“HE RECIEVES YOU”
Saint Luke 15. 1-2
The Third Sunday after Trinity: 2 July Anno Domini 2006
Fr Watson
In the beginning Adam and Eve drew near to Him. These perfect saints drew near to the very One Who had created them. They both were continually drawn to Him as He communed with them; as He walked with them in the Garden in the cool of the day. They were drawn to His supper table where He ate and drank with them; providing them all that they could have needed or wanted.
But because your first parents sinned in will and thought (even before they sinned in actual deed) they ceased being perfect saints and became lost sinners. The first couple became Pharisees and scribes. They were such trespassing Pharisees that they thought that they were so good, of themselves, that they deserved to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. They were such sinful scribes that they twisted, contorted, and then doubted God’s clear Word of warning and death. They willfully chose to eat poison. The food of rot and death not only consigned them to death but also polluted the spiritual gene pool of all their descendants; all their seed.
Now after sin entered the world, the dining table became an infectious health hazard. From the "Fall" onward man could only be Pharisee and scribe, eating filth thinking it was food; doing unrighteous acts thinking they were pleasing.
But the Creator and Communing God so loved the "world," yes, so loved these pathetic, feculent, horrid, little "dung beetles" (all of us, before conversion and salvation) that He sent Him; Him the Son Incarnate to draw all the broken, diseased, dying, and damned to Himself.
It isn’t that you, or anyone else, are any better than a Pharisee or a scribe. No, all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God. There is no one good, no not one. The difference is that the Lord, the Man/God, the "Him" of our text---Jesus, has drawn you to Himself by His Word, most of you by His Word attached to water when you were Washed in Regeneration at the + Sacred Font. Yes, you still fall victim to your sinful old nature. Yes, you still act like a Pharisee and scribe every day. But now that you are Baptized, Saved, a part of Him, you are like that crowd of believers in today’s Gospel text which "drew near to Him."
You are "dung beetles" no more. You are resurrected celestial butterflies. You no longer "practice" unrighteousness and luxuriate in sin, rather you "drown the old Adam" daily in contrition and repentance worked by His same Word. You are drawn here today by the Word; The Word which is Him; the Word which is His Holy Scriptures; the Word which is His Holy Sacrament of the Altar. That my fellow angels, my comrades born aloft by the breath of the Spirit filling your shining white wings of faith, that is the Gospel of Him who loves you; Who kept the rules unbroken for you; Who suffered for you by eating every bit of rottenness and foulness that you’ve ever done, by drinking down to the dregs all your stains, tears, rips, and dirt; Who comes now for all those who know that by themselves they are but tax collectors and sinners, but who know that "In Him" they are meal guests, family members, and royal banqueters. Hear Him. Eat and drink and be joyful for "This Man; This Christ Jesus the Lord, receives sinners and eats with [you]"
In the Name of The Father and of The Son + and of The Holy Ghost