Trinity 3
Lk
15:1-10
7/7/19
“Call my phone, would you? I don’t know where it’s at.” Have these, or words similar to them, been
spoken at your house? They probably have. The era of the smart phone has freed the
phone from a cord that attached it to the wall. We now have the ability to call
from almost anywhere.
And course these phones are far more
than phones. In fact if you track the time
used on the phone (as most phones do that for you), you will find that the
majority of the time in which we use our phones has nothing to do with making
phone calls. Instead, we are on social
media, or watching YouTube videos, or playing games. We are probably far more
likely to send a text, than we are to call someone. For many people their phone
serves as their scheduler which they use to keep track of upcoming
appointments. And of course, the smart phone contains all of our contacts – all
of the information needed to contact the complete list of most everyone we know.
Because of all the ways we use our
smart phones; because of all the way that we rely upon them, misplacing your
smart phone is not a small problem.
While there are our apps on our phone that are intended to help us
locate them, from what I have seen, for the most part people resort to, “Call
my phone, would you? I don’t know where
it’s at.” A family member or friend
calls the phone. We hope that it the wringer had not been turned off and the
phone set to vibrate. Then we listen for the sound of the phone and try to hone
in on its location. Sometimes more than
one request for a call goes out. And then finally, when we find the phone, we
are relieved and glad. A minor disaster
has been averted, and we can get back to doing life.
In our Gospel lesson this morning,
Jesus tells a pair of parables about people who are intently searching for
something. In the first, it is for a
lost sheep, and the second for a lost coin.
The point of both is the love that God has for sinners, and his intense
desire to bring them back to himself. This is very important and comforting
message. Yet while the parables end with
the repentant sinner returned to God, we also need to recognize that this in
itself is not the end of the story for us.
Our text begins with the words, “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.” During Jesus’ ministry
we find that people often described as “tax collectors and sinners” were coming
to near Jesus teach.
Now this
phrase probably included a broad range of people. Tax collectors were assumed to be crooked
because they easily could make themselves extra money by doing things like
unfairly assessing the value of goods being shipped. Though in a land like Galilee where Herod
Antipas was the ruler they were not direct agents of the Roman empire, taxation
always called to mind Roman domination. And the fact of the matter was that some
of money collected did go back to Rome as Herod demonstrated his loyalty as a
petty king allowed by the Romans to rule.
The term
“sinners” certainly encompassed a number of kinds of people. You will note that it is the Pharisees and
scribes who describe these people as “sinners.”
So does this mean they were people who didn’t follows the rules – “the
tradition of the elders” – that the Pharisees had added on top of the Law of
Moses itself in describing what it meant to live a God pleasing life? Or were these people who actually lived in
ways the broke God’s law- ways that truly were sinful? We can’t say for sure, but the best guess is
that the group probably included both.
The
complaint of the Pharisees and scribes was: “This man receives sinners and eats
with them.” Jesus welcomed these people
to hear his teaching. But he went a step
beyond that. He also welcomed them to eat
with him. Certainly, these meals
were a setting in which teaching also took place. But more importantly, the act of eating with
these people indicated that he accepted
them. The concept of table fellowship was very important in the first
century Jewish world. Rather than keeping himself separated from those were who
were sinners, Jesus in his ministry welcomed them and actually ate with them.
In response
to the grumbling by Pharisees and scribes, Jesus told two parables. He said, “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?” The answer was obvious. Any of them would go and look for the lost
sheep because the sheep was valuable.
Jesus then
added that once he has found the sheep the shepherd calls together his friends
and his neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep
that was lost.” There was joy that the lost sheep had been
found. And then Jesus made the
application to their present situation as he said, “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.”
This of course was not to say that those who are faithful in walking the
way of faith are unimportant to God.
Instead, it emphasized how God desires not even one to be lost; how
there is joy about the fact that
through repentance the lost had been returned.
And Jesus
then added a second parable, this one that took place in the setting of a
house. He said, “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.’”
Again, we hear about the persistent
effort to find the lost coin, and the joy that results when it is found – a joy
that simply must be shared with others. Jesus concluded, “Just so, I tell you,
there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Our Lord said that every single sinner matters to God.
He describes not just the desire to save sinners, but the effort to
bring them back, and the joy that is present before God when this happens.
Our Lord speaks about you this
morning. For at one time, you were the lost sheep. You were the lost coin. Conceived and born as a descendant of your
father Adam, you truly were a sinner.
You were an enemy of God, opposed to his will in every possible way. You
were spiritually blind and dead.
But God considered this to be
absolutely unacceptable. And so he sought
you out. He launched a rescue
mission. God the Father sent his Son into the world as he was conceived by the
Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.
Thought sinless, Jesus Christ the Son of God was numbered with the
transgressors. He took your sin as his own and received God’s judgment in your
place. He received the final result of
your sin – he received death.
And then on the third day God did
something outstanding. He did something
that has reversed the result of Adam’s sin.
He raised Jesus Christ from the
dead. He began in Christ the new
life of the Last Day resurrection. Not just for a Sunday morning or evening,
but for forty days Jesus presented
himself alive to his disciple as spoke about the kingdom of God. He ascended into heaven, and as the exalted
Lord on the day of Pentecost he poured forth the Holy Spirit.
On the day of Pentecost, as Peter
preached and the people were convicted of their sin they asked, “Brothers, what
should we do?” The apostle responded, “Repent and be baptized every one of
you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will
receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
You have received one baptism for the forgiveness of your sins. You have received the Holy Spirit who has
made you a new creation in Christ.
There was
rejoicing in heaven when this happened.
Yet our text also warns us that things can become lost again. “Call my phone, would
you? I don’t know where it’s at.” These are words that have not been spoken
only once at our house. They are words that
have been spoken on several different occasions about the same phone.
As a baptized child of God, you are
“found.” But this does not mean you can
never get lost again. The emphasis in
our text is joy about the sinner who repents. On an earlier occasion in the Gospel the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled
at Jesus’ disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and
sinners?” Our Lord’s response on that
occasion was to say, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those
who are sick. I have not come to call
the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
In Christ
we are forgiven. Through the work of the Spirit we are a new creation – we are
the new man. But we are people who are
also still sick. The old Adam, the fallen sinful nature
continues to be present in us as well.
And if we fail to recognize this
fact, over time it can have spiritually deadly consequences.
Sick people
– people with a serious medical condition like high blood pressure or diabetes
– need their medication. You still face
the sickness of the struggle against sin.
And so you need the medication of the Means of Grace. You need to hear the Word of God proclaimed
and taught. You need to hear Christ
speak forgiveness to you in Holy Absolution.
You need the true body and blood of Christ which is food for the new
man.
And you must
still be willing to repent. In the
ongoing struggle against sin, we do fail. We do stumble. We do sin. The question then that really
matters is how we respond when the word of God confronts us in that sin. Do we
admit that God is right and we are wrong?
Do we confess our as sin against God? Do we repent?
The world
makes it harder and harder to do so. It
says that sin is good, and God’ ways are bad – just think about any topic related
to God’s gift of sexuality. Think about how how Sunday and the Third
Commandment are treated by the world.
Yet as
Christians, staying found requires us to
continue to repent. We confess our sin.
We turn to Christ the risen Lord as he gives forgiveness in the Means of
Grace. We receive the work of Christ’s Spirit
who strengthens faith. And through the
leading and power of the Spirit we then seek to live lives in which we see the
results of repentance.
Repentance
does not only mean that I want to be forgiven – that I want to “get off the
hook” for the sins I have committed. It means that I want to live in ways that turn
away from sin – way that are true to God’s will. In his ministry, John the Baptist said, “Bear
fruits in keeping with repentance.” The apostle Paul said that after the risen
Lord Jesus appeared to him and completely changed his life, he preached to Jews
and Gentiles “that they should repent and
turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.”
So today, rejoice that you have been
found! After all, there was rejoicing in heaven when you became a
child of God – when through baptism and faith you were forgiven and received
the guarantee that you too will share in Jesus’ resurrection on the Last
Day. Remember that those who have been
found, can become lost again if they ignore Christ’s Means of Grace; if they
live as the world wants them to live instead of what God’s Word says our life
should be. Where the continuing struggle
against sin, results in failure, repent.
Give thanks for the forgiveness that Jesus Christ won for you through
his death and resurrection. And then, as a new creation in Christ, bear fruits
in keeping with that repentance. Follow the Spirit’s leading and the leading of
God’s Word as you live in ways that are true, good and pleasing to God.
No comments:
Post a Comment