reach out to others who are lost and help them find their way back home. It’s the cross we’re called to take up daily as we faithfully follow Christ.
Amen