Grace, mercy, and peace be yours from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Luke 15:1 Now all the tax collectors and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him. 2 Both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” 3 So He told them this parable, saying, 4 “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? 5 When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And 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 in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. 8 “Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost!’” 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (NASB)
In Luke chapter 15, Jesus tells three parables all dealing with the same problem and in the same context. He tells the parable of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Prodical Son. All three told against the backdrop of the complaints of some Pharisees and scribes. The assigned reading for this morning includes the first two.
Jesus was going about His business of preaching and teaching the Gospel. In response to the Gospel, all kinds of deplorables: sinners, tax-collectors, and people of ill-repute were flocking to Jesus. They were listening to Him. Many were repenting of their sins–we’ll get to the repenting part in a little bit.
Sinners weren’t the only ones paying attention. The Pharisees and scribes were listening, watching, and taking note of the results. They complained. “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
Receiving and eating with someone in first century Judaism had religious significance. It denoted “fellowship” a deep spiritual reality, bond between the people receiving each other and eating with each other. Eating with a clean person would not make someone clean, but a clean person eating with an unclean person, made the clean person unclean. Jesus was receiving and eating with scores of unclean people.
So the Pharisees and scribes complained and Jesus asked them, 4 “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? 5 When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And 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!’”
Most preachers use this parable and the parable of the Lost Coin to tell their people that they need to go out, find the lost sheep, which they take to mean former members of the congregation who have strayed from church attendance, and to do whatever they can to bring them back to church. Now that is not a bad thing in itself. But that is not what these parables are about. I don’t want to discourage you from encouraging those who have forsaken regular church attendance in a faithful congregation to return to the church.
I suspect if you try would will find out for yourself that what the late Doctor George Wollenburg said is true. It is easier to create new Christians than it is to raise the spiritually dead who have died to the church.
As for the parables of the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin these are not mission or evangelism parables. That’s not their central point. Jesus was targeting the most common obstacle to hearing the Gospel– namely the innate self-righteousness within every sinful human being.
Jesus told these two parables to show just how backwards/contrary the Pharisees and scribes were in their religious thinking. They were offended by Jesus’s choice of associates, dinner guests, and followers. Jesus was the most famous rabbi in the land. In their view He should have been keeping company with the morally upright of the day. Men who did their upmost to keep the written and oral laws of the day. Instead, He was keeping company with the dregs of the earth.
The Pharisees and scribes thought of themselves as the best, brightest, and most upright of all the people. They were all about the right causes, obeying the long established rules, keeping up appearances, and complying with the elite’s world view, which if put into practice was thought to produced a righteousness that pleased God. They reasoned therefore that they were the ones who were pleasing God. As for the tax-collectors, sinners, and other assorted reprobates whom Jesus welcomed, how could God have anything to do with them after all they had done in this life.
The primary lesson of these parables is not “go out there and bring back those who have wandered or rolled away. These parables are told to deal with the sin of thinking that there is something in us, in our nature, in our work, in our intentions that makes us pleasing to God, more pleasing than those other greater sinners, people do terrible things, people we loathe, a people who really deserve to be punished eternally.
The truth is this (Romans 3:23) “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) “The wages of sin is death.” (Mark 10:18) “No one is good except God alone.” These parables address the most basic of all human problems. “I’m better than those other sinners, thus a just God will treat me better than they.”
By framing the parables as He did, Jesus was explaining things in a way that these arrogant and self-righteous could understand. “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? . . . 8 Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?”
Jesus told these parables to illustrate that receiving sinners, forgiving them, and eating with them was the reason that He took on human flesh and lived among us. This is what the church is suppose to be doing. Preaching the Law and the Gospel. Calling people to repentance, receiving, forgiving them in the stead and by the command of Jesus Christ, and eating with them, that is having fellowship with them in worship and at the Sacrament of the Altar.
After the first parable Jesus tells them, “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. To press the point harder Jesus adds another parable. 8 “Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost!’” Jesus says it again. 10 “In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
The themes are the same. Something is lost. A sheep in the first, a coin in the second, and a son in the parable of the Prodical Son later in the chapter is lost.
In the parable of the Lost Sheep it is the shepherd, Jesus, who finds, rescues, and returns the one who was lost. In the second parable it is the woman of the house who searches diligently and finds the lost coin. The sheep did not find and rescue itself. The coin did not find its way back into the hand of the woman. Jesus does it all. So also today. Jesus does all the searching, creating, and finding through the church, through the Word and Sacrament ministry.
Listen to parts of the Old Testament lesson – Ezekiel 34. The Shepherd does it all. He is the actor and we the recipients. 11 “For thus says the Lord God, ‘Behold, I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. . . I will care for My sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day. 13 I will bring them out from the peoples . . . I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the streams . . . I will feed them in a good pasture. . . I will feed My flock and I will lead them to rest . . . I will seek the lost, bring back the scattered, bind up the broken and strengthen the sick. . . As for you, My flock, . . . Behold, I will judge between one sheep and another . . . .”
In the Gospel lesson the sinners, tax-collectors, and the other undesirables were found and returned to the Lord God through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This finding and returning to the kingdom of heaven manifested itself by repentance.
Repentance is what sends the angels and even the Lord God Himself rejoicing.
The call of the Gospel is the call to repentance. The call to repent is the call of the Gospel. That folks is the mission of the church. Luke 24:46-47 Jesus “said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
The Augsburg Confession rightly explains the relationship between true repentance and the Gospel, the person and work of Jesus Christ.
“Repentance consists of two parts. One part is contrition, that is, terrors striking the conscience through the knowledge of sin. The other part is faith, which is born of the Gospel or the Absolution and believes that for Christ’s sake, sins are forgiven. (Augsburg Confession, Article XII)
Jesus is teaching here what we are instructed to do on regular basis.
1 John 1:8-9, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
The Pharisees and scribes didn’t think they had any real sin. The people who coming to Jesus were greater sinners. What they missed is that sinners were coming to Jesus to hear the Gospel and in so doing they were repenting, getting baptized, and were obtaining the remission of their sins. There were confessing their sins and Jesus was faithful and righteous in forgiving their sins.
People who think that they are pleasing God by virtue of their own good or who measure themselves by way of more “grievous sinners” have it backwards. God does not what their deeds and sacrifices. God tells us what pleases Him.
Psalm 40:6 “Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; My ears You have opened; Burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.”
“A broken and contrite heart oh God, Thou wilt not despise.” Psalm 51:17
Perhaps one of the reasons the church is suffering the decline in the West is that the church, mainline bible believing churches like ours have not done much work among people of ill repute, of bad reputation, the marginalized, the losers and lowly in this life. For the most part, Lutheranism and others have been about the seeking out “good people” to be members. No wonder our churches aren’t growing, there are no good people according to the Bible.
In many places the angels are silent for lack of repentance and repentance is lacking because we don’t speak, publish, and live out the Gospel and its call to repent among the lowly sinners of this world. But here Jesus reminds us that we are all sinners and as such we are called by the Gospel and the first response is repentance.
The people the world over think God and His angels are pleased when you comply with the religious, moral, and philosophical whim and trends of the day. But here Jesus us what really produces angelic rejoicing. 1 Timothy 1:15-17 “It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all. 16 Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life. 17 Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.”
AMEN
May the Peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.