Sermon Sunday September 16, 2007
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
This morning I tell you that the God whom we worship, the God who is our redeemer and Savior, the God who created the heavens and the earth; sometimes does things that just don’t seem to make any sense. But I don’t need to tell you this because the world we live in and the culture that you are surrounded by tells you this everyday. Sin, death and the devil are always standing by ready to point out what they perceive to be the shortcomings of this God whom we worship, this God who claims us as His own, and who calls us His children.
And so this morning we see Jesus once again associating with tax-collectors and sinners. This in itself is an act that would have made little if any sense whatsoever during this time. This was illogical not just because it defied the social order of the day. No, this was not just an act of rebellion. This would have seemed like sheer lunacy to many people. And not only did Jesus reach out to the outcast, but He invited them to eat with Him at the table.
The table at this time was a very important instrument for drawing socio-economic boundaries. So who does Jesus invite to His table?? Sinners. Tax-collectors. Is this the appropriate way to plant a new church?? Is cozying up with sinners and tax-collectors while lashing out at the leaders of the established church a very effective way to establish a new evangelism movement??
And when He is challenged by the Pharisees and the scribes about His actions that don’t seem to make any sense to them, how does Jesus explain His actions?? First He asks them how many of them, if they had a hundred sheep and had lost one, would leave the ninety-nine and go after the one sheep.
Now, we don’t really know how the Pharisees reacted to this question, but I am guessing that most of them would have said that they would have stayed with the ninety-nine. And why wouldn’t they say that? I mean what kind of shepherd would leave ninety-nine sheep alone to go after one? I am sure that you would have felt the same way.
Notice that Jesus does not say that the other ninety-nine are penned up and made secure from attack. The shepherd doesn’t get someone to watch over them. It says that the shepherd leaves them in the wilderness. He leaves ninety-nine sheep vulnerable to attack, so he can go after one. That doesn’t make sense. That’s not cost-effective. That’s not an efficient use of your resources. And yet Jesus seems to be saying to you this morning, that doing just that is the appropriate and righteous course of action.
And then Jesus tells this parable of this woman who loses one of her ten silver coins. She sweeps through her entire house looking for the coin and when she finds it she rejoices. She rejoiced over one coin. Have you ever rejoiced over finding a nickel or a dime or a quarter? I mean that might be a nice surprise for you sometime, but does it illicit this unbridled joy that Jesus talks about? Well, according to Jesus, is should.
But this is the God whom you worship. This is the God who has claimed you as His own. This is the God who, in His Son Christ Jesus sought you out and found you when you were lost. This is the God who came to you in the waters of baptism, lost sheep that you are, and placed you among His flock. This is the God who invites you, sinner and outcast that you are to His table, as will happen once again in a few minutes when we celebrate His supper and He will come to you in the bread and the wine, as He has promised to do.
This is the God who revealed Himself, in His risen Son to Paul on the road to Damascus. He revealed Himself to Paul, who in today’s second lesson proclaims himself to have been a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence prior to his encounter with the risen Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus.
And indeed that is true. Paul, when he was known as Saul was once one of the leading persecutors of the early Christian church. He oversaw the stoning of Stephen who was the first Christian martyr. And this is who your Lord picks to be the apostle to the gentiles. This is the man who would write or at least directly influence over half of what we now understand to be known as the New Testament.
Jesus could have picked any of the original twelve disciples or even any one of the hundreds of witnesses who were gathered on that first Pentecost and that would have seemed a more sensible choice. But instead He picks the man who had been persecuting the church with more fervor and zeal than probably anybody else. Does that make sense?
Well, He chose you, does that make sense? He chose you who daily puts your needs and desires before the will and the leading of the Holy Spirit. He chose you who daily takes for granted all that God has blessed you with. He chose you who daily neglects to clothe the naked and feed the hungry. Persecution, blasphemy, and violence reveal themselves in all sorts of different ways.
But, regardless, in sin we all reveal ourselves to be deserving of the condemning words that Saul would hear on his way to Damascus; when Jesus said to him "Saul, Saul why do you persecute Me?"
But this is the illogical God we worship. This is the God in whose name you are baptized. This is the illogical God who would send His only begotten Son to die and bear the penalty for the sin of the very ones who would kill Him with their sin.This is the God who heard the cry of the murdering, adulterer David who begs in this morning's psalm that God would blot out his transgressions according to God’s mercy.
And so He comes to you calling you to daily repentance, calling you through the law so that you are reminded that like David you are born guilty and like Paul you are a blasphemer and persecutor at heart, even if that blasphemy and persecution isn’t quite as obvious as Paul’s. But then Christ Jesus comes at you, His lost sheep, in His gospel with His indescribable grace and mercy, reminding you that He came to save sinners like you, and His grace overflows with the faith and the love that are in Christ Jesus. And like Paul, through faith you have been judged faithful.
And as you daily live in your baptism, and Christ Jesus comes to you in your daily repentance and daily claims you His lost sheep as His own, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God. And so what is left for you to do but to join that celebration, but to bask in the overflowing grace of God’s mercy?
And indeed sin, death, and the devil will continue to come at you and try to condemn you. The culture that surrounds you will try to convince you that it doesn’t make sense that God would choose a sinner like you. And indeed it doesn’t.
But praise be to God that you have been freed from the burden of having to try to convince anyone of your worthiness. Praise be to God that through the abundant love, mercy, and grace of God revealed in the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus you have been freed to be open and honest about your imperfections and iniquities, about your selfishness and arrogance.
You have been freed to be a living, breathing example to your neighbor, not of perfect piety or obedience to the law, but as a recipient of God’s gracious, overflowing, ever-present, and illogical love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness. And that is good news.
Amen
Brothers and sisters,
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
This morning I tell you that the God whom we worship, the God who is our redeemer and Savior, the God who created the heavens and the earth; sometimes does things that just don’t seem to make any sense. But I don’t need to tell you this because the world we live in and the culture that you are surrounded by tells you this everyday. Sin, death and the devil are always standing by ready to point out what they perceive to be the shortcomings of this God whom we worship, this God who claims us as His own, and who calls us His children.
And so this morning we see Jesus once again associating with tax-collectors and sinners. This in itself is an act that would have made little if any sense whatsoever during this time. This was illogical not just because it defied the social order of the day. No, this was not just an act of rebellion. This would have seemed like sheer lunacy to many people. And not only did Jesus reach out to the outcast, but He invited them to eat with Him at the table.
The table at this time was a very important instrument for drawing socio-economic boundaries. So who does Jesus invite to His table?? Sinners. Tax-collectors. Is this the appropriate way to plant a new church?? Is cozying up with sinners and tax-collectors while lashing out at the leaders of the established church a very effective way to establish a new evangelism movement??
And when He is challenged by the Pharisees and the scribes about His actions that don’t seem to make any sense to them, how does Jesus explain His actions?? First He asks them how many of them, if they had a hundred sheep and had lost one, would leave the ninety-nine and go after the one sheep.
Now, we don’t really know how the Pharisees reacted to this question, but I am guessing that most of them would have said that they would have stayed with the ninety-nine. And why wouldn’t they say that? I mean what kind of shepherd would leave ninety-nine sheep alone to go after one? I am sure that you would have felt the same way.
Notice that Jesus does not say that the other ninety-nine are penned up and made secure from attack. The shepherd doesn’t get someone to watch over them. It says that the shepherd leaves them in the wilderness. He leaves ninety-nine sheep vulnerable to attack, so he can go after one. That doesn’t make sense. That’s not cost-effective. That’s not an efficient use of your resources. And yet Jesus seems to be saying to you this morning, that doing just that is the appropriate and righteous course of action.
And then Jesus tells this parable of this woman who loses one of her ten silver coins. She sweeps through her entire house looking for the coin and when she finds it she rejoices. She rejoiced over one coin. Have you ever rejoiced over finding a nickel or a dime or a quarter? I mean that might be a nice surprise for you sometime, but does it illicit this unbridled joy that Jesus talks about? Well, according to Jesus, is should.
But this is the God whom you worship. This is the God who has claimed you as His own. This is the God who, in His Son Christ Jesus sought you out and found you when you were lost. This is the God who came to you in the waters of baptism, lost sheep that you are, and placed you among His flock. This is the God who invites you, sinner and outcast that you are to His table, as will happen once again in a few minutes when we celebrate His supper and He will come to you in the bread and the wine, as He has promised to do.
This is the God who revealed Himself, in His risen Son to Paul on the road to Damascus. He revealed Himself to Paul, who in today’s second lesson proclaims himself to have been a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence prior to his encounter with the risen Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus.
And indeed that is true. Paul, when he was known as Saul was once one of the leading persecutors of the early Christian church. He oversaw the stoning of Stephen who was the first Christian martyr. And this is who your Lord picks to be the apostle to the gentiles. This is the man who would write or at least directly influence over half of what we now understand to be known as the New Testament.
Jesus could have picked any of the original twelve disciples or even any one of the hundreds of witnesses who were gathered on that first Pentecost and that would have seemed a more sensible choice. But instead He picks the man who had been persecuting the church with more fervor and zeal than probably anybody else. Does that make sense?
Well, He chose you, does that make sense? He chose you who daily puts your needs and desires before the will and the leading of the Holy Spirit. He chose you who daily takes for granted all that God has blessed you with. He chose you who daily neglects to clothe the naked and feed the hungry. Persecution, blasphemy, and violence reveal themselves in all sorts of different ways.
But, regardless, in sin we all reveal ourselves to be deserving of the condemning words that Saul would hear on his way to Damascus; when Jesus said to him "Saul, Saul why do you persecute Me?"
But this is the illogical God we worship. This is the God in whose name you are baptized. This is the illogical God who would send His only begotten Son to die and bear the penalty for the sin of the very ones who would kill Him with their sin.This is the God who heard the cry of the murdering, adulterer David who begs in this morning's psalm that God would blot out his transgressions according to God’s mercy.
And so He comes to you calling you to daily repentance, calling you through the law so that you are reminded that like David you are born guilty and like Paul you are a blasphemer and persecutor at heart, even if that blasphemy and persecution isn’t quite as obvious as Paul’s. But then Christ Jesus comes at you, His lost sheep, in His gospel with His indescribable grace and mercy, reminding you that He came to save sinners like you, and His grace overflows with the faith and the love that are in Christ Jesus. And like Paul, through faith you have been judged faithful.
And as you daily live in your baptism, and Christ Jesus comes to you in your daily repentance and daily claims you His lost sheep as His own, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God. And so what is left for you to do but to join that celebration, but to bask in the overflowing grace of God’s mercy?
And indeed sin, death, and the devil will continue to come at you and try to condemn you. The culture that surrounds you will try to convince you that it doesn’t make sense that God would choose a sinner like you. And indeed it doesn’t.
But praise be to God that you have been freed from the burden of having to try to convince anyone of your worthiness. Praise be to God that through the abundant love, mercy, and grace of God revealed in the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus you have been freed to be open and honest about your imperfections and iniquities, about your selfishness and arrogance.
You have been freed to be a living, breathing example to your neighbor, not of perfect piety or obedience to the law, but as a recipient of God’s gracious, overflowing, ever-present, and illogical love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness. And that is good news.
Amen
posted by Steve at 5:25 PM
1 Comments:
Awesome! This was a great sermon.
I LOVED the part:
"The table at this time was a very important instrument for drawing socio-economic boundaries. So who does Jesus invite to His table?? Sinners. Tax-collectors. Is this the appropriate way to plant a new church?? Is cozying up with sinners and tax-collectors while lashing out at the leaders of the established church a very effective way to establish a new evangelism movement??"
What a statement. THis is law at its best-killing us in the things that we think is good. I was reading that in Bondage today-what we think is good, God knows is bad and vice versa.
Great sermon!
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