Television shows love to end a season with a cliffhanger. It’s a sure way to drive conversation during the hiatus and build interest in the show for its return. Picking up ratings for re-runs doesn’t hurt, either. So, you wind up with conversations about, “Did Ross just call his fiancée the wrong name?” “Will Bo and Luke come back to Hazzard County?” “Who shot J.R.?” Perhaps the greatest cliffhanger of all was the series finale of the Sopranos as the screen went to black, leaving people scrambling to reconnect their cable and see what happened to Tony. Even the book of Jonah does this to some degree. Will Jonah repent, like Ninevah, and receive God’s grace and mercy, or will he dig in like Israel and deny God’s compassion? The reader is left with the question unanswered. That’s what a good cliffhanger does: it leaves you in suspense, wanting to know how the problem resolves.
Jesus employs a similar technique as he tells these two parables of the lost. In the first parable, Jesus tells the parable of the good shepherd who discovers that one sheep is missing. Leaving the 99 others safe in their sheep pen, he travels into the wilderness to find, rescue and bring home the little lost lamb. In the second parable, Jesus tells the story of a woman realizes that she is missing one coin. She lights every lamp in the house and begins searching through every nook and cranny until she finds the one missing silver coin. In both parables, when the missing one is found, the rescuer “calls friends and neighbors to celebrate and rejoice, for what was lost is now found.”
What makes these parables cliffhangers is that while the invitation is offered, Jesus does not tell us about attendance at the party. The hearers are left to wonder, “Who is going to that party?”
Think about it for a minute…who is coming to the party? And, why would they come? Now, the celebration for the return of the Prodigal Son (the third parable of the lost, which happens later in this chapter) we get – the son, who was feared dead, returns home. That is reason to celebrate with family and friends and neighbors. But the first two parables? We’re talking about finding a lost animal – one of 100, by the way – or finding a lost coin – just ten cents on the dollar. When I was a boy, we had 3 or 4 calves, at the time, all @ 100 pounds, and one of them got out of the pasture. We called our neighbors to help keep an eye out for that little rascal, and we drove around looking for it. When we found it, we called them back to tell them it was home, but we didn’t throw a party. Who would come to a party for a lost calf? (Besides…the irony of having a hamburger cookout for the return of a calf is just too funny…) And when Mom finally found missing cash that she forgot she hid under the rug in her room, she didn’t call her friends over for cookies and tea. In fact, I don’t know that she told anyone besides us! Who would go to a party for a returned calf or a discovered $50 bill? Even now, if you invited me to celebrate the returning home of Fluffy who strayed or finding that birthday money you thought was already spent, I would probably have a reason – ANY reason – to not bother showing up that night. Would you go to a party like that? I doubt it.
That’s exactly the point.
Listen again to the first sentences of Luke 15: “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering near to hear Jesus. And the Pharisees and scribes grumbled saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them. Then, Jesus told them this parable…”
Scandalous behavior, this. Jesus receives sinners. Their specific sins aren’t noted, but it’s not really necessary that we know their specific misdeeds against God and man. The unspecific sinner is part of the unholy trifecta of tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners, all despised and scorned by the Jewish leaders and the “good” citizens. I imagine some were guilty of civil crimes against others - theft, for example. Others were guilty of breaking religious law, like being unclean - eating the wrong thing, touching blood, touching a dead person or animal. Others were just Gentiles, making them guilty by association. Whatever they had done, in the end it didn’t really matter. They stood condemned in the court of public opinion with the Pharisees acting as judge, jury, and reporter, telling everyone else that these people were “sinners.” And Jesus - Jesus, of all people! - was receiving them and eating with them!
To receive someone is to welcome them, not just as a guest, a stranger, into the home, but to welcome them as if they were as close as a brother. It’s the same notion that Jesus uses when He says, “He who receives me, receives Him who sent me,” that is, if you welcome Jesus as a brother, if you receive Him by faith, then you are also a son (lower case S, of course) of God. To receive is to be in familial relationship. Jesus is welcoming these people, the miscreants, the ones with criminal past, the ones caught in the wrong bedroom with the wrong person, the ones with dark secrets that they pray never see the light of day, Jesus receives them into His presence.
But, it was more than that. Jesus also eats with them. In the ancient world, eating with a person was one of the most personally intimate things you did with people. Food was shared by dipping your hands into a bowl, often some kind of stew, perhaps with a piece of bread - think something like pita bread or thick tortillas, not Mrs. Bairds - as a serving utensil. If you are sharing that kind of meal, you want to know whose hand is dipping into your food, and you want to know the person attached to that hand, what he or she does, where he or she has been, what he or she has been doing. You want clean hands at your table - not just physically clean, but ceremonially clean as well, so that you don’t become unclean.
To sit and eat with someone like this, then, is to go one further than receive. Your guest is welcomed not just as a brother, but as someone worthy to be your equal.
And Jesus is eating with these sinners. Why? Because He came to seek and to save the lost.
The parables are story-demonstrations of Christ’s love: each lost one is important enough that Jesus will leave the safe and secure behind to go find the one in danger of dying. Each one that is missing needs to be sought out and found and returned to its place with the others. These missing ones, these wandering ones, these lost ones --- these are the sinners whom Jesus loves.
Consider “sinner” for a moment and what that implies. We read it in this context, sinners and tax collectors, and it almost has a romantic notion to it. After all, they were branded as such by the Pharisees, and who doesn’t love a good underdog story? We think of the prostitute Jesus saved from stoning, of Zaccheus, the wee little man, whom Jesus called from his prosperous tax and theft business. We think of Peter, who denied Jesus, or Thomas who doubted. We even think of ourselves – as we should. Or, we think of a child, like Gracelynn, made God’s child today through the work of the Holy Spirit in and with Water and Word. We rejoice that such a sinner is welcomed into the family of God.
The lure of those pictures, though, is we can soften the image of sinner, that we think of sinners as “good but misunderstood people,” if you will. Such a picture can lead to the idea that we are good until we aren’t. Not true. We are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners. Remember – the lost sheep in the parable? Imagine the most lost of all people. Consider, for example, those in prison: rapists, hardened murderers, thieves who have stole millions. Now, be even more specific. The man who stabbed the Ukranian refugee in North Carolina; the kid who shot Charlie Kirk; the kid who planned to shoot up his school but was arrested before he could complete his nefarious plan. Jesus seeks these lost people out, too, calling them to repentance. Even for these people, whom the world might consider unforgivable for the acts they did, Jesus is able to forgive even them, carrying them to the eternal joy of the resurrection.
Now, you can understand the Pharisees' growing anger at Jesus' scandalous behavior.
That is scandalous, isn’t it? Jesus rescues, saves, and loves sinners like that! Jesus love is magnanimous, and when He finds the lost one, even like those people, instead of dragging the broken and hurting soul and making them walk behind, Jesus lifts them with his hands. But then again, Jesus also lifts us up with those same hands. He raises us and carries us in His arms and on His shoulders.
Those hands, those arms, those shoulders of Jesus…marked by the nails of the cross, striped by the whips of soldiers, spat upon by both people and leaders, scratched by the rough timber of the cross…those hands, arms and shoulders turn in expectation to those who laugh and say, “He eats with sinners…” And Jesus says, “Yes, yes I do. I eat with them, I care for them, I live for them and I die for them. I rise for them. I forgive them. I bless them. They were so lost they didn’t even realize it! So I sought them out, rescued them, and am carrying them home. Come and celebrate! Rejoice!” The invitation…the invitation by Jesus to celebrate because the lost – the sinners, the ones most needing Jesus – are restored. The celebration is prepared for what was lost is found! And the invitations are sent in hopes that everyone else rejoices, too.
It’s not only an earthly celebration, but one that continues into eternity as even heaven rejoices as Jesus receives sinners, carrying them with nail-marked hands and whip-scarred shoulders and welcoming them through water and Word into the family of God. Then, He invites us to table with Him, feasting on His very body and blood for the forgiveness of those things that once branded us as sinners. Our sins covered in the blood of Jesus, God welcomes the repentant sinner.
Usually, we think of repent as a change, a turning, of heart, mind and body. There is sorrow and contrition and a pledge to change when we repent of our sins. Here, repent has a little different idea behind it. In the parables, how could a lost sheep repent? How can an inanimate coin repent? The recovery, the saving, the finding is all done by the shepherd and by the woman, both determined to find the lost. The sheep, the coin – they can’t do a thing! In fact, if you think about it, for all intents and purposes, it is as if the lamb is dead and the coin a dead asset. Wonder or wonders, it is the fact that they are lost and presumed dead that makes them so wonderfully, ridiculously valuable to the shepherd and the woman – and, for God.
You see, it is not our goodness and our richness of life that makes us worthy to God, but our being dead in our trespasses and sins that makes us most valuable to God that He sent His Son, Christ Jesus, to rescue us. We have no power, we have no way to save ourselves or even argue our worth.
In these parables, repent isn’t so much about changing as it is being received. When Christ receives us, welcomes us, and invites us to feast with Him, the word of absolution and forgiveness is full and complete. God doesn’t say He understands our sins, or that He gives us a mulligan. Instead, He disposes of and finishes our dead lives and raises us new ones with Christ. He doesn’t heal our sinful boo-boos; He drops them into the empty grave of Jesus where they do not come back to life. He forgets our sins there, in Jesus’ tomb. He remembers our iniquities no more. Instead, He and all the hosts of heaven rejoice as Jesus carries us into His presence.
Here's the cliffhanger: this side of heaven, you would be surprised at who - at the sinners - that "us" includes to be with Jesus.
But there, when you see Jesus in the resurrection, you will rejoice that you are among the saints and they are with you. Amen.
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