St. Thomas Evangelical Lutheran Church
3800 East Third Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47401
(812) 332-5252
Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost (September 16, 2007)
Liturgical Color: Green
Reverend Doctor Lyle E. McKee
"God's Joy"
Grace to you and peace from our loving God, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
In the Hebrew mind of Jesus' time, there was a certain order to things. Persons repent; God responds with forgiveness. In these parables, that proper sequence is reversed and it is God who seeks the lost. Then the response is rejoicing and repentance.
Other stories carry out this same theme. In Luke 19, Zacchaeus is sought out by Jesus. Before any outward signs of repentance, Jesus calls to Zacchaeus and invites himself to dinner! Jesus even comments on the needs sinners have and that God seeks to meet in Mark 2. He tells the scribes and the Pharisees that those who are well have no need of a physician. He came not to call the righteous, but to call sinners.
There is a fixed order to things for most of us, or we hope there is. We are so accustomed to the picture of God seeking and loving people who are separated from God, that we forget how startling it was to those who first heard Jesus' words. In his day, the accepted order was different—turn to the Lord and then you will be forgiven. That mindset still holds fairly common sway.
Both Isaiah and Ezekiel knew the logic of order and they lay it out specifically.
"Let the wicked forsake their ways, and the unrighteous their thoughts; let them return to the Lord, that the Lord may have mercy on them." (Isaiah 55:7) Ezekiel put it more bluntly. "Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, says the Lord God. Repent and turn from all your transgressions, lest iniquity be your ruin. Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit." (18:30,31). In another place, Ezekiel put it in the if-then mode. "But if the wicked turn away from all their sins which they have committed, and keep all my statutes and do what is lawful and right, they shall surely live." (18:21).
We too know all about that order of things. We don't go up to someone and say "I forgive you." We wait for them to say, "I'm sorry." Then we forgive.
If we don't pay our power and light bill, they shut off our electricity. Only after we make arrangements to pay what we owe do they turn it back on.
God works like the electric company, or so the tax collectors and the Pharisees thought they knew. But apparently, God got it backwards. In today's text, it is God who does the seeking after the lost, not the other way around. And thereby God's joy is multiplied.
How different from the expected is the God Jesus reveals-a God who seeks people and loves them where and as they are. Jesus said, "It's like a man with a sheep that is lost. He doesn't stand at the door of the sheepfold and say to the sheep, 'If you don't repent of your sinful ways and come back here, I'm not going to let you in.' He goes after the sheep." Then Jesus does it again. The woman, the coin. It's backwards.
Jesus says, "This is what God is like. God wants you back in the fold. God loves you even when you're out in the brush and the rocks. God comes after you to announce forgiveness, even before you have turned around. Then, when God has you back in the fold, God rejoices."
It seemed backwards to the ancients and it seems backwards to us.
We even have a different way of understanding what being lost is all about than the one Jesus reveals.
We say a wallet is lost when we can't find it. God would say it was lost when its contents were not serving God.
We say it's a shame when a watch is lost. God would say it's worse when time is lost because it's not being used to serve God.
We say we have lost our voice when we get laryngitis. God would say a voice is lost when it is not serving and speaking the Word.
God finds the lost; the lost don't find God. God comes to us; we don't come to God. God became a human being; it was not a human being who became a god. Lost people are God's greatest concern.
My old professor, Henri Nouwen, told a story of an old man who used to meditate early every morning under a big tree on the bank of the Ganges River. One morning, after he had finished his meditation, he saw a scorpion floating helplessly in the water. As the scorpion was washed closer to the tree, the old man reached out to rescue the drowning creature. As soon as he touched it, however, the scorpion stung him. Instinctively the man withdrew his hand. A minute later, though, he tried again. This time the scorpion stung him so badly with its poisonous tail that his hand became swollen and bloody and his face contorted with pain.
At that moment, a passerby saw the old man struggling with the scorpion and shouted: "Hey, stupid old man, what's wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for the sake of an ugly, evil creature. Don't you know you could kill yourself trying to save that ungrateful scorpion?"
Looking into the stranger's eyes the old man said calmly, "My friend, just because it is the scorpion's nature to sting, that does not change my nature to save."
That's a parable not unlike those told by Jesus—a witness to the love and grace of God. Just because it is our nature to sin does not change God's nature, which is to save; and as Christians, we see that nature manifest in the life of Christ.
What we need to do this morning in response to this text is to wonder and to think seriously about why it is that God's goodness seems wrong to us, so contrary to the way we think.
And when we reflect, we will find that God is kinder that we are. We certainly rejoice when the righteous are invited into heaven; that is as it should be. But we like the idea of sinners getting their just rewards. We like revenge. But God's love is steadfast to the point of seeking out everyone—even sinners (which is everyone, whether we like to admit it or not).
The ultimate test of a Christian is not perfect attendance at Sunday School and worship, as important as that is. It's not even how often we open our Bibles, though we center our lives in the Word. The ultimate test of our faith is how much we care about one another and a lost world.
Some people, even in the church, simply don't care about others.
Not long ago, there was a game on the market called "Capital Punishment." Instead of buying houses on Boardwalk or collecting $200 for passing "Go", the players in this game are each given four "criminals." The object of the game is to get them past "liberals" and into the electric chair. The first player to execute all four of his criminals wins the game.
The manufacturer touted it as a way to "allow citizens frustrated by violent crime to punish criminals vicariously."
Such crass encouragement of violent thinking is particularly tragic in light of Jesus' words this morning. He invites us to remember that every criminal, no matter how terrible the crime, is a precious person created by God, redeemed by Christ, and for whom God diligently searches and seeks. We care (or ought to), not because it's fashionable, or because our hearts bleed for others. We care because God cares.
The people who want to make sure that everybody gets what they deserve have no idea in the world what the Gospel is. If it were God's intent to see that we all get what we deserve, God would never have sent Jesus into the world to set us free for the kind of living God intends. As Christians, we hope and we know that we don't get what we deserve—for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Through Christ, we have access to God's love and mercy; and we are, thereby, able to demonstrate love and mercy with others. "There but for the grace of God go I" is all too often our only response to those who are in need of a Godly word of grace.
The gospel calls us this morning to behave the way God does—to care and to seek. God wants us. Unequivocally. Without reservation or qualification. Just as we are, where we are. And that goes for everyone.
There is a story from Wales about two 74-year-olds who married one another, each for the first time. The two were lifelong neighbors who had been parted by a lovers' quarrel when they both were 32 years old. Every week since then, for 42 years, David Thomas had written a love letter apologizing for his part in the quarrel and had slipped it under Rachel's door. Finally, one momentous day, David plucked up the courage and knocked on the door rather than slipping a note under it. Rachel answered, he proposed, she accepted, and the wedding followed.
All those letters. Then a knock.
It calls to mind the story in scripture about one who stands at the door knocking, seeking us, hoping we will answer. Jesus cares for us beyond any measure of caring we can imagine, and our Lord continually seeks to bring back those who are lost. God doesn't wait for us to make the first move. God made it in Jesus, and is always reaching out to us.
It's a striking and counter-intuitive truth, powerful in its impact both for our understanding of our selves and for our vision of what we are to be. God wants us to extend our hands in forgiveness even before we hear the word of confession or apology. Our Lord asks that we assist in the business of seeking and of knocking on the doors of that seem closed to us. For in finding the lost, God discovers joy, and we do as well. The act of reaching out brings God joy. No less. For there is rejoicing in heaven and joy in the presence of angels. Amen.
May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord, unto eternal life. — Amen
