Third Sunday after Trinity, 2011
Text: St. Luke 15:1-10
The Rev. Jerry Kistler
St. Stephen’s Reformed Episcopal Church
“Making Friends with Sinners”
Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to hear Him. And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’”
Jesus said, “The Son of
Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a wine-bibber,
a friend of tax-collectors and sinners.” Could the same be said of you? Does
your behavior in the world open you up to the charge that you’re a friend of
sinners? Or are you so righteous that no one could possibly accuse you of that?
Well, let me say that I hope that you are not wrongly accused of being a friend
of sinners. I hope it’s true. I hope it’s true because Jesus was indeed a
friend of sinners, and still is. Jesus was and is a friend of everyone except
the righteous, that is, those who in their own eyes are righteous and therefore
have no need of his friendship.
The Pharisees asked why He
ate with tax collectors and sinners and he responded, “The well have no need of
a physician, but those who are sick…. I didn’t come to call the righteous, but
sinners to repentance.” “I came to seek and to save the lost.” That means that
if you, the once lost sinner, now know Jesus as your friend, it’s only because He
sought you out in your state of lost-ness. So are you now seeking to make
friends with those who are still lost, or are you content with the company of
the righteous? You know, it was to challenge that attitude of satisfaction—satisfaction
with being a member of the in-group, a satisfaction that builds walls rather
than opens doors--that Jesus told the two parables in our Gospel lesson today.
“What man among you, having a
hundred sheep, it he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the
wilderness and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he
has found it, he lays it on his shoulder [and carry’s it home] rejoicing.”
Sure Jesus, but what
about the ninety-nine left in the wilderness? Who takes care of them? Who
protects and feeds them while the shepherd is out looking for the one lost
sheep? I mean isn’t that irresponsible of the shepherd? How can he put at risk
ninety-nine on account of one? And it’s the sheep’s own darn fault for getting
lost? The ninety-nine didn’t wander off. They’d stuck together as a group.
They’d followed the shepherd wherever he wanted them to go. He should just cut
his losses, shouldn’t he? After all, the loss is only one percent. A
businessman should expect a certain percentage of loss. He should be satisfied
that he still has the ninety-nine.
If we’re honest, isn’t
that what is in the back of our mind when we read the parable? Don’t we feel a
sense of vicarious envy on behalf of the ninety-nine? But here’s the point: the
shepherd counts the lost sheep as of equal value with any one of the
ninety-nine. And he wants all one-hundred. He’s not content to cut his losses.
A pastor stepped up to
the pulpit one Sunday and announced to the people that he was going to take an
extended sabbatical from preaching and teaching in the parish in order to
concentrate his time and efforts on going out to meet the people of the
neighborhood and to minister the gospel in whatever avenues God opened to him.
After the service some of the people of the congregation we heard to say, “All
he cares about are the new people. We are the ones who have been members here
all our lives and no one cares what we think or what we like. He only cares
about getting outsiders to come. What about us?” This is the whining of the
ninety-nine. The point is the
ninety-nine are not the ones who are lost. They’re already found. And, anyway,
shouldn’t it be the shepherd and the
ninety-nine who go out looking for the lost sheep together? You see the
ninety-nine represent those who are already safe in the covenant, those who are
already gathered together in the sheepfold of the kingdom. So why is it that
they’re just standing around grazing in the wilderness? If they’re supposed to
be such good followers of the shepherd, why aren’t they out there following the
shepherd to find His lost sheep? You know why It’s
because they are the ones who are
satisfied with their numbers. They are
the ones who are content to cut their losses. They’re content with the company
of the righteous, and complain that the shepherd makes friends with sinners.
Jesus is the Good
Shepherd and we are his sheep if we hear his voice and follow Him, even if to
follow him means we have to pick up our hooves and leave our comfortable
grazing land to seek out and make friends with lost sinners.
“Or what woman among you, having
ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the
house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she
calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have
found the piece which I lost.”
If Jesus couldn’t appeal
to their altruism, perhaps he could appeal to their greed. We have a lot harder
time cutting a ten-percent loss, especially when it’s our own hard-earned cash.
But that’s just the point. We don’t often think of the lost as one of our own,
and less frequently do we think of him/her as of equal value with each one of
us safe back here in the piggy bank. But notice that in the parable the coin
doesn’t become any less a coin, or any less valuable a coin, for rolling away
and getting lost. And so we don’t hear the woman saying, “Oh,
well. I’m not going to bother myself about this one lost coin. True,
it’s one of ten, but I still have nine, and I’m content with them.” That would
be ridiculous, wouldn’t it? But what Jesus is saying is that it should be just
as ridiculous for us to be satisfied with the company of the righteous, and not
to seek out the lost, because in God’s estimation they are just as valuable as
us as any of us. They are just as desired as any one of us, because each of us,
saved or lost, are made in His image. Each one of us
are His offspring by creation, and that makes the lost our kin. Would we be
satisfied to cut our losses if the lost was our brother? But he is! And in case Jesus’ hearers missed the point, he
tells them yet another parable: the parable of the lost son, which is not a
part of our Gospel lesson, but which concludes His teaching on this matter.
Remember what happens
when the son returns home and his father throws him a welcome home party. The
elder brother gets jealous. He complains to his father, “Lo, these many years I
have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet
you never gave me a young goat that I might make merry with my friends. But as
soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.”
Notice that he doesn’t
even acknowledge the lost as his own brother. He’s “this son of yours.” The
implication is that the elder brother would have been glad to cut his losses
and make merry with his friends. His younger brother didn’t deserve to share in
his father’s blessing. After all, he’s
the one that ran away. But his father answers him, “Son, you are always with
me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be
glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” Your
brother was lost and is found.
Are you a friend of
sinners? Are you actively seeking out friendships with unbelievers? I’ve heard
it said that we shouldn’t seek friendships with unbelievers. I have had
Christians tell me that Paul’s doctrine that we should not be unequally yoked
with unbelievers means we shouldn’t have unbelievers over to our homes for
dinner, or that we shouldn’t go to a party in an unbeliever’s home, or that we
shouldn’t allow our kids to play with unbelievers.
First, not only is that a
horrible misreading of
Finally, if we try to
make the Scriptures say that we should not make friends with unbelievers, we
are the Pharisees who find fault with Jesus because He was not satisfied with
the company of the righteous, but went into the homes of publicans and harlots,
beggars and blasphemers, to seek and to save the lost, to seek and to save
sinners like you and me. How shall we not go and do likewise?
Helmut Thielecke: “Jesus gained the power to love harlots,
bullies, and ruffians…He was able to do this only because he saw through the
filth and crust of degradation, because his eye caught the divine original which
was hidden in every way – in every man! … When Jesus loved a guilt-laden person
and helped him, he saw in him an erring child of God. He saw in him a human
being whom his Father loved and grieved over because he was going wrong. He saw
him as God originally designed and meant him to be, and therefore he saw
through the surface layer of grime and dirt to the real man underneath… Jesus
was able to love men because he loved them right through the layer of mud.”
A
glutton and a wine-bibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. May we be so accused. May
we not be satisfied with the company of the righteous, but follow our Good
Shepherd into the wilderness of our culture to seek and to save our lost
brothers and sisters. +