Luke 15:1-32
"Join the Party"
Before Cody Huff joined a Church in Las Vegas, he was sleeping in an open field next to the church.
One day, some people from the church were handing out sandwiches where Cody slept, and they told him he could get a shower in the Church building.
The last place Cody wanted to go was a church, but he hadn't bathed in so long that even the other homeless people couldn't stand his smell anymore.
Cody says, "I walked into the church, and this lady named Michelle said, 'Good morning, Cody, how are you?'
Then she looked at me, and said, 'Cody you need a hug.'"
Cody goes on, "And I said, 'Honey, you don't want to touch me because I haven't had a shower in 3 months.'
If Michelle heard me, she didn't seem to care.
She walked up, and she looked in my eyes, and she gave me a big hug and told me that Jesus loved me.
In that split second, I was somebody.
She even remembered my name.
That was the point where I knew God was alive in this world.'"
Among young adults in the United States, sociologists are seeing a major shift taking place away from Christianity.
Recent studies have brought the trend to light.
Among the findings released in 2009 from the American Religious Identification Survey, one stood out.
The percentage of Americans claiming "no religion" almost doubled in about two decades, climbing from 8.1 percent in 1990 to 15 percent in 2008.
The trend wasn't confined to one area of the country.
Those people claiming "no religion," who are called the "Nones,"--spelled N-o-n-e-s...
...made up the only group of people to have grown in every state, from the Northeast to the Bible belt.
The "Nones" were most numerous among the young: a whopping 22 percent of 18-29 year-olds claimed no religion, up from 11 percent in 1990.
The study also found that 73 percent of "Nones" came from religious homes; 66 percent were described by the study as "de-converts."
Other survey studies have been grimmer.
At the May 2009 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, top political scientists reported that 30 to 40 percent of "young Americans" have no religion today.
Could it be that many of us have gotten away from what Jesus is truly about?
Some have said that many churches in America are taking on the part of the Pharisees and legal experts in the Bible.
Is that why some folks are so "turned off?"
Jesus tells the three parables in Luke 15 because the Pharisees and other religious leaders were "grumbling" about the "character" of the folks Jesus was eating with and hanging out with on a regular basis.
They were grumbling about the company Jesus keeps, or as the New Revised Standard puts it: They were grumbling about "The company Jesus seeks out or welcomes."
A couple of months ago I was having a conversation with a person who was telling me about something a pastor from another denomination had been boasting about to her.
Both of them had a common acquaintance.
The pastor of the church told the person that he had "kicked" the common acquaintance "out of his church" telling him not to come back unless "he changed his ways."
Each of the three parables in Luke 15 are told by Jesus to the religious leaders...the church-ey folks.
The scribes and the Pharisees were very pious people, strong believers, upstanding citizens--the sort of folks just about anyone would be honored to have move into the house next door.
They are not like the questionable characters that populate these parables.
Scribes and Pharisees don't usually make bad choices, or sink into self-destructive habits.
They don't wander off lost.
They don't lose track of precious coins.
They don't mouth off to the old man, go out drinking, and end up in the gutter.
No, these scribes and Pharisees fully imagine that when they arrive at heaven's gate, they will stroll over to the platinum frequent-flier check-in line, whip out their membership cards, and head right for first class.
Have you heard about the guy who died, went to heaven and met Peter at the Pearly gates?
Of course, everyone has...
Anyway, Peter greets the fellow and asks him to follow as he shows him to his room.
As they are walking down a certain corridor, suddenly Peter instructs the person to be very quiet: "SSSSHHH!!!" warns Peter, "Don't say a thing. We gotta tip-toe past this door."
Later when the man asks Peter why they had to do that, Peter tells him that they had just passed the room for the folks who think they are the only ones there.
In our Gospel Lesson for this morning, the crowds are pressing in around Jesus to hear His teachings.
And all kinds of folks make up this mob.
They all gather around Jesus for a variety of reasons.
The disciples are there to receive instruction; the Pharisees and scribes are there to keep tabs on Jesus' radical teachings; and the people who do not really belong anywhere because they have lived so much of their lives on the fringes are there as well.
They are described as the "tax collectors and sinners"-- Jesus rarely calls people "sinners" in Luke 15.
Rather, Jesus more often called people "lost."
"Lost" sounds more like a concern than a condemnation.
Anyhow, the folks that the religious guys call "tax collectors and sinners" are the people no one else wants to hang around with--for fear that their bad reputations will rub off on them...
...guilt by association, you know.
But, somehow, these outsiders have become part of Jesus' inner circle.
And they are hardly a group of folks that anyone with any taste would put on their list of dinner guests.
But here they are, eating with Jesus.
And, if you are, after all, known by the company you keep--Jesus has completely thrown the religious community into a panic.
That's one of the main reasons they ended up Crucifying Him, you know.
Jesus hung out with the wrong folks.
He partied with the wrong crowd.
Luke tells us, "All the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around Jesus to listen to him.
The Pharisees and legal experts were grumbling, saying, 'This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.'"
You know, it's interesting.
For Jesus, when people follow Him...
...when people listen to Him and hear what He is saying...
...and put what He is saying into action...
...that is repentance, that is true repentance!!!
And Jesus doesn't say so, in so many words, in our Gospel Lesson for this morning, but I think it's here by implication--the Pharisees and legal experts themselves need to repent in that way!!!
Notice what Jesus says in the later part of verse 7: "righteous people...have no need to change their hearts and lives."
Try saying that sentence with a smile and a question-mark in your voice and we will, I think, hear what Jesus was really saying.
There is no such thing as a "righteous person" is there?
What did Paul say?
"All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
And in 1 John 1:10 it says, "If we claim we have not sinned, we make [God] out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives."
And one of Jesus' reoccurring themes throughout the Gospels was "don't judge."
"Don't judge."
Could one of the reasons why so many people are getting turned off by church be because they feel they are being "judged"?
It has been written, "When a Christian sees prostitutes, alcoholics, prisoners, drug addicts, unwed mothers, the homeless, refugees he ought to know that he is looking in a mirror.
Perhaps the Christian spent all of his life as a respectable middle-class person.
No matter.
He should think, 'Spiritually I was just like these people, though physically and socially I was never where they are now.
They are outcastes.
I was an outcaste.'"
Jesus looks at the religious folks in our Gospel lesson for this morning and basically says, "Do you get it?"
"Think of that thing most precious in your life and what would it be like to lose it?
God is like the shepherd who values each sheep in the flock, like the woman who accounts for every silver dollar in her purse.
When one goes missing, God goes into search mode.
God's nature is love, and love looks like one who goes out tirelessly searching, because the one who is lost is so lost that she cannot find her way back home."
Did you know that a lost sheep that has the ability to "bleat out" in distress often won't do so, out of fear?
Instead it will curl up and lie down in the wild brush, hiding from predators.
It's so fearful it can't help itself.
The shepherd must bear the full weight of bringing it home.
Similarly, the lost coin, is an inanimate object.
It can't call out or shine brightly in order to bring attention to itself.
It's rescue is completely dependent on the woman's diligent searching.
And Jesus continues to make His point with another parable about a father with two sons.
The younger son, after wasting his life and sinking as low as he can go, resolves to return to his father.
He rehearses his apology, but doesn't get to use it.
His father is way ahead of him.
His father has been watching out for him since he left.
Home is already waiting.
Love's door is open.
God runs out into the yard and calls everybody up and down the street, "Let's have a party!!!"
"Now do you get it?"
Jesus eats with everybody who will eat with Him, because everybody is lost and needs to be found!!!
No one is any better than anyone else.
We are all in the same boat, and all are invited to the party.
Like the older boy in the parable of the prodigal son, the Pharisees and other religious leaders are so angry, that although God begs for them to come into the party and join the celebration, they make their own minds up that they will stay outside...
It has been written that the parables in Luke Chapter 15 point to the fact that the two halves of God's creation, heaven and earth, were meant to fit together and be in harmony with each other.
And, "If you discover what's going on in heaven, you'll discover how things were meant to be on earth.
That, after-all, is the point of praying that God's kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven."
And, "Jesus is declaring that heaven [is] having a great, noisy party every time a single [person sees] the light and [begins] to follow God's way."
Whether we will join in the celebration is all-important, because it reveals whether our relationships are based on merit or on mercy.
Those of us who find God's mercy to be offensive can't celebrate with the angels when a person repents.
Thus, we exclude ourselves from God's grace.
The Pharisees and the scribes put themselves outside the party by the way they grumble at Jesus' all inclusive love.
There's no joy or celebration, no partying, no happiness among the religious leaders of Jesus' day.
Even though they are invited to the party, they can't bring themselves to come.
A scholar writes, "Who are the sinners?
The turn of the phrase at the end of the parables provides a final twist.
The sinners in this story are the ones who need repentance, the ones who need their minds changed.
God rejoices when the religious insiders in all of us change their minds about who is in and who is out."
Again, God is having a party, every single person on this earth is invited.
Will we come joyfully, rejoicing?
Will we be like the woman who hugged the man who hadn't taken a shower in 3 months...
...who handed out sandwiches and invited people into God's party?
Who helped "the lost" and "disenfranchised" to see Jesus?
That's being part of God's Kingdom here on earth, is it not?
Let us pray: Look into our hearts, O God--You see our fears...
...You see our pride.
Let us be about the work of discipleship.
Let us share the joy that is in heaven.
In Jesus' name and for His sake we pray.
Amen.
