A sermon given at First Presbyterian Church, Soddy Daisy, TN Sept. 15, 2013
OT reading:
Exodus 32:1-14
NT reading:
Luke 15:1-10
These two
parables are only three or four verses each and they sound very similar. Unfortunately,
their message is so well worn we often give it short shrift.
A little
background may help to get a good grasp on the meanings. But to appreciate them
let me give you a little background. We know Jesus is on his way from Galilee
to Jerusalem where he will meet the cross in the time of Passover. Large crowds
of castaways, sick and sinners, and scheming scribes and Pharisees beset him.
In one exchange he tells us we need the single minded commitment to our faith
that we let nothing draw our loyalty from it. It is as if we must “hate” everything
that tries to dissuade us from following Jesus. We know the use of the word
hate emphasizes that single minded focus.
He always
offended someone at a meal. He rebuked the Jewish religious leaders, the movers
and shakers in the Jewish community at a feast, telling them always to sit at
the foot of the table, and when they throw banquets, always invite the outcast
and sinners, the worst part of society, not their friends and family.
In that
time the most despised of society were the tax collectors (they were usually
fellow Jews working for the Romans and they cheated and abused the public for
their own pocketbooks and were worse than sinners). Then there were the people
who worked disagreeable jobs like tanners and shepherds who stink of their work
and handle unclean items such as blood and carcasses. There were the people who
were judged unclean because of disease and deformity. There were the sinners
who indulged in immoral behavior and deceit, and finally there were those
people who failed to live according to the Law. Jesus never differentiated among
them. He willingly consorted with outcasts just as he did the wealthy, and
often ignore food and other ritual laws.
These religious
leaders who had just eaten with Jesus at the big feast find him eating with the
very people they despise. It is outrageous behavior in their eyes. They say, “This
fellow has the gall to do this.” Not only is his behavior abhorrent to them on
face value, it insults and diminishes their reputation. They have associated
with a person who consorts with the unclean. In their eyes, there is nothing good
about his behavior.
It does
raise a good question for us. When we look at people what kind of sinners do we
see? Is it the televangelist we read about who swindled his congregation? Is it
the person who is mowing their lawn at 11:30AM Sunday morning rather than
attending church? Is it the same-sex couple walking down the street hand in
hand? Is it the alcoholic stumbling down the sidewalk at the city park? Is it
the person who abuses their spouse or children? I ask myself sometimes, how
often do I recognize the sinner in me? What kind of sin would you publically
name about yourself? What offense demands repentance?
The word
“repent” has an important meaning in these two parables. We translate several
Greek words as “repent.” To repent can mean to see the error of our way and
feel sorry or contrite for our actions and desire forgiveness. That certainly
is a major part of repentance, but the particular word used here, metanoia, has
a deeper and more important sense. It means that something has happened in our
mind that causes a complete reversal in our behavior. In effect, we do a 180o
reversal of our behavior. We have seen the light and have a changed our
life and outlook. This is the repentance
of these parables.
Now I ask
you, how does such repentance fit into this story about the shepherd and the
lost sheep? Jesus says when the shepherd came home, “(6)he called
together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I
have found my sheep that was lost.” He must be talking about the shepherd’s gain
not the sheep’s gain. The sheep didn’t
do anything but get lost. The shepherd brought him back into the fold, probably
carrying the sheep on his shoulders. (Imagine how the shepherd smells now!)
Is Jesus
saying the shepherd is elated because he has brought the sheep home? Is Jesus saying this one sheep is more
important than the other 99 who were safely gathered into the flock?
It is a puzzling
whether or not this is a story about the sheep or the shepherd because Jesus
continues, “(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.” Did the lost sheep repent with an about face in behavior, or is
something else going on?
Let’s keep
that question in mind. Jesus is not done with parables.
The second
parable is about a widow with 10 drachmas. The drachma is a silver coin that
has some appreciable value. Most people think one drachma probably represented
at least a day’s wages. So the widow has a significant amount of money here,
ten day’s wages. It could be her savings for the Passover trip to Jerusalem
coming up in a few weeks where Jesus is heading.
It seems
this widow is a little better off than some Jesus talks about. In other scripture
we hear Jesus referring to a widow who has a single copper coin that she gives
to the collection. The emphasis is she is clearly a very poor person who has given
all she has in honor to God. In our
parable it is a little more ambiguous. The widow may not be overly wealthy but is
she might be a miser. Or, perhaps she is a really poor widow who exercises
great stewardship with her money.
We cannot
tell by the parable. We are faced with the same quandary in either case. If she
is a miser, she is going to be really happy to find the coin. If she is really
poor she is going to be especially happy to find the coin.
Verse 10
makes it unarguably clear where God stands with our repentance, “Just
so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one
sinner who repents.” Even God rejoices over someone who realizes their error and
repents by changing their way of living. The joy in heaven is the same. But
what does the joy of finding a lost coin or sheep have to do with repentance? God’s
joy transcends the joy of the shepherd and the joy of the widow. Perhaps it is because
God treasures the value of His children so immensely?
The mystery
remains, who is repenting? The answer could lay elsewhere.
Matthew 9:35-40 and
Mark 6:30-34, say when Jesus looked upon the crowds of outcasts he had compassion as they
seem to be a flock without a shepherd. Another clue in our two parables is that
Jesus is talking to the scribes and Pharisees. Could he be giving them a lesson
about how they have lost their focus? This is really the way it often
turns. We lose sight of the underlying
meaning of the parable (just like the words of our hymns) looking for how it
applies someone else.
I selected the
hymn, Amazing Grace, with this idea in mind. Two of its verses say, “Amazing
Grace saved a wretch like me. Amazing Grace…how sweet the sound! I once was
lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”
My worry is
how easy it is to hear a message so often that we become deaf to it and do not
live by it. Words like “How precious did
that grace appear the hour I first believed!” and “Tis grace has brought me
safe thus far, and grace will lead me home” speak from the heart of the writer.
This is about the joy in heaven we are discussing.
You may know
the story of John Newton, the author of the hymn because it has been the
subject of recent TV programs and a movie about his influence on William Wilberforce
who was a renown British opponent of slavery.
John Newton grew
up a rebellious boy, entered the British Navy early, was court-martialed,
convicted, flogged and eventually discharged to service on a slave trader ship.
Probably the Naval authorities thought this would be suitable punishment
because the job was so horrendously cruel.
He sailed with his
ship from Africa to the US and elsewhere slave trade flourished loaded with
slaves in dark, smelly holds. I can’t paint an accurate picture of what it must
have been like. The conditions in the hold were abhorrent, inhumane and unimaginable
with many dying before landfall. Newton’s captain was up top at the helm,
proud, respected and fully insensitive to the fact his cargo were human beings,
because it was just that to him, cargo, just like the scribes and Pharisees. Newton
behaved so badly on this slave ship they gave him to a slave trader who abused
and mistreated him, but even so, his life was still overwhelmingly better than
the slaves’. Later in a severe storm at sea, he underwent a conversion
experience. He came to be captain of a slave ship but eventually quit in
disgust and became an Anglican minister. When he described himself as “a wretch
like me,” he was serious. It wasn’t hyperbole or poetic exaggeration; he
understood the gravity of his deeds on the slave ships and the power of
repentance that empowers a changed life.
In Luke’s
Gospel, Jesus constantly drives home the point about ministering to the dregs of
society, the outcasts and sinners. I think he focuses on the outcasts and
sinners because it is so easy to see the despair of the hopeless and so easy for
us to help them. It only takes personal action. There is one often distorted passage,
John 12:1-8 and
Mark 14:3-8. It captures the message about how easy it is to
help. A woman washed Jesus’ feet with expensive nard and Judas, the traitor, chided
Jesus for allowing it, saying it was wasteful to use money for the perfume on
his feet when it could be used for the poor. Jesus said, in my words, “You can
help the poor anytime you wish but you won’t so they will be with you always.
You only have me for a little while.”
The message of our
two parables then cannot be about just the sheep we help as a good shepherd or
the coins and the widow. It cannot be just about the joy of God over a changed
life of the person who had stopped coming to worship and has returned, or the errant
sinner who tastes God’s grace and turns around.
The parable is
a question to us all, who of us shall be the shepherd? Who of us shall offer
the Good News to a destitute dreg of society bringing the taste of living water
that will bring grace?
This parable is
about the scribes and Pharisees who criticized of Jesus and ignored those lost
wretched souls who like John Newton long for rescue by saving grace.
What joy there
will be in heaven when one scribe or one Pharisee repents and adopts a new way
of living. What joy when one scribe or Pharisee ceases to ignore and embraces the
worst of society because they have the revelation that they are as impoverished
spiritually as the outcasts are economically. Repentance, a full reversal, is
the only hope of escaping this wretched state of sin. Feeling sorry for the
poor and the outcast may get you to heaven, but it is different from taking action
to bring them the Good News. That, I imagine, is the joy in heaven, when God
sees one of his children loving someone who knows no love.
If we are
serious about repentance we have to put ourselves in the shoes of the scribe
and Pharisee, not of the poor and outcast. We may be one of the 99 who are
blessed by God’s grace. We may end up a child at play at his feet, only God
knows for certain. This parable says we have not fully repented until we
understand that we are one of the poor wretches tied to this world of material
wealth and give our attention to God’s least children with changed lives. Our faith must mirror
our love for God with our whole being and the same love for our neighbor. Let
us pray that our compassion brings the lost sheep home so we are part of that
great heavenly celebration of joy.
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