Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost (Series C)
“He who has ears to hear, let him hear,” so ended our text from last week. In this week’s text we meet those who have headed Jesus’ admonition to hear Him. These are the tax collectors and sinners, those who are poor, disabled, lame, and blind. These are those who are despised and cast out of the holy synagogues throughout the land. Because of their wretchedness and unworthiness they were not permitted to associate on the same plane of equality as that of the Pharisees and Scribes. But these outcasts, these poor miserable sinners came, not like the multitudes who wanted to see miracles and magic tricks of some wandering religious guru, but to truly hear him, to hear the Word made Flesh, the promised seed who was sent by the Father, who through His life, death, and resurrection sets all men free.
You see, for it is at the very moment that Christ was born of human flesh that He made distinctions which go beyond all human classifications, all social classes, all types of national pride, vocations, and age groups. With His life and Word, He brings to bear upon all human hearts the two-edged sword of Law and Gospel. This killing and life-giving Word separates as far as the east is to the west all those who confess their sins and recognize their inability to save themselves from the forces of sin and death, and those who think they can go it along, or at least contribute their best efforts towards the price of heaven. In short, this Jesus, who was crucified, died, and was buried, and who was raised by the Father on the third day, this God-man lives so as to receive sinners whom He died for and by His blood makes them saints of eternal glory.
This is what Jesus does. This is His office. He receives sinners and forgives them; plain and simple. This is why God sent His Son. This is why He was made flesh of a virgin’s womb. This is why He was crucified and raised on the third day. He came to call sinners unto repentance and faith and bring them unto His side eternally in paradise. Thus, He is not ashamed to be associated with sinners, to eat with them, to seek and to save them, those lost sheep that have wander from the fold and have been caught in the thicket of sin and eternal death. Jesus is not afraid to get His hands dirty, to willing be lost in the darkness of sin, to cry from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me, to have heaped upon Him the sins of the world, so that we who have been lost in sin from the time of our birth are found by His forgiving blood a beloved and redeemed sheep, one who has been brought back into the heavenly fold.
To this, the rescuing of lost sinners, those who confess their sins and receive mercy and grace, in the face of their unworthiness and lack of moral life was unequivocally abhorrent to the Pharisees and Scribes. After all the Pharisees and the scribes taught and sacrificed in the temple at Jerusalem, permitted themselves and their children to be circumcised, carried out the precepts of the Law, diligently attempted to live an irreproachable life of outward piety, and led an outwardly honorable life in the people’s eyes. They also expected that the Messiah would be as holy as they were holy, and would associate only with holy people. This they thought would characterize Christ’s reign and office. So when the Pharisees and the scribes saw Jesus mingling with those unclean sinners and tax collectors they grumbled at Him. Indeed, they knew nothing of the Messiah’s office or why He had come. They knew no more of God’s Word than what Moses and the Law taught.
You see, the Pharisees and the scribes were solely acting and operating on the basis of the Law. That is all that concerned them. The Law always reasons that God is kind to those who are devout and obey His commandments, but those who are unclean and do not obey His commandments are punished. Remember the answer to the Catechism’s question, “What does God say about all these commandants? He says, “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.” Thus, the Pharisees and the scribes thinking that the Messiah was sent from God in order to deal with sinners as the Law taught is not so outlandish as we might think. Indeed, because the Law teaches that God is angry with sinners and will not receive them, rather punish them, it stands to perfect reason that Christ would act the same way, rejecting the tax collectors and sinners in an unfriendly manner, and let them go their way.
Though our legalism may not exceed that of the Pharisees and scribes in our text, we nonetheless follow in their footsteps. With the Law firmly placed upon our hearts we grumble at Jesus who receives sinners, who goes after that one sheep while we, the faithful ninety-nine, who have sought so earnestly to be good sheep are left without a shepherd. This is so not fair. Jesus routinely receives sinners who we often feel are undeserving of His reckless seeking and unmerited grace. We often want that dumb sheep who has wandered from the safety of the fold to pay for what he has done, to suffer the pain that he has caused the rest of us, and certainly not to get off without any punishment. We would like some justice, those of us who have lived within the guidelines of the shepherd’s commandments. We want recognition for being those good sheep, and maybe even some vengeance.
And so it goes that our standard worry about Jesus receiving sinners, about infants being baptized, about the Lord Supper’s frequency, and the Gospel being preached, is that it will be received cheaply, without any effort or commitment on the part of the recipient to amend his ways, to change, or worse yet, use it as an excuse to sin all the more. The idea of “cheap grace” has always been and continues to be the defense against all forms of free and unconditional grace. In face of such thinking we must remember, in the words of one author, “grace is not cheap or expensive, it is free. That is the real problem. The free gift alone destroys the self who wishes to stay in control. If it were not free, the old self would still be in business. Baptism signals the end of the old beings incurably turned inward upon themselves, who use even their own religiosity as a last line of defense. The self has to be turned inside out.”[1]
What then turns the self inside out, you ask? It is the very external nature of the gospel, that it comes not from within but from without. It comes to you, without any merit or worthiness in you. This is the radical nature and beautiful reality of the Gospel. Like the Pharisees we often fail to realize this, as we fall back onto the Law, assessing the worthiness of our neighbor to receive this truly free gift. The beauty therefore of the two parables that Jesus speaks to us today is that it exposes this thinking. When you think only on the basis of the Law, you fail to understand the true meaning and purpose of Christ’s incarnation, of His becoming flesh. You turn Christ into pure example, into someone that we ought to imitate, rather than what He truly is, that is, gift,
That Christ is pure gift before example is the other beautiful message contained within these two parables. He is not interested in receiving the proud, the puffed up, the wealthy, and self-sufficient, those who are enamored with their own pious works and those who will not hear the Word of the Law which crushes their self-made man and world. Indeed, they will not have Jesus as He gives of Himself, that is, as promise, as gift. They will only have Him, either as example, or as a down payment toward their eternal prize. This is evident as read in Matthew 9 when it is asked by the Pharisees, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners” Jesus responds, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice. For I came not to call the righteous but sinners.”
This is the heart and soul of our faith: Jesus receiving sinners, justifying them in the blood of His perfect sacrifice, and keeping them in the one true faith unto life everlasting. Christ came to earth to seek, find, and redeemed that which was lost since the genesis of man. He came to seek us, His wandering sheep, sinners, who have strayed from His guidance and protection. He came to bear the burden of our sinful self and its consequence, eternal separation from the fold. The prophet Isaiah declares, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Is.53:6). So also does St. Paul testify to as much when he writes to Timothy the following words, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am the foremost (Timothy 1:15)
No matter how steeped in sin you are. No matter what you’ve done. No matter how unforgivable you think your sins are the Great Shepherd, Jesus Christ, forgives it, remembers it no more. He loves you and this love goes far beyond the fickle emotions of human behavior. It is a sacrificial love, a love which conquers the stains of sin and the darkness of death. It is a love which is active and busy, always working to save you, his precious sheep gifted with His breath and formed by His very own hand. Such is the truth that is conveyed in the words of the prophet Ezekiel, “For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.”
And so, by his blood He gathers you, His wandering sheep. He finds you and carries you home, speaking to you along life’s hard and painful road through His under-shepherds the words of Holy Absolution: In the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ I forgive you all your sins in the Name of the Father, and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Indeed, these under-shepherds are not hired hands, they are not employees to be hired and fired, but those entrusted with the care of souls, those sheep who have been bought with Great Shepherd’s blood and given pasture in the fields of the heavenly kingdom which has no end.
It is this finding and rejoicing over lost sinners who have now become saints in the kingdom of heaven that causes the inhabitants of heaven to sing for joy. You were once lost, but now the heavens rejoice for you are found. You are His. Heaven is your home. And to the hymnist question, “Good Shepherd, may I sing thy praise within thy house forever” (LSB 709). Indeed, yes you may.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son+ and of the Holy Spirit.
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[1] Gerhard O. Forde, The Preached God: Proclamation in Word and Sacrament, 138