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Sermon for Trinity 3
1 Peter 5:6-11 + Luke 15:1-10
Sometimes, during Jesus’ ministry, multitudes of people followed Him and listened to Him. Of course, sometimes, as in the verses that come right before today’s Gospel, Jesus turned to those multitudes and said things to them that ended up driving many of them away. How could He do that? Wasn’t it Jesus’ goal to have as many people following Him as possible? Well, if we’re talking about God’s ultimate purpose, it’s for all mankind to be saved, all the billions of souls that exist. But He wants to save them in a certain way: by bringing them, one by one, to repentance and faith in Him. So, in practice, His goals aren’t accomplished when multitudes are saved. As we learn in today’s Gospel, Jesus’ goals, the goals of God, are accomplished when one sinner repents.
Let’s define repentance. The first part of repentance is contrition, sorrow over sin, a change of attitude toward sin, no longer seeing it as something worthwhile, but as something that is hateful and offensive to the holy God, something that incurs His wrath, something that must be avoided, and atoned for, if you are to escape the eternal punishment your sin has earned for you. When God reveals His righteous standards in His holy Law, and when His Law reveals that you fall short of those standards, whether in your dealings toward God or with other people, repentance means agreeing with God’s Law that you deserve His wrath and punishment.
But the second part of repentance is equally important, and Jesus is clearly including both parts in today’s Gospel. The second part of repentance is when the sorrowful sinner believes the Gospel, when he trusts in God’s promise to receive sinners, to show mercy to sinners for Jesus’ sake, when he comes to Jesus for the promised forgiveness of sins, when he comes to the baptismal waters to have his sins washed away in the sight of God. So repentance includes both contrition and faith in Christ. And both are produced in the sinner’s heart through the preaching of God’s Word, both Law and Gospel.
That preaching is what was bringing all the tax collectors and sinners to approach Jesus, to hear Him. Now, the tax collectors at that time were practically all thieves and extortioners, and the “sinners” here refers to public, well-known sinners, like prostitutes and adulterers. We aren’t told how many of them had experienced both parts of repentance, but God’s Word was clearly doing its work in them. They were at least beginning to listen, and to reevaluate their sinful lives. And some of them, at least, were coming back into God’s house, through the doorway of forgiveness, because Jesus, through the Gospel, was opening it up to them again.
But you heard how the Pharisees reacted to Jesus’ treatment of those people. The Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” It’s not that He was receiving them in such a way as to condone their sins; He wasn’t. The same Jesus who commands His disciples to love sinners also condemns sin, and the sinners who continue to live in them without repentance. As He later said, through His messenger, the Apostle Paul, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. No, the Pharisees weren’t angry at Jesus for condoning their sins. They were angry with Him for even associating with them, for offering them a way out of their sins, for receiving them at all.
Now, Jesus had every right to blow up at those merciless, stuck-up, self-righteous Pharisees. But look at the tender mercy and compassion of Jesus! He goes on to tell three beautiful parables, to illustrate to the Pharisees, to the sinners, and to everyone else, how eager God is to rescue those sinners from eternal damnation and to have them back in His family.
Jesus puts it in terms his hearers can understand. Most of us here can’t relate directly to the parable of the lost sheep. You’ve probably never tended and cared for a hundred animals in the desert, only to have one of them go astray. What do you do? Well, obviously, you go looking for the one that got lost. And sometimes, tragically, you may not find it. Sometimes it may perish in the desert. But you still go looking. And then, when you actually find it, you’re filled with joy. Jesus pictures the shepherd carrying the lost sheep back on his shoulders, rejoicing, and then calling friends and neighbors to come over and celebrate, because he found what he was so desperately searching for. It was only one out of a hundred—not a big loss in the grand scheme of things, but to the shepherd, that one was worth all the effort on his part. That’s how it is for God when He actually finds a lost soul and brings it to repentance. Every one is immeasurably valuable. He knows that many, many are and will remain lost. But whenever He finds a single soul, He rejoices, and all who love Him rejoice together with Him, precisely because they love Him, and they love to see Him so happy.
Or then there’s the woman, who has only ten silver coins—not very much to live on for long. When one goes missing, that’s a tenth of all she has. So she desperately sweeps the house and searches for it until she finds it, and breathes a sigh of relief, and rejoices together with her friends, because what was lost and useless to her has now been found and has become useful to her again. So it is with God. He is the Owner of all things, including every soul. But He values each soul individually as much as every other. And once He finds a person with His Gospel, once He brings that person to repentance, He is again able to use that person in His service.
In the third parable Jesus told, which isn’t included in today’s Gospel, He told of a father who had two sons. The younger basically rebelled against his father, demanded his inheritance, and then left his father’s house and squandered all he had on reckless living. Then, finally, when he hit rock bottom and had no food and nothing left to live on, he remembered his father’s goodness, and hoped he might be allowed to return to his father’s house as a servant, because even the servants in his father’s house had plenty to eat. And so he returned in humility, to beg. But when his father saw him coming down the road, he ran to him, threw his arms around him, and welcomed him back, not as a servant, but as a beloved son, forgiven for all his past behavior, a son for whom the father threw a party, because he was so happy that his son had returned.
But it’s the ending of that parable that brings the whole lesson full circle. The older son, who had been working hard in his father’s field the whole time, heard that his brother was back, and that his father was throwing him a party, and he became bitter and angry, not only toward his brother, but toward his father. How dare he receive his prodigal son back so easily! How dare he fail to recognize how the older son had earned his keep in his father’s house!
That older son represents the scribes and Pharisees, and all who take offense at God’s goodness in receiving sinners and forgiving sins to the penitent. Don’t let yourself fall into that category. Because while the haters of God are busy grousing about God’s goodness, God, and those who love Him, including the holy angels in heaven, including the saints on earth, are busy rejoicing with Him. Those who love God rejoice with Him in the things He cares about, especially when it cost Him so much to bring those sinners back, when it cost Him the death of His own beloved Son in order to make atonement for their sins.
Yes, this man Jesus, this man who is also God, receives sinners and eats with them. Not sinners as they cling to their sins and invite Jesus to bless their sinful lifestyle, but sinners who are brought to mourn over their sins and seek the forgiveness that Jesus offers.
So look around you. There are no multitudes gathered here to hear the Word of Jesus. Sometimes we’re tempted to let that fact get us down. Don’t let it. Don’t let it. Wherever you see one sinner, just one person, who has been brought to repentance by hearing the Word of God preached, who is gathered with maybe only one or two others to praise God for His forgiveness through Christ, it’s cause for celebration. It’s cause for rejoicing, not for mourning.
Just be very careful that you never begin to count yourself among the ninety-nine “who have no need of repentance,” as Jesus described them. Because there is no one alive for whom that is actually true. There are only those who think they have no need of repentance. They will be left behind by the Shepherd, left to pat themselves on their backs for being so righteous, left to try to save themselves, without Jesus’ help. I have not come to call the righteous, says the Lord, but sinners, to repentance. Be the one coin. Be the one sheep who hears the Savior’s voice and listens. Live in daily contrition and repentance. Ride on the Shepherd’s shoulders, here within His holy Christian Church, all the way to His heavenly home. And in the meantime, be sure to rejoice with your God over every sinner who repents. Amen.
