Churches in Lititz PA
Ever lose a coin? Maybe. Ever lose a sheep? Likely not. Jesus has, and this Sunday He speaks about what He does when one of His little lambs has strayed. Join us this Sunday for a foray into the life of sheep and the life of our Good Shepherd, who brings His lost sheep back home to the fold.
The service bulletin can be found here.
The sermon text is available here and below. An audio recording of this sermon can be listened to below the sermon text.
There was a family I know where there were three adult siblings, two sisters and one brother. Of the three siblings, one ate too much, the other drank too much, and the third smoked too much. The brother who drank too much was glad he wasn’t fat and proud he didn’t smoke.
And the sisters, when they got together, told disapproving stories of their brother who had the drinking problem. At the untimely death of the older sister, the two that were left, shook their head at the overeating that killed her. At the funeral of the brother, the lone sister that was left lamented the drinking that led to her brother’s demise, all while rolling a portable oxygen tank around the funeral home.
And so, our Lord begins the parable…Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear [Jesus]. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
Our sermon this morning is titled, “In & Out” we will look at the three parables that follow this introduction by our Lord.
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
In and out.
It’s something I had yet to see. That as our Lord speaks this parable about a house. A house with everything good in it. Life and protection, even food and feasting from time to time, love and care. This is the house really of the Father that has everything good in it. Our Father. Our Good God in Heaven. Luther writes in his introduction to the Lord’s Prayer in the Small Catechism, “With these words God tenderly invites us to believe that He is our true Father, and that we are His true children, so that with all boldness and confidence, we may ask Him as dear children as their dear father in heaven.” And so, we might say that this parable is about us. About our life in the house and God’s work as this great Father to take care of all of the needs of body and soul of us His children.
And yet, the one thing that came to me was that the parable is marked by those on the inside and those on the outside. The parable begins by taking about how those inside the house were complaining about those on the outside of the house and objecting to Jesus’ time spent on them. Jesus tells three parables to illustrate a point. Who are those inside the house, the faithful children, not rebellious, who have stayed home, that would be the Pharisees and the scribes who are devoting their lives to following the Lord. Who are the children on the outside of the house? Those are the sinners and tax collectors that Jesus was eating with. And so, In and Out, and a few parables to work through that theme.
Interestingly the Lord starts his three parables as we might expect Him to with a parable of those outside the house. What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home.
That lost sheep is a stand in for all those who have allowed their appetites to get the best
of them. The publicans in Jesus’ day were hired by the Roman government to collect taxes from
their own Jewish people. They could collect more than was demanded and were considered
unscrupulous. They immediately lost the ability to attend the synagogue and temple, and so it
was a choice to live life without God. They brought shame on their own family, if they had a
sister, no one would want to marry her. The trade off was, they got rich. This represents all those who have been willing to turn away from God because of things they wanted. Further the sinners in the Gospels that Jesus was also spending time with referenced those who lived in a persistent state of sinning. They did not live lives of repentance but gave way to sins that transgressed the law of God. This group included the harlots or prostitutes, these were those who were made children of Abraham, but were living their lives outside of God’s law. They had betrayed their lives through their actions, they had forgotten who they were.
But Jesus does not leave it there. For by the end of that parable where is that lost sheep?
And what does this say about what Jesus came to do for sinners and sons of Abraham that have turned from their birthright? He had come to seek and save that which was lost.
Jesus tells another parable. But the second parable is about something that got lost inside
the house. What brilliance of our Lord! Things can get lost outside the house, but they can also
get lost inside the house. What do you think Jesus is getting at in this parable and who is it
directed to? Yes, that’s right, you can be a sheep that strays many miles from home, but you don’t
have to be outside the house to be lost, you can be inside and lost too.
And the third parable which we did not read this morning, but is generally familiar to many Christians, is the story of the prodigal son. But not only is there that son, there is a second son. The out of the first parable leads the in of the second parable leads to a parable with both in and out. What a father! He has quite a problem, he has one son who has left the house and is lost, but he also has one who is inside the house who is lost too. “Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’
Ironically by the end of the parable where is the little brother? And where is the older brother? In the same place where the first son had just been. There is much that could be said, but let us say this.
We can be lost outside the house. We can let our addictions, ways, lead us away from home. We can turn from who we are. We can forget who we know ourselves to be. We can have the house of the kingdom, but grow discontent, and think that the world out there offers us something better. We can let our discontent lead us a long way away from home thinking what God gives us is not enough. Food, drink, clothing, shoes, His Word, His rules, His definition of marriage, His definition of life and of death, or fertility. His way of doing things. We don’t want it. We want to take our inheritance, and leave. But we will find, in the end, only one thing, life with pigs, no friends, aloneness, and death. The first parable is a picture of those tax collectors and harlots. Not only are they on the outside of the house, their sins are also exterior. Like the prodigal son they let their appetites get the best of them. Some people’s sins are very easily seen. The Pharisees object. These individuals are unholy. And they are not wrong. They are not wrong at all. But Jesus speaks these parables against them. They are like coins. While the sheep is actively lost, a quiet coin is not a sentient object. It stays in the house and in the pile. The Pharisees sins are on the inside. They have forgotten what he has received. They distanced himself from the father. They are in danger of leaving the Father’s house, not out of grave sin, but of the small daily kind that lead one further and further from God. Jesus would speak about how the Pharisees are nice on the outside, but not so nice on the inside, just like a cemetery stone is polished and lovely, but is hiding underneath a dead corpse. They are just as lost as the others,
just lost in a different way. People and things can be lost in the house too. You don’t have to go to a far country to be lost, you can be lost, right here too.
But above all we are to see something n this parable, something more than just to know that we are lost too. We are to see the shepherd who, after the day was over, went out to get that sheep that was perpetually lost. We see the father who goes out every day to look for his son who many think would never come home. And we see the woman who frantically searches the house to locate the coin that is valuable to her, expending energy, even presumably money for the oil in the lamp to find that coin. We see the father who leaves behind the feast for the one son, to go out into the night to love the son who has separated himself from him also, to speak tender words. We are to see in this, the many pictures of our God, who desires nothing more than to seek and save that which was lost. And that, it is not that those are lost, but we are all lost, and that we are all need of saving, but all an object of Christ’s love, all worth seeing the price that was paid for every one of us.
In & Out, wherever you are, lost over the hills or in the house, on the outside and won’t come in, or on the inside looking out, the Lord wants you. What defines both, is the lostness, what defines God is His willingness to love the one in need. What defines us is our propensity to get lost and to justify our lostness. What defines God is His joy over going out and finding lost sinners wherever they may be and bringing them back home. This is a love we see in Christ’s coming down from heaven, the Father coming to us in the person of His Son, and the Word of God going forth to us even as today it comes to where we are to shepherd us back home.
What changes hearts, is that love, what the good shepherd was willing to do, find me in the pit of where I am and put me on His shoulders, bearing the price of that sin. I am a recipient of that grace. What changes hearts is to see what the woman does, for a coin, not worth much in the eyes others, but precious to God, God wasted time on me, God’s love for me, a sheep, whether one of a hundred, one of ten, or one or two, or two of two, God’s deep desire is for you, for all are lost and God desires and wills and works for you to be found. Where are the gross and large active sins of the appetites leading you away from the fold leading you to the point of saying that life with the Lord and His Law and Gospel is not good enough. Where have you turned actively from the father’s heart, selling your inheritance for a life of feeding the pigs. Where are you more refined but just as lost, pretending you are fine, going through the motions, where have you shown judgment to those sinners out there, but forget that you are the sinner just as much, and just as much a need of that gift of grace.
Sinners, come home. Whatever you have wasted. Whatever you have lost. Whatever you have done. Jesus death on the cross has completed it for you. That ring of sonship is put on your finger because of what He did. Have new sandals for living, life put on your feet all restored. Have that robe of righteousness put back on you, to replace the tattered one you ruined. Don’t be a second-class citizen, content to be a servant or slave, but a son, and a daughter. Accept the being found. The party is for you. Only realize that you are that treasured guest. Not by merit or worth, but by gift of the Father’s love, for you.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The peace of God which passes all human understanding, guard your hearts and minds
through faith in Jesus Christ
