15th Sunday after Pentecost Proper 19
Luke 15:1-10
A sermon by Rev. Tim Zingale
I would like to share with you this morning a modern day parable.
Listen:
"A minister, touring in West Germany was invited to spend the night with one of the families of the host congregation. The family consisted of the father. the mother, and a twelve-year-old boy. The father began to tell the minister something about the family, and especially about the circumstances surrounding the adoption of this youngster whom they had rescued during the war years.
The father said: "The boy was just a poor orphan when we first saw him. He was in rags and very dirty, but his shoes were the worst of all. The upper parts were in tatters and the soles had huge holes in them. When we took him in, we gave him new clothes and threw his old ones away.
"We decided, however, to keep those battered shoes as a reminder of how badly off he had been when he first came here. I keep them on a shelf, and when the boy complains or becomes unruly, I merely walk slowly to the shelf, haul the shoes down, and remind him of how much we have done for him."
The boy looked hurt, ashamed, and even a bit unwanted. The guest, afraid to say anything, lest he should offend his host, thought to himself: what a blessing it is that God doesn’t continually drag out our old shoes."
When God’s forgives, He also forgets.
God has the magnificent quality about out him that he can forgive the past, and accept a person as he or she is in the present. God is so filled with love, that He doesn’t need to remind us of our old -sins, to keep us as his children. It is the power of His love that brings us into his arms. It is the power of’ his love for us that Leeds us to eternal salvation. God does not need threats to win us over to his side. It is the power of his love as shown through the death and resurrection of Jesus that changes our lives from ones that are filled with worn out, holely clothes, and shoes which are filled with holes because of sin, to lives that are new, refreshed washed clean because of the power of God and his love.
After God has changed us, he doesn’t constantly remind us how we were, he doesn’t point back to the rags of sin we used to wear. He doesn’t point back to the shoes of self pride, we used to wear, no we live with his love guiding us, caring for us, comforting us, upholding us and trusting us as his children.
Our gospel lesson this morning is about the forgiveness of God which changes our lives. It is about living a new life because of the power of God’s love to make changes in our lives.
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming close to him to hear him.
2 The Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, "This man welcomes sinners, and eats with them."
3 He told them this parable.
4 "Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it?
5 When he has found it, he carries it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
6 When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ’Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’
7 I tell you that even so there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.
8 Or what woman, if she had ten drachma coins, if she lost one drachma, wouldn’t light a lamp, sweep the house, and seek diligently until she found it?
9 When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ’Rejoice with me, for I have found the drachma which I had lost.’
10 Even so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner repenting."
God is joyful when one sinner returns to the flock, or one sinner who is lost is found. And notice, if this is a parable about God, who is he in this parable? He is the shepherd and he is the woman. God finds the lost!!
God loves us out or the shear power of His love. Not because of something we have done to earn God’s love or to seek God’s love. God can and does love and forgive with no conditions attached . The shepherd and the woman looked for the lost, the lost sheep, the lost coin does not come looking for the shepherd or the woman.
We usual!y think of’ repentance as the condition of forgiveness. We say that God will forgive only when we repent. This lesson turns this around. We are forgiven before we repent, and we repent because we have been forgiven. We are forgiven not because we pay God the price of repentance, but God loves us whether or not we repent. Those who know and accept God’s love, respond with repentance. It is the kindness of God that causes us to repent.
In our parable, if the father could have truly accepted this adopted child out of love, he would not have had to use the shoes as a reminder of his love for the child. The child could sense his love by the way he was treated and accepted the man’s son. Then the father could love him in spite of the wrongs he had done, in spite of the misbehavior.
The second lessen tells us that God does have patience with us. Paul speaks that he was the foremost of sinners. But God didn’t give up on him, he waited and eventually Paul repented of his ways and turned to the lord.
12 And I thank him who enabled me, Christ Jesus, our Lord, because he counted me faithful, appointing me to service;
13 although I was before a blasphemer, a persecutor, and insolent. However, I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
14 The grace of our Lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
15 The saying is faithful, and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
16 However, for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me as chief, Jesus Christ might display all his patience, for an example of those who were going to believe in him to eternal life.
17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
Paul says he believes that Jesus came to him on that Damascus road to show the whole world, the display his perfect patience for all those who believe in him so they might have eternal life. Paul is telling us that Jesus is constantly trying to give us eternal life. He doesn’t write us off, if at first we reject his gifts. He doesn’t say what is the use, but Jesus keeps trying. He keeps waiting until the person finally decides to accept what he has to offer.
It is like this pencil placed in my hand. Pretend that this pencil represents eternal life. God places this in our hands to do with as we will. We might grip the pencil and hold it tight, or we might just grab it loosely, or we might just let it sit there. Or we might reject the pencil by turning our hand over, (use thumb to hold pencil) but notice that Jesus love doesn’t leave. It stays right there until we are ready to accept it for ourselves.
Like the shepherd and the woman in our gospel lesson, God has patience and keeps after us, keeps looking for us. And when he finds us, he forgives us and then we repent and turn from our ways with the help and power of Christ in our lives. Notice, we aren’t changed first, we are found, accepted, then changed. God is the one who does the changing, not us.
God acts, we respond!!
"-Oh how the world longs to hear those three precious words: "ALL IS FORGIVEN."
God has tried to tell us just that in so many ways. He sent his only Son into the world, not to condemn the world but to save it . . . to announce that his Father forgives all his people unconditionally . . . But it’s hard to believe, isn’t it?
There is always that little nagging voice back there somewhere that questions whether it could really be true . . . There’s that little nagging feeling of unworthiness that causes us to ask, "Why would God forgive me? --- I haven’t done enough . . . I haven’t prayed enough . . . I haven’t made a perfect confession or act of contrition... heck, I haven’t even really asked for forgiveness with any real measure of sincerity . . . My dear friends in Christ, each of us is a sinner, who needs to hear those words: "ALL IS FORGIVEN." --- who desperately wants to know that their Father in heaven forgives them . . .
Jesus knew exactly what the world needed, and that’s why his whole life is one striking demonstration that God’s forgiveness abounds.... forgiveness without any stipulations.... forgiveness without any conditions.... forgiveness without any fine print exclusions..... forgiveness without any limited warranties and forgiveness with no expiration of term. . "1
God finds the lost, the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost person, the lost me!!
And notice one other curious thing in the first parable about the shepherd and sheep. It says: "wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness," , we are all in the wilderness. That means we are have a chance of wandering, of leaving the fold. In a sense, we have the potential to become a lost sinner. God has given us the freedom to wander if we want to. We live most of our lives in the wilderness of this world. And in the wilderness, we just might become the lost sheep. So God’s forgiveness is for all of us, the lost and the found. And if we are honest with ourselves, we know that from time to time we so wander, we do become the lost, because we are not perfect.
We are forgiven each time we wander. Each time we sin and God seeks us out, we are forgiven and returned to the fold. We try not to wander, to sin, but we do. But through Christ, our sins are forgiven and covered with the forgiveness of Christ,
"Nome, Alaska, on the edge of the Bering Sea, is like many villages of the Arctic. The ground on which the community sits is frozen, sponge-like tundra. Burying the dead is a real challenge. Sanitation landfills are unheard of. Garbage trucks do not haul off the kind of refuse we leave curbside in the "lower 48." Instead a typical front yard displays broken washing machines, junked cars, old toilets, scrap wood, and piles of non degradable refuse.
Tourists who visit Nome in the summer are amazed at the debris and shake their heads. How could anyone live like that, they wonder. What those visitors do not realize is that for nine months of the year Nome sits under a blanket of snow that covers the garbage. During those months, the little Iditarod town is a quaint winter wonderland of pure white landscapes. The reality of grace is that the garbage of our lives has been covered by a blanket of forgiveness. The prophet Isaiah declares that the blight of our sin, once red as crimson, is now white as freshly fallen snow. And unlike the situation in Nome, our sin is covered forever! "
We are forgiven people. We are people who are lost and then found. We are lost sheep and lost coins, but at the same time, we are found people, found sheep and found coins because we are forgiven by Christ.
"Not far from New York there is a cemetery which has inscribed upon a headstone just one word - "Forgiven." There is no name, no date of birth, or death. the stone is unblemished by the sculptor’s art. There is no epitaph, no fulsome eulogy - just that one word, "Forgiven", but that is the greatest thing that can be said of any person, or written upon one’s grave, "Forgiven."2
Forgiven, that is what we are whose we are forgiven in Christ.
Amen
1Bill Adams, Trinity Episcopal, Sutter Creek, CA
2 "When Christians Quarrel" by Jerry Schmalenberger p23
