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Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, 09/16/2007
Sermon on Luke 15:1-10, by Walter W. Harms
REJOICE WITH JESUS!
How would you describe the worship service you regularly attend?
Perhaps you have never thought about it. It's just perfunctory. You
just do it and that's it.
Perhaps it's somber with a lot of ritual and ceremony that you have
witnessed too many times.
Some worship services are extremely well done. The music is performed
well. The worship leaders don't miss a beat. The sermon is within the
prescribed minutes. Acolytes and flowers are without fault.
Some try to jazz it up a bit. Contemporary music that moves the
spirit. Few of the old religious words used. Screens up there to help
you not to have to fumble through different sections of a book.
Maybe you just don't go much anymore at all. You don't get too much
out of worship which always makes you think you need to improve some
aspect of your life, and you never seem to measure up. The people seem
to be so homogenous that you wonder if one spouse couldn't go home with
a different one with whom they came and they'd never notice it!
I don't know. How would you describe your worship? Would you say that
there is a lot of rejoicing going on? Would you say that people are
really happy to be there with each other? Is there laughter? You'd
have to have laughter, wouldn't you if there was joy?
If you're a Lutheran Christian (I hope they are the same), perhaps the
most wild expression of joy in a worship service is a self-conscious
smile because you surely shouldn't laugh in church!
Jesus says that there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner
that repents. Surely if the angels of God are rejoicing over people
who have confessed their separation from God and its consequences, then
when we see others who have confessed their separation from God and
recognize that without the love of Jesus they would be lost, the whole
she-bang of the congregation should be hooting and hollering in joy.
If angels before God can rejoice, shouldn't we?
Now rejoicing in our culture means singing, shouting, dancing and a big
party. I don't know how angels do it, but I suspect that they can
hardly make it from one party to the next because of all the sinners
who repent each week, as you and I do. Wouldn't you think some of that
should be part of our celebration when we hear each other repent and
receive the forgiveness from the only One who saves, Jesus Christ?
Man, he came to seek and save us. He says that each of us are so
important to him that he'll leave all the others and go after the 1%
who are lost. That's what Jesus is all about. He is "about" looking
for the lost one, finding the lost one, bringing the lost one back into
the fold and rejoicing with the community.
You just have to see in these two small stories that Jesus told that
the lost sheep is lost, the lost coin is lost. It is never going to be
returned to where it should be without the person who going to find it
and bring it back.
I don't know how a sheep repents or a coin does it either for that
matter, but repentance for all we think of it is very simple. It is to
come to the awareness that we are lost without a relationship with God.
It's not our piety, our being nice, our staying on the right side of
the commandments that puts us into a relationship with God. It is God
going out and bringing us back. It is baptism where the infant knows
nothing and has no sense that he/she needs to be in a relationship with
God. The infant thought Mom and maybe Dad was enough. No, not enough.
And if God had not come for you and me we would still be laying in the
dirt and mire of thinking what we can achieve or enjoy in this world of
things and the use of people is what life is about. We would believe
that going for the gusto, draining every day of as much pleasure as we
can get would be living life to the full.
The housing down turn is an example of this. We wanted a house so bad
we would get sub-prime loans. We would refinance our homes so that we
could use all that equity for pleasure of one kind or another, until...
Well, until it all comes crashing down around us and we are helpless.
Sure, perhaps the government will bail us out somehow, but where to
now? We will probably never know.
But Jesus is there. He comes to us. It doesn't make any difference to
him if we have a huge home and impressive assets or are homeless
because of what we have done. It makes no difference if we have given
millions away and still leave 12 million to take care of our dog. We
are lost and cannot buy our way to whatever comes after death.
We are lost. Miserably lost. Hopelessly lost. Ever try to do it all
right for one week? Most of us never try and if we do, we fail.
Those of you who confess you are Christians, just how good are you?
Have you forgotten to be loving? Have you intentionally been mean?
Have you been greedy and self-centered? Have you done one or more
things you know you shouldn't have? We who are Christians cuss and
lust. We look down our noses at those whose lives are a mess. We
think we are somehow on a higher level than those caught in the thicket
of exposure to their immoral deeds.
Well, we are not! We are perhaps, and sad to say, more like the
Pharisees and scribes. They grumbled because this man, this Jesus,
this man who claims to be on the inside track with God receives obvious
sinners and even, mind you, even has fellowship with them, by eating
with them!
They had no joy in their relationship with God. They thought it
depended on keeping rules which had been made up so that they would
look like they were honoring God. In fact, they didn't know God. They
believed, as we often do, that our relationship depends on how close we
come to keeping some of the commandments.
The truth of the matter is that they were far from God because they did
not recognize their lost condition, their alienation from God. They
were caught in the thicket of self-determined righteousness. The only
righteousness that will ever count is the righteousness that Jesus
gives us through his suffering and dying on the cross for us.
There was the end of sin. There was the end of being separated from
God. There was the shepherd's staff pulling us out of hell and giving
us a place with all the saints in the sheepfold of the church.
Repentance is not being sorry for sin. That's a very fine thing to do.
But real repentance rejoices that all my sin, my separation from God
is gone because the lost one (I, you, whoever) has a place with God
because of Jesus.
Why do you think we have the Blessed Sacrament so often? This is Jesus
receiving sinners and eating with them. This is Jesus welcoming us
sinners and feeding us with himself, so that there will be no doubt,
that the Almighty and Most Merciful God considers us part of his family.
So how can we display that joy we experience to others around us?
After we have rejoiced with Jesus, just perhaps maybe we ought to
express that joy to others around us? Amen.
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