Day 279 - Changed Lives

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 180^o 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.