Lost – but not Lost in Space. Luke 15:1-10. 09/15/2024.
Lost – but not Lost in Space
Luke 15:1-10
September 15, 2024
Rev. Dr. Scott Moncrieff
An 86-year-old man, Anthony, and his 85-year-old wife Viola lived in New Jersey. They got in their car to go to the store. But as Anthony was driving, he took a wrong turn, and they got lost. He kept driving but he could not find his way back. He drove and drove and drove over 800 miles. Two times he had to stop and fill up with gasoline. But he would not ask for directions. It was over 24 hours later that they returned home.
How did they finally find their way home? Anthony had an accident and ran into another car. The police came and helped them get back home.
Can you imagine that--a man, of any age, who would not ask for directions? Amazing! People get lost for all sorts of silly reasons. That’s part of the human condition.
Luke 15 is one of the most important chapters in all the Bible. It includes three of the most famous parables ever told. Each of the parables deals with something that is lost--a sheep, a coin and a young man. The lost sheep may have been nibbling at the grass with its head down and wandered far from the flock and the shepherd. The lost young man rebelled against his father and went into a far country and indulged in destructive behavior that nearly destroyed him. It didn’t matter to Jesus how those who were lost came to be where they were. All Jesus cared about was bringing them home.
I love how the chapter begins. “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus . . .” We could write an entire sermon from that one phrase. Tax-collectors and sinners were all gathering around Jesus. This shows two things. First of all, the tax-collectors and sinners were hungry for Christ’s message. They were not coming out of idle curiosity, or to merely observe, or to find fault with him; they were coming out of a deep spiritual need. They needed his message of salvation.
And secondly, they were acknowledging that need. That may be the most surprising part of this story. Many people need to come to Christ; relatively few are willing to admit it. Publicans, that is, tax-collectors, worked for the Roman government, the nation that had conquered Israel. And they had a reputation for being unscrupulous. They were considered traitors to both Israel and God. Consequently, they were despised by the people and were cut off and shut out by the religious authorities.
The tax-collectors and the sinners . . . Those lumped together as sinners were the immoral and unjust who did not keep the Law, such as prostitutes, liars, thieves, murderers. Because of their waywardness they also were rejected by society. So, when Christ came along preaching deliverance from sin and hope of the Kingdom of God, they also flocked to hear him.
The tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus, says Luke. But listen to what he says next, “But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” Think how different the narrative might be if we read that the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law rejoiced that the tax-collectors and the sinners gathered to hear Jesus’ teachings. That’s the way the story ought to read, but there was something dark in the heart of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, just as there was something dark in the heart of the tax-collectors and the sinners. At least, the tax collectors and sinners were aware of their need.
The Pharisees and the teachers felt it was beneath the dignity of any respectable person to associate with people who did not obey the Law, and they were offended by Jesus’ actions. Rather than having a heart for reaching out to those whom society had rejected, they wanted to keep them at arm’s distance. We shouldn’t have any difficulty understanding their attitude. They weren’t much different from you and me. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law wanted to associate with people who shared their values, people who were like them. Nothing could be more human than that. That is the way all humans design their society. People want to stay in their own comfort zone. But Jesus won’t allow us to stay where we are comfortable.
He told them these parables: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them
“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
These two parables and the one that follows them, the parable of the prodigal son, defined Christ’s mission in the world. Jesus came to save that which is lost.
That is the heart of the Gospel. Earlier in Luke’s Gospel Jesus sees a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.
Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to Jesus’ disciples about the Master’s conduct. They asked, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance”.
That is Jesus’ target audience--everyone who has ever gone astray.
Paul writes in his letter to Timothy, “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.” That is the heart of the Gospel, and it is great good news.
Why is it good news? Because we are all sinners. The tax collectors and the murderers and the prostitutes were sinners. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were sinners. And you and I are sinners. We look at ourselves and think to ourselves we’re pretty good folks, and compared to some people, maybe we are. But that doesn’t mean we’ve arrived. At heart we still have a problem, a flaw, a weakness. Paul once described his own situation: “I do not understand my own actions,” he wrote. “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate”. He’s describing us.
The Bible is very realistic about the nature of humanity:
Abraham was the father of the Hebrew people, but he was far from perfect. Read the story and you will find him willing to give his wife to Pharaoh in order to save his own skin.
Jacob found favor with God and his name was changed to Israel. That is a good thing, because his earlier name meant “conniver” or “supplanter,” and he lived up to it, or down to it, as the case may be.
David was a man after God’s own heart, and yet David was an adulterous murderer.
Peter was Jesus’ closest disciple and most outspoken friend, yet Peter denied him with a curse.
Even Paul, as he writes words of encouragement to Timothy and gives God thanks for finding him worthy to serve God, confesses to Timothy that he himself is the chief of sinners.
My friends, you and I, like the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law and the tax collectors and the sinners who gathered around Jesus are flawed creatures. We have become so adept at rationalizing our basic nature that we may not be conscious of it.
Dr. Menninger wrote a book years ago with the title, Whatever Happened to Sin? That’s a good question. We shelved the concept of sin long ago. We minimize our adulteries as petty and meaningless affairs. We compromise our business ethics with the conviction that everyone is doing it. We fill our lives with the cheap and the trivial while the call to take up a cross and follow Jesus goes unanswered. There is a deep flaw within us and that is what the Bible calls sin.
A reporter once asked the great evangelist, Dwight L. Moody, what people gave him the most trouble. Immediately he answered, “I’ve had more trouble with Dwight L. Moody than any other man alive.”
He was speaking for you and me, wasn’t he? We are sinners in need of a Savior.
It is easy, like the Pharisees, to divide the world into saints and sinners, the lost and the found and to conveniently place ourselves among the saintly, those who have been found. But that is not the way the world shapes up. As someone once said, “There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it hardly becomes any of us to talk about the rest of us.” And it’s true. We take comfort in the fact that we are baptized believers in Jesus Christ, and we should, but that does not give us license to reject those who may not be as fortunate as we.
In fact, Jesus wants us to care for our brothers and sisters who are lost as much as he cares for them. How much does he care for them? --every bit as much as he cares for us.
A pastor tells of the heart-breaking images which came across our TV screens several years ago when a terrible tsunami swept across the coast of Asia. Perhaps the most heartbreaking of all were the scenes of mothers and fathers weeping over lost children. Yates writes, “I can’t get out of my mind the image of one gentleman who, having lost his parents, his wife, his three children, after nearly three weeks of searching, hope against hope, found his youngest daughter, a little three-year old girl. She had been rescued and sheltered and was safe against all odds. The joy and the uncontrollable sobs of delight and gratitude were caught by a cameraman. It was deeply moving . . .” as you might imagine.
Do you understand that God weeps over His lost children just like those parents who lost their children to the tsunami? Listen again to how Jesus ends each of these parables:
“Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home.
“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?
God weeps over any of His children who are lost. That is why it is important that we should reach out to those who are lost as well. It makes no difference whether people are lost to various addictions or to prostitution or to various betrayals of character or to self-righteousness and pride. We are all sinners and God longs for all of us to come home.
Imagine how the sinners and tax collectors felt as they listened to Jesus tell these stories. Because of their position in society, they were outcasts and estranged from family and “polite” company. Imagine their joy, comfort, and relief in knowing that someone loved and accepted them, that God was eagerly searching them out. No wonder the tax collectors and sinners gathered around to hear Jesus. They knew what it’s like to be lost and have no one looking for them. Society told them that they were too unworthy to stand in the presence of the Father. Then here comes Jesus telling them that they are deeply loved and valued, precious in His sight, and that God is eagerly seeking them to bring them back home. It must have sounded too good to be true.
Yet that is the Gospel. Jesus came to save the lost. That is why it is called THE GOOD NEWS OF JESUS CHRIST. There was a time when we were lost. Now we are those who are called by Christ to reach out to others who are lost and help them find their way back home.
Praise be to God. Amen.