A Joyful Welcome

INTRODUCTION

My mother was raised in a Pentecostal denomination called the Church of God Cleveland, TN. This is the same denomination I was raised in. However, when my mother was growing up in the 1960s, this movement was incredibly conservative. Back then, the Church of God, like most other Pentecostal groups, adhered to a standard they called “the clothesline.” It’s interesting how rules surrounding dress and appearance primarily only applied to women. Women couldn’t wear jewelry, couldn’t wear makeup, couldn’t cut their hair, and most importantly couldn’t wear pants! Week after week, she heard sermons on Deuteronomy 22:5 from hippie hating preachers, railing against the long haired free spirited youth of the 1960s: “The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment; for all who do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God.” (Keep in mind, the Church of God Cleveland, TN has long since abandoned all these rules).

The church my mother was raised in was so strict and so stringent that there was a woman in the church whose duty it was to inspect the dress of women coming to church on Sunday. If a woman was wearing pants or skirt or dress that was too short, she was turned away at the door. Sometimes, the church can completely miss the boat. We can become so wrapped up in our standards, and who is in and who is out, that we miss the entire point of why we’re hear in the first place.

I have one main point that I want to communicate this morning: There are no lost causes in the Kingdom of God. In our passage this morning, the Scribes and Pharisees are observing Jesus, and they comment on the folks that Jesus attracts: tax collectors (who were basically treasonous swindlers working for the Romans) and other sinners. Not only are these undesirables attracted to Jesus, but Jesus even sits at the table and eats with them. The Pharisees and the scribes are grumbling amongst themselves, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Luke gives us the impression that Pharisees and the scribes are uptight. They have standards to uphold, much like the church my mother was raised in. Not everyone is welcome to attend. They don’t eat with just any one.

Jesus knows what they’re thinking and what they’re saying, so he tells them a parable about a shepherd who looses a sheep. This shepherd is a pretty wealthy guy. He has 100 sheep, which is a large flock. As is the nature of sheep, sometimes they stray from the herd. Sometimes one will get left behind, as the herd moves around the pastures. If you have ever been around livestock, then you’ll know that losing animals is the cost of doing business. Some get eaten by predators. Some wander off and never return. This shepherd does something crazy. He leaves his 99 sheep, to look for the 1 lost sheep. No one would would do this! Maybe, they would send a slave to scout for the lost sheep. The shepherd certainly wouldn’t go himself. Yet, Jesus says this shepherd goes himself to search for the lost sheep. What’s even more ridiculous, when the shepherd finds the lost sheep and brings it home, he calls all of his friends and he has a party. This is over-the-top-joy!!! Here’s the thing, when you throw a party and invite people over, what do you have to do? You have to feed them! What would the shepherd have to do? He would have to slaughter a lamb to feed his guests. We know who that the lamb is that is slaughtered so the lost sheep’s can be celebrated? Are you picking up on what I’m putting down?

The Pharisees were probably scratching their heads? Jesus tells them an equally puzzling parable. A woman had 10 coins (roughly ten days wages for a man) and she loses one. No one likes loosing money. What she looses isn’t a massive amount of money, but it isn’t a miniscule amount of money. If you lost a $100 bill, what would you do? She does what any of us would do! She begins cleaning the house until she finds it. What she does next, is the surprising thing. Like the shepherd in the first parable, she expresses this ridiculous over-the-top-joy over finding her lost coin. She calls all her girlfriends and expresses with jubilant giddiness her happiness over finding the lost coin. Sure, anyone would be relieved, but who would get this excited? It’s not as if she was destitute and found the lost coin. She had nine other coins. No one would call their friends and neighbors over to celebrate finding a lost coin.

What is Jesus saying? Toxic religiosity blinds us to seeing the value of the lost. Toxic religiosity says, “Well, it’s only one lost sheep. It’s only one lost coin.” When the Scribes and Pharisees started grumbling about the folks Jesus eats with, it revealed that they did not see the persons as valuable in the sight of God. Toxic religiosity says, “Why would I search for the lost 1, when I have the 99?” Toxic religiosity focuses on preserving the purity of the group and not the salvation of the lost. “Oh, they’re a tax collector. Oh, she’s a prostitute. Oh, this one is a drunkard.” Toxic religiosity writes people off as lost causes. “We can’t him in, because they’re a drug addict and they ain’t never gonna get his act together” “Oh, she’s on her fourth marriage (or maybe her fourth baby daddy) she ain’t never gonna get right.” Or, as my mother experienced in her church growing up, “Oh we can’t this woman in, because she’s wearing pants.” Jesus says that the God’s love for the lost is so great that he is willing to leave the 99 behind to search for one single solitary lost sheep.

THERE ARE NO LOST CAUSES IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD. The one that seems hopeless, the one that seems too far gone, Jesus invites to sit and eat with him. Jesus was happy to be called a friend of sinners, because he knew how much his Father loved his lost sheep. The lost are so valuable in the sight of God that when even one sinner repents, Jesus says all of heaven rejoices. It delights God’s heart when even just one sinner repents. It brought Jesus great joy that sinners would come and eat with him. That is why he tells these story about over-the-top ridiculous joy. While people wouldn’t rejoice over finding a lost sheep or a lost coin, the Heavenly Father celebrates when a lost person comes home.

CONCLUSION

Toxic religiosity and being uptight about everything—will kill your joy. Jesus tells these parables to contrast the heavenly Father’s joy over and against the curmudgeonly grumbling of the Pharisees. In addition to killing our joy, toxic religiosity also dimminishes our love for the lost. The Pharisees were more concerned with protecting their “purity” than they were about bringing God’s wayward children back home. We can’t save the lost. I’m sure we all have people in our lives (friend, family members, sons and daughters, grandkids) that we wish we could drag them to church and just make them live right. It doesn’t work that way. Just because we can’t force wayward children and friends back home, that doesn’t mean there’s no hope. Jesus is the searching the shepherd. Don’t give up hope. Sometimes there’s nothing else you can do, but share a meal with someone. God can use something as simple as a shared meal to soften the hardened heart. Most important, when it seems you can do nothing else, you can always always pray. Keep praying for the salvation of the lost, because there are no lost causes in the Kingdom of heaven.