But
then Jesus came along with his own message and mission, his own
characterization of what it meant it be holy, his own way of doing things.
Instead of separating himself from sinners, he ate with them. Instead of
shunning them, he welcomed them to his table. Instead of separating himself
from them, he invited them to join him. Instead of pushing them away, he pulled
them closer. Instead of berating them and pointing fingers at them, he drew
them into relationship with him.
As
followers of Jesus, Christians are called to be like him—in fact, to let his
light within them shine forth as a witness to him. This means thinking as he
thinks, and doing as he does. This means to be radically inviting to sinners.
This does not mean condoning sin, or overlooking sin, or taking sin lightly.
But it means loving those who sin—loving those who sin not in some, detached
intellectual fashion, but in a real, concrete way. There are many examples of
this unhesitating love of sinners.
Some of you are aware of the work
of Wes Wagner, a member of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Vancouver. Some years
ago Wes established a powerful ministry to people overcoming harmful
addictions. Wagner Hills now operates two 45 acre farms, one for men and one
for women, located in Langley. Here those whose lives have been torn apart by
addictions to alcohol and drugs are given new life and new hope through a
direct encounter with the love of Jesus. It is space where people caught in the
bondage of addiction can repent and experience the unconditional forgiveness of
God. A man by the name of Jamie Smyth has recently given testimony of God’s
forgiveness and unhesitating love of him. As child at about age 10 I stopped going to church and stopped
following God. I was messed up in my thinking, in who I thought I was. I felt
alone, abandoned. I felt I was a misfit, that I didn’t measure up. So I figured
the best way to solve this issue was to become a people pleasing performance
based person who was trying to do everything perfectly in order to gain
approval and love. Even as life moved on I was not willing or able to receive
the love others and God had for me. I cut myself off from reality, thinking
that if I could control everything or those around me(my circumstances,
situations, and people) life would be just fine. I tried playing god. I began
serving myself. If things didn’t work out I would run or try to change my
environment. If life got tough I would seek relief and pleasure in food, drugs,
sex, or entertainment. I was in bondage: to the lies, to addiction, and to a
life of self destruction. I came to the Lord over twenty-five years ago.
However, I was still doing it my way. Through my years of knowing about God, I came
to realize I had to die to myself in order to gain life. Over a year ago, it
was put on my heart to come to Wagner Hills. I was finally completely willing
to lay it all down so God could do the work in me and bring me what I had long
searched for: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self control. During my year at the farm I was able to ome to
know what it is to have a relationship with Christ. I was able to learn about
and receive His love. I was able to walk in faith, to trust and to let God
guide and direct me. I understand His plan and purpose for my life, one that is
so much different and better than the life I had bought into.”(quotes from the
Wagner Hills newsletter)
Loving a person struggling with drug addiction is
not easy, and people do not naturally take this harder road, less traveled. The
reason it is so difficult for Christians to love sinners is because Christians
are sinners. If this were not the case, then we would be able to do as Christ
does—love the sinner without hesitation. It is far easier to travel the safe
and easy path of stamping labels on people thinking that sinners are “out there
somewhere” and we are the holy ones. How easy it is to assume the posture of a
grumbling Pharisee or scribe, pointing fingers and condemning. But remember
this--and many have heard it-- that every-time a finger is pointed at someone
else, three others point back at the pointer.
This
last week, as many of you have heard, a pastor in the United States and his congregation garnered
widespread international attention with plans to burn the Koran, the book holy
to Islam, on the anniversary of the 911 attack. The only thing this managed to
do was show-case this pastor as an aggressor and instigator of hatred—the very
things he accuses his enemies of. Where is Jesus in that message?
Yet, it is also easy to step up on
a pedestal and point an accusing finger at Pastor Jones, taking great delight
in mocking him, all the while thinking we would never stoop to his level.
The
media has eaten up this story, and the enemies of the Christian church surely
love it. What we are less likely to hear about is occurring across the globe.
We are less likely to hear about the response by Christian communities around
the world to the devastation which has struck Pakistan. Churches, including
this community in Christ, have sent aid, have prayed. Christians have
volunteered on the ground, have extended hospitality to a largely Muslim
population, even while they may vehemently disagree with its faith position.
But in that extension the love of Jesus has been extended, the love of God had been made manifest.
Such
love gives hope in hopeless circumstances, and promises forgiveness to repentant sinners without condition,
without demand. It is given freely, and where it is given and received, new
life is made possible. What an extraordinary love this is!
This
kind of love is something about which the Pharisees did not know. And in
response to their grumbling, Jesus provides two illustrations of God’s love for
the sinner. The first is the parable of the lost sheep. In this parable Jesus invokes the
imagery of the sheep and shepherd. The imagery is lovely and pastoral, but as
modern people living in the industrialized world, the power of this imagery may
not be fully appreciated. But to the audience who first heard these words of
our Lord spoken, the image of the lost sheep would have been overwhelmingly
powerful: for sheepherding was a staple of the economy for those living in 1st
century Judea. To leave a flock of ninety-nine sheep in search of one would have been a huge risk. Just imagine that,
putting your entire livelihood on the line in order to recover a small portion
of it? How many of us would take that kind of risk? God does it, and God has done it. God
loves sinners. If God patiently waited for them to come to
Him, we would consider that, in itself, to be an extraordinary love. But he
goes further than that. He seeks the lost. God gave his Son so that the lost might be found. God finds
the sinner.
And God
rejoices when the sinner repents—for to repent is to accept this extraordinary
love which is freely offered. It is to bask in the warmth of God’s glorious
light. You see the call to
repentance is not the all to a cosmic guilt trip, or
some kind of a downer. Repentance is the frank admission of being a
sinner, and utterly in need of God’s love and God’s forgiveness. It is to admit
powerlessness over over the power
of sin apart from God. It is to admit how others and ourselves have been hurt
by behaviour which results from sin. Some theologians and pastors may want to
down play the role of repentance. But to do so is to rob the people of the
precious fruit which it leads to—which is freedom, peace, and joy.
Jamie, the
fellow I spoke about moments ago repented when he realized that he could not do
it on his own, that his own way led to brokenness and pain, that he needed God.
In a very real way Jamie’s life embodied the words we hear today in Psalm 51.
The Psalm concludes with the words, “ Create in me a clean heart, O God, and
renew a right spirit within me.”
God has promised to deliver on this plea, and has done so through his
Son. As Martin Luther said, where there is forgiveness of sins, there is new
life and salvation—there is the extraordinary new life God wants us to have,
God yearns for us to have, which God has given to us if we would only take it.
This is why Jesus welcomed sinners, ate with sinners, not so that he would keep them company
as they dwelt in the misery of
their sin, but so that they would experience the great gift God has given to
them. It is the same gift God has given to you. It is the same gift God has
called all Christians everywhere to share with every sinner, which means
everyone. And there is not one sinner whom God does not love and sees as
precious.
Just as the
woman in the second parable we read today searches tirelessly for the lost
silver coin, God continues to search for those lost in sin, those who have
chosen to follow their own paths.
Sadly some will turn away from the life giving message of the gospel.
But the Christian church has been
entrusted with the great responsibility of reaching
them with this great message of hope.
How are we to do it? What are we to say? First, Christians must always realize
who we are: we are forgiven sinners. We are not just people who make mistakes
every once in a while, but are otherwise perfect. We are sinners determined to
do it our way, and not God’s way. There is a great impression out there that
the church is filled with perfect people. This impression has, as a matter of
fact, prevented many people from coming to church. They simply feel that they
are not good enough to attend, and be with all of those perfect people. This
impression must be challenged and corrected. Just before he died, Martin Luther
was quoted as uttering the sentence: “ We are beggars, this is true.” In other words Christians, as forgiven
sinners, are constant need of God’s
word of forgiveness and new life. We can never outgrow that. For to
outgrow it is to outgrow God, which we can never do. A second popular
impression is that the church is just full of hypocrites. To this charge the answer is clear: yes, its
true. It’s true because every-time we sin, we do not live up to the standards
which we not only ascribe to, but confess. That’s the nature of sin.
Christians
are not Holy on the basis of anything which we have done. We are Holy because
God has declared it so. Now that’s a different, a radical different
understanding of what holiness means. For the sake of Christ, God has declared
you Holy through his life giving word. We can see this radical declaration
foreshadowed in today’s gospel lesson through our Lord’s extension of radical
hospitality. We, in turn, as
disciples of Jesus, are called to extend the same hospitality to all people.
We, too, are called to search the lost, and extend that invitation.
Just over
two thousand years ago, Jesus ate with the sinners. Against the religious
leadership of his day, he engaged in this radical act of hospitality In a
moment, Jesus will invite the sinners to his table, and feed them his food of
forgiveness and new life.
Now may the
peace which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ
Jesus. Amen.
