+ 17th Sunday after Pentecost –
September 11th, 2016 +
Redeemer
Lutheran, HB
Series C,
Proper 19: Ezekiel 34:11-24; 1 Timothy 1:5-11, 12-17; Luke 15:1-10
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
We don’t like losing. Oh, sure, we’ll be polite and say things
like “It’s only a game”, “better luck next time,” or “at least you had fun”.
But deep down we don’t like to lose: not a card game with friends, not a
rivalry game with our favorite sports team, and especially not when we lose
something a bit more important like a job opportunity or an important client.
And then there’s all those times we lose our car keys and
search the house in frustration, or can’t find your phone, or worst of all, your
child’s favorite toy or blanket is missing and pandemonium sets in until it’s
found.
No. We don’t like to lose.
And the whole of Luke 15 - all three parables - is about lost
things: one lost sheep, one lost coin, two lost sons.
These three parables are stories of grace through and through.
Not a word of earning or merit, not even a breath about rewarding good behavior
or self-improvement. Not even the slightest hint of being a Christian super-hero
and or positive thinking. There is only the outrageous, gracious, saving
determination of the shepherd and the woman and the father – all figures of God
- who raises us from the dead, finds us in our lostness, and gives us victory
though we were losers.
St. Paul says it this way in 1 Timothy: The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full
acceptance, that Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners, of
whom I am the foremost.
And this is precisely what upsets the Pharisees so much at the
start of Luke 15.
Now the tax
collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the
Pharisees and the scribes grumbled,
saying, “This man
receives sinners and eats
with them.”
The Pharisees were the A-listers. The celebrity pastors of
their day. Respected. Revered. Religious. And…they also didn’t like to lose.
And they certainly didn’t like a guy running around claiming to be the Messiah
who happened to make a regular habit of eating and drinking with losers,
outcasts, sinners, and lawbreakers. They were healthy. They were the righteous
ones. They were the winners. Or so they thought.
But we’re not all that different. The prophet Ezekiel was
right about us. We muddy the clear water of God’s Word with all kinds of dirt –
from our thoughts and feelings. We push with side and shoulder against one
another till we get our way. We butt heads with our horns against the weak – no
perhaps not physically but certainly in the way we treat one another, and
definitely in how we think about others around us. Like the Pharisees, we don’t
like losers, and we consider ourselves to be big-shot winners. Don’t think so?
Seems like that’s all the more evidence that we are.
This is why when we confess our sin we aren’t admitting our mistakes
and promising to be on our best behavior. Church isn’t a rehabilitation
facility for sinners. It’s a hospital where Christ heals us in his body and
blood and, a rescue center where the lost are found, the dead are brought to
life.
Thankfully, we have a God who loves losing; and loves losers,
sinners, and outcasts like us even to the point heading straightway to a
losing, outcast, cursed death on the cross for you.
It may sound strange, and it may be the opposite how we think.
But that’s how God works – opposite of what we expect, deserve, or think.
God specializes in rescuing the lost. In raising the dead. In
snatching victory from the jaws of death. All for you.
Think about it in the context of the Luke 15 parables. The
lost sheep would be considered dead. A lost coin is a dead asset. And a lost
son is a deadbeat son who wanted his father dead. Lostness and deadness go
together in these parables.
That means that the entire rescue operation for you – just it
was in both stories for the sheep and the coin – is found in the determination
and work of the shepherd and the woman to find the lost. Jesus seeks, finds,
and rescues you.
What do we contribute to our rescue? Our lostness, deadness,
and sin. Jesus does it all, accomplishes all, completes, fulfills, and makes it
all happen for you.
And to make his point even clearer to the Pharisees and us,
Jesus tells a parable:
“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one
of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go
after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found
it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home,
he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with
me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.
Notice that the sheep didn’t do a blessed thing
other than being lost. And more importantly, the shepherd does everything.
Finds the sheep. Rescues the sheep. Carries the sheep home. And throws a party.
So it is for us. All we do is lose, sin, find ourselves in need of rescue. And
along comes Good Shepherd Jesus. He finds you in your lostness. Rescues you
from sin. Carries you home. And throws you a party. The angels rejoice in
heaven. And we rejoice with them.
But there’s something unexpected about this
shepherd. If you’re looking at this parable as a how-to guide for running a
successful sheep-ranching business, you’re missing the point. Think about it: 1
sheep out of 99. What’s so important about the one sheep? He has 99 others.
Most fishermen would call that dead loss. Why leave the 99 in the open country
where they could run off too? One lost sheep is no big deal. But it is to Good
Shepherd Jesus. It’s personal. You matter.
“Or what woman,
having ten silver coins, if
she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek
diligently until she finds it? And 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.’ Just so, I tell
you, there is joy before the
angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Again, the saving, rescuing, and finding is
personal to Jesus. One sheep. One coin.
1 coin out of 10? What’s so important about that one coin?
It’s not like it was her last mite. She had 9 others. Even us who don’t like to
lose would consider that an acceptable profit loss. But not Jesus.
You matter enough for him to come and rescue you himself. You
matter enough that he refused to write you off as dead loss or a dead asset,
but instead makes you the object of his seeking, saving, and life-giving love. God
turned over every rug, looked under every pillow, sofa cushion, and turned over
his grave stone to find you in your lostness. Your value is not in how you see
yourself or even how other see you. Your value is not in whether you are a
winner or a loser, but in Christ Crucified, in the cross where Jesus finds you.
Seeks you out. Rescues you. Delivers you. And carries you home.
These are parables of 200 proof, radical, outrageous Good News
for undeserving sinners like us. We might even call the Gospel here absurd. Not
absurd in a silly, Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory kind of way. But absurd as in
the unexpected; the opposite of what we think.
It’s the happy ending of a story you didn’t see coming. It’s
getting an A when we deserved an F. It’s the prodigal/lost son who gets the
shoes, the signet ring, the family robe, the inheritance, and a party on top of
it all.
It’s Jesus, the Shepherd, who lays down his life to rescue us
lost sheep.
It’s Jesus who loses his life to find you.
It’s Jesus the rich one who becomes poor so that by his
poverty you are made rich.
It’s the God who loves you with an all-consuming love that
drove him to the cross to save you.
And so today the angels rejoice as we rejoice in losing –
losing our sin, losing our life, losing our death – and being found by Jesus. We
rejoice that the Pharisees were right about this: Jesus eats and drinks with
sinners. We rejoice in the God who loves losers enough to become one for us.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment