Lost and Found
At the present, in our society, we have 2 extremes when it comes to thinking about sin.
On one side, we don’t really believe in sin. What we call “Sin” is merely the result of malfunctioning genes, or chemical imbalances in the brain, or maybe a bad upbringing. Sin isn’t really my fault. It is a result of conditions that are outside my control. It is bad nature, or bad nurture, but not really choice. In this sense there isn’t really anything such as sin. … So, if someone commits a murder, we fairly quickly assume it is mental illness, or the consequence of a bad upbringing, or a manifestation of social ills. … But not a choice, and therefore, not really sin. Brokenness, perhaps, but not really sin.
And there is an element of truth to this. The Bible sometimes talks about sin as a power that grabs a hold of us, and manifests through us, and we seem helpless to stop it.
On the other extreme, we seem to be coming to believe in sin in a way that it is unforgiveable. People’s social media posts are scoured, sometimes finding offensive things they said 10 or 15 years ago, even if it is only offensive in hindsight and not at the time it was written. Once someone has been defined as committing a sin, there is no coming back, there is no forgiveness. They are to be fired from their job, scorned, removed, shamed, and forgotten. They are left in a place of never-ending apology, but without any means of forgiveness. The good they may have done is forgotten, and only the sin defines them. To suggest that an offender could be forgiven can become offensive in itself.
On the other extreme, we seem to be coming to believe in sin in a way that it is unforgiveable. People’s social media posts are scoured, sometimes finding offensive things they said 10 or 15 years ago, even if it is only offensive in hindsight and not at the time it was written. Once someone has been defined as committing a sin, there is no coming back, there is no forgiveness. They are to be fired from their job, scorned, removed, shamed, and forgotten. They are left in a place of never-ending apology, but without any means of forgiveness. The good they may have done is forgotten, and only the sin defines them. To suggest that an offender could be forgiven can become offensive in itself.
There is an element of truth here too. The victim is asked to give up their power- to give up their position of standing in righteousness over the offender- to give up their right to vengeance. Whose place is it to suggest to a victim when that right time is? When is the right time to forgive? Should it be immediate- a decision- the beginning of healing? Or, is it a process- part of the healing process that is closer to the end?
These extremes make it hard to talk about sin, because we either don’t think there is anything that needs to be forgiven, or we take it so seriously that it is offensive to consider it forgivable.
Jesus teaches us that God both takes sin seriously and offers forgiveness. To the woman caught in adultery facing a mob that was ready to stone her to death (John 8), Jesus tells her that he doesn’t condemn her (which might leave us thinking that he doesn’t take her sin very seriously), but he also tells her to go and sin no more. Jesus recognizes the sin as real, but he also offers real forgiveness.
Our Gospel passage is about how God views the sinner. Jesus speaks in parables about things that are lost and the joy of finding those things. A shepherd loses his sheep and a woman loses her coin. Both are overjoyed to find what they had lost.
When Jesus told these stories he obviously wasn’t talking about sheep and coins. He was talking about people. In the Gospel reading it says, “All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus]” (Luke 15:1). And it was in relation to these people that Jesus told these parables about the shepherd searching for his lost sheep and the woman searching for her lost coin.
Tax collectors were considered traitors. They worked for the Romans by collecting their taxes and made themselves rich by demanding more than what Rome asked for. It would be like living in France during World War 2 and your next-door neighbor was getting rich working for the Nazis.
“Sinners” could have been a variety of people, from prostitutes, to thieves, to people who were so poor that they had to constantly work to put food on the table, so they could be ignorant of some of the laws because they had little time to study the Jewish laws.
In the eyes of the religious elite, these sinful people still existed within their communities, so God would not help them become free from Roman oppression.
The religious elite of the day didn’t have much time for “lost” people like this- tax collectors and “sinners”. And they didn’t really think Jesus should keep company like this. The religious elite were those who seemed to have their lives together for the most part. They were doing their best to live according to the law. …
For some reason these “lost” people were coming to listen to Jesus. This bothered the religious elite. Earlier in Luke Jesus responded to their grumbling by saying,
These extremes make it hard to talk about sin, because we either don’t think there is anything that needs to be forgiven, or we take it so seriously that it is offensive to consider it forgivable.
Jesus teaches us that God both takes sin seriously and offers forgiveness. To the woman caught in adultery facing a mob that was ready to stone her to death (John 8), Jesus tells her that he doesn’t condemn her (which might leave us thinking that he doesn’t take her sin very seriously), but he also tells her to go and sin no more. Jesus recognizes the sin as real, but he also offers real forgiveness.
Our Gospel passage is about how God views the sinner. Jesus speaks in parables about things that are lost and the joy of finding those things. A shepherd loses his sheep and a woman loses her coin. Both are overjoyed to find what they had lost.
When Jesus told these stories he obviously wasn’t talking about sheep and coins. He was talking about people. In the Gospel reading it says, “All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus]” (Luke 15:1). And it was in relation to these people that Jesus told these parables about the shepherd searching for his lost sheep and the woman searching for her lost coin.
Tax collectors were considered traitors. They worked for the Romans by collecting their taxes and made themselves rich by demanding more than what Rome asked for. It would be like living in France during World War 2 and your next-door neighbor was getting rich working for the Nazis.
“Sinners” could have been a variety of people, from prostitutes, to thieves, to people who were so poor that they had to constantly work to put food on the table, so they could be ignorant of some of the laws because they had little time to study the Jewish laws.
In the eyes of the religious elite, these sinful people still existed within their communities, so God would not help them become free from Roman oppression.
The religious elite of the day didn’t have much time for “lost” people like this- tax collectors and “sinners”. And they didn’t really think Jesus should keep company like this. The religious elite were those who seemed to have their lives together for the most part. They were doing their best to live according to the law. …
For some reason these “lost” people were coming to listen to Jesus. This bothered the religious elite. Earlier in Luke Jesus responded to their grumbling by saying,
“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:31-32).
Jesus is saying something similar here. He has come for the lost. … There is a subtle teaching here. Is Jesus not here for the religious elite as well? He is here only for the lost, and the sick? Is Jesus not here for them as well?
So long as the Pharisees and Scribes are seduced by their own pride into believing that they are righteous and spiritually healthy, Jesus doesn’t have anything for them. It is not until they admit that they are sick that Jesus can offer them healing. It is not until they admit that they are lost that they can be found.
When we look for degrees of holiness, it’s not much use to compare ourselves to each other- we look to Jesus to find holiness. It doesn’t work to say, “well I’m not a tax collector, or I’m not a thief, or I’m not a murderer, so I’m a righteous person”. The comparison we need to make is with Jesus. We have all fallen short of Christ-likeness. That’s the goal. That’s how we were created to be. … We are all lost. We are all sick. That’s what the Pharisees and Scribes did not see about themselves. They worked hard to follow the Laws, but they became proud and so they looked down on the tax-collectors and “sinners” who came to Jesus. As Grace said in her sermon a couple weeks ago, Pride is the root of all spiritual sickness, all spiritual lostness, and it is pride that we are most blind to.
At least tax collectors and sinners couldn’t pretend to have their lives all together the way the religious people could. This meant that these sinners were more able to receive the healing Jesus was offering. They were able to admit they were sick and so had their hands open to receive the medicine. The prideful will not admit to being sick at all, and so they are not attentive to receiving any cure. The prideful will not admit to being lost and so are not willing to be found.
This is why Jesus tells the religious leaders in Matthew
So long as the Pharisees and Scribes are seduced by their own pride into believing that they are righteous and spiritually healthy, Jesus doesn’t have anything for them. It is not until they admit that they are sick that Jesus can offer them healing. It is not until they admit that they are lost that they can be found.
When we look for degrees of holiness, it’s not much use to compare ourselves to each other- we look to Jesus to find holiness. It doesn’t work to say, “well I’m not a tax collector, or I’m not a thief, or I’m not a murderer, so I’m a righteous person”. The comparison we need to make is with Jesus. We have all fallen short of Christ-likeness. That’s the goal. That’s how we were created to be. … We are all lost. We are all sick. That’s what the Pharisees and Scribes did not see about themselves. They worked hard to follow the Laws, but they became proud and so they looked down on the tax-collectors and “sinners” who came to Jesus. As Grace said in her sermon a couple weeks ago, Pride is the root of all spiritual sickness, all spiritual lostness, and it is pride that we are most blind to.
At least tax collectors and sinners couldn’t pretend to have their lives all together the way the religious people could. This meant that these sinners were more able to receive the healing Jesus was offering. They were able to admit they were sick and so had their hands open to receive the medicine. The prideful will not admit to being sick at all, and so they are not attentive to receiving any cure. The prideful will not admit to being lost and so are not willing to be found.
This is why Jesus tells the religious leaders in Matthew
“truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you” (21:31).
The only difference between them and the religious elite were that the tax collectors and prostitutes who were coming to Jesus recognized their need for healing and transformation. The religious elite were unwilling to admit their sickness. We all suffer from hearts that are distant from God. We are distracted and addicted to sin. We are lost. … But, there is hope in recognizing that we are all lost.
Something beautiful we learn from these parables is that we are incredibly valuable to God, and we also learn that it is not primarily we who are searching for God. It is actually God who is searching for us. We are His and He wants to find us. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden we are hiding ourselves from God in the bushes while he is calling our name. We hide because of our fear, and shame, and because we are addicted to our sin. … But, God is seeking us.
And when God finds us, we find ourselves not in the presence of an annoyed shepherd or a grumpy woman who has been searching all day, instead, we find ourselves in the presence of joy. Joy at finding us. We are so valuable to God that He is filled with joy when He finds us.
May we recognize our deep need for God (regardless of what kind of sinner we are). And may we know in the core of our being that we are worth finding, and that there is joy in heaven each time we are found. AMEN
Something beautiful we learn from these parables is that we are incredibly valuable to God, and we also learn that it is not primarily we who are searching for God. It is actually God who is searching for us. We are His and He wants to find us. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden we are hiding ourselves from God in the bushes while he is calling our name. We hide because of our fear, and shame, and because we are addicted to our sin. … But, God is seeking us.
And when God finds us, we find ourselves not in the presence of an annoyed shepherd or a grumpy woman who has been searching all day, instead, we find ourselves in the presence of joy. Joy at finding us. We are so valuable to God that He is filled with joy when He finds us.
May we recognize our deep need for God (regardless of what kind of sinner we are). And may we know in the core of our being that we are worth finding, and that there is joy in heaven each time we are found. AMEN
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