“THE GOSPEL”
Saint Luke 15. 1-10
Third Sunday after Trinity: 10 July Anno Domini 2011
J. Wm. Watson S.S.P.
You are Publicans. You are sinners. The truth hurts but it is still the truth. You are tax-collectors taking what does not belong to you-cheating, short-changing, and collaborating with the enemy. You are sinners.
Yes, you are Christians but you are still living under the cross in this broken world. You still have a broken body carrying around a broken black heart of "old Adam." You are besieged constantly by the broken enemy. He is a snake with a crushed head but he remains venomous until the final trump. So, while you are a follower of the Lord with your new creation, you remain shackled daily by the hand-cuffs of self which your sinful nature lets be reapplied. You sin by not loving God perfectly. If you loved the Lord the way He demands than you would ALSO love your neighbor as He demands! If you think you love your neighbor, than not only are you publicans and sinners, but you are first-class Pharisees and Scribes; which, in your sinful fallen nature, you of course are from time to time.
The Christ "knows" this and He takes care of it as well. Look at today's text and see who Jesus had the Holy Ghost draw near to Him: "then came near unto Him all the publicans and sinners…and the Pharisees and Scribes murmured."
Stop your murmuring. Stop your criticisms and complaints, your back-bitings and gossip. Love the other publicans and sinner that you come into contact with. The Kingdom of Grace is not a political entity of Western European and British Isle invention. There are no ethnic, geographic or skin-pigmentation preferences in the Church. When Jesus says "love your neighbor" He means it. You need to repent and stop hating and demonizing those from other countries and those from other countries that may be in your own midst…for whatever reasons. Do not let politics and 'hate-mongering' keep you from being Jesus to all whom you meet and talk with. There are absolutely NO acceptable "collateral" losses in Jesus' eyes. Do not kill is not abrogated by legislative majority or a declaration by a tyrant-elected or non-elected.
Hear the Lord this morning for He spoke this parable for sinners such as us; He told this truth for tax-collecting traitors as we all are; He shares His words with all the old-Adam Pharisees murmuring even here.
This is the Parable above all other parables. This is, according to Dr. Arthur Just and other Gospel scholars, the very heart of Saint Luke's Evangel, and, the very heart of the entire New Testament. This is the picture language of the Lord explaining just what He does-what He did and what He continues to do until the end of time. These three inter-related stories (the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son) show why He willingly and joyfully submitted to His Father's will, and His own, to go to Calvary and the Cross.
Who here, if you had a hundred thousand dollars, and lost one grand, would leave the 99 thousand dollars and go after the lost one? None of you would-that wouldn't be responsible stewardship. And if one keeps the example with the sheep, the same applies; you would not jeopardize having a flock of 99 fine sheep to rescue one lone stray. Why most Christians are actually happy when the "black-sheep" of the parish wanders away from the fold. We need all to repent and cry out Kyrie Elieson.
The Lord Christ is the man having "an hundred sheep." Jesus knows all who belong to Him, wherever they may be in the grand time-line of salvation. He "foreknew" them in eternity before time and space began. He knew, loved, and was determined to save His precious blood-bought flock way before Genesis 1.1.
To be sure, the Lord delights in having His newly scrubbed and fed and healed little lambs love all other sheep they might mingle with. You share your love of The Shepherd out of thanksgiving and New-Nature. To the extent that you can't help being what you are, His flock, you are part and parcel of the rescue party. But make no mistake. It is Jesus who is the "Man," the God-Man Who goes out and finds His own lost little lamb…not you.
The large numbers, 99, or whatever they may be, are left either in the security of the Lord's pasture, the Church Catholic, or they are left in the wilderness of their own rejection. It is Jesus Himself Who goes into the desert waste-land searching for the lost and missing sheep. He descended from Heaven and assumed His humanity from the Blessed Virgin so that He might do all the loving, serving, and obeying that you have failed to do. His flesh, and His blood, the body and soul of the Shepherd Rescuer bore the wrath against your sin and Publicanism, against your scribing and hypocrisy…to the point of torture and death…so that your bodies and spirits might be spared, bought-back, and returned to the Green Pastures of Grace!
This Man who is Your God in the flesh, carried you, YOU-the one lost sheep on His shoulders. He did it first when He carried the two Tables of the Law perfectly for 33 years. He did it again when He carried your sins up Golgotha's incline. He did it when He carried your life-less corpse to the Font to pour into you: Breath, Blood and Water. And He continues to carry you every step of the way in Absolution and Supper.
And He does it "rejoicing." Think of that fact and meditate upon it. You know from your readings of Scripture when the Christ was amazed, sad, prayerful, righteously angry, and kind. But you should keep in mind that in this parable (which of course tells you about Him also) He rejoices over you! Jesus the Savior smiles over you; He has His heart warmed over you; sings and laughs with joy over you.
The joy of God, the Man-God, over the one saved-YOU, is communal and family shared. There are no solo lambs of the Heavenly Fold. The inter-communitarian love of the Holy and Blessed Trinity, amongst itself, between the Persons of the Godhead, beautifully bespeak the love of Christian brother for Christian brother, of Lamb for Lamb, and of friend and neighbor for redeemed and returned: YOU!
You were lost…past tense. Jesus has found you. You're home.
Join Him and the rest for the feast.
In the Name of The Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost