A Sermon Based Upon Luke 15: 1-7
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
October 9th, 2016 (Series: 2/7, Amazing Grace)
We are going through some of the major
lines of the hymn “Amazing Grace” as a guide to help us reflect upon the
biblical concept of God’s saving and amazing ‘grace’. In the first message we spoke about the
‘sweet sound of grace.’ Grace is ‘sweet’
because we are all, people in need of grace.
We are in need of grace from God and we are need of grace from and for each
other. We need grace because we are
people who can lose our direction, our purpose and our perspective of what is
most important in life. We need grace,
because without it, we remain ‘dead’ to what
matters most to enable us to live life, as God intends, which should be
a life full of ‘good works’.
Today, we want to go deeper into the
biblical concept grace, taking an even closer look at the message of grace itself. We were introduced to today’s message last
week in that line that says, “…how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” “Wretch”
is a very strong word, isn’t it? It
could mean a lowlife, or a very ‘despicable person’—a rascal or a
reprobate. Strong! But ‘wretch’ also has another meaning, which
is probably more of what John Newton meant when he wrote this hymn (https://www.bing.com/search?q=wretch&pc=MOZI&form=MOZLBR).
Certainly, no one can read John Newton’s
mind this far away from his writing this the hymn in middle 1700’s, but John Newton
probably did not mean that he was a specifically bad person, such as a ‘rouge’
or ‘scoundrel’, especially since he was
only 23 years old at time of his conversion to faith in Jesus Christ. What
John Newton probably did mean was the more general understanding of ‘wretch’ as being ‘an unfortunate,’ ‘unhappy’,
or ‘ill-fated person. According to his own biography, the young teenage
Newton had lost his way because he was he lost his mother which allowed to
begin to make some very unwise and foolish decisions.
It is exactly this very concept of being
a ‘poor’ lost, unhappy soul that Jesus meant in the three wonderful parables
from Luke’s gospel. In Luke, chapter
15, we find 3 unfortunately ‘lost’ things; a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a
lost son. None of these are necessarily
evil or bad, although the young son did do some very stupid things. The coin had no responsibility in the matter,
and the sheep? Well, it just wandered
away not knowing where it was until it was lost. Who hasn’t gotten off track in life, without
ever really meaning to?
Especially in these parables of the lost
sheep and the lost coin, you can see that that they were ‘lost’ for no reason
and at no fault of their own. This very
idea of being ‘unfortunate’ was much more what ‘wretch’ meant for Newton’s life
too. As a young man he had been an
‘unfortunate’ and poor young soul, and was at age 23, leading and living a very
unhappy, unproductive, and unsatisfying life, which then resulted to his
rebellion and his regret. But when his
life was ‘spared’ in that storm-tossed ship, it was then that young Newton came
to realize just how much his life was worth to God. This moment of ‘grace’ changed everything.
UNMERITED
FAVOR
The picture of ‘grace’ we get from these
parables from Luke’s Jesus, is a picture of grace that should change everything
for us too, because we too, can and will sometime find ourselves lost, sometimes
become unfortunate, and sometimes will
be very unlucky people. (I use the
term ‘unlucky’ here, not because I believe in ‘luck’ (good or bad), but because
our lives can turn ‘tragic’ due to no real fault of our own). As humans, we can suddenly and unexpectedly
find ourselves ‘lost in the cosmos’ of life.
This makes the discovery of God’s grace even more appealing and
attractive.
Fortunately, however, most of us, have
never experienced being ‘lost’ like those millions of Syrian refugees who have
been displaced from their homes in Syria, or like those 6 million and more Jews
who were carried away in cattle cars to their death during the Holocaust. We have not been like many others were born
in the abject poverty of the world, having been born with ‘life stacked against
us’ or have been born with severe handicaps and have experienced impossible,
insurmountable challenges in our lives. Most of us, we could say, have had a much more
fortunate life than many in the world. That too is amazing and it a gift of grace.
But we could also say, couldn’t we that
there is also a ‘lostness’ that can occur even in the fortune, the wealth, or
in the well-being which we have? Here,
I particularly think about that young man, Ethan Couch, who was recently
arrested in Texas for drunk-driving, being responsible for the deaths of four other
young people. At his trial, his legal
counsel defended his actions ‘understandable’ due to his affluence---offering to
the court what has been called the “affluenza”
defense. This legal approach says that
some young people, due to their wealth and very fortunate lives, have as a
result, due to their isolation and separation from the rest of us, have
developed a serious lack of motivation or inspiration that could have made them
decent, responsible and mature human beings.
In other words, it was Ethan’s
‘fortune’, not his ‘misfortune’ that caused his ‘lostness’. And when his actions began to look
‘indefensible’ to the court, his ‘affluent’ mother took Ethan and tried to
escape to Mexico, where they were caught.
The whole story is just another display of how even the most fortunate,
can become ‘lost’ in what it means to be responsible, accountable, and
answerable human beings. (http://abcnews.go.com/US/affluenza-dui-case-happened-night-accident-left-people/story?id=34481444).
Whatever ‘lost’ means to you, or to me,
there is some way that all of us have experienced it, haven’t we? We may experience lostness due to having too
much, and we can also experience lostness due to having too little. Both of these kinds of ‘lostness’ are
included in the biblical picture, especially the fact that it is “hard” Jesus
said, for people with wealth to ‘enter the kingdom of heaven’. But the kind of ‘lostness’ we normally
think about, which is may or may not be a result of other factors, is as much ‘spiritual’
and ‘mysterious’ as it is physical and plain to us. We are seldom able to overcome this
‘lostness’ we encounter in lives, no matter how it has come to us, until we can
somehow also acknowledge being ‘found’ in our own selves, deep within our own souls.
Perhaps one of the most dramatic images
of the ‘lost’ and ‘found’ ever displayed on the Hollywood screen, was in a movie
starring, Sally Fields, called “Places in
the Heart “(1984). The storyline,
in this Award-Winning, but much underrated movie, went back to the great
depression and was about a young widow also had the great misfortune of having
loss her husband, the town Sherriff, killed in an freak accident. Now, this widow had to do all kinds of
difficult, sometimes even shameful and unladylike
things to try to keep her farm and her children. Two unlikely people, however, a drifter in
need of a job, and a blind man she must care for, become two unlikely
helpers. She is extends ‘grace’ to
them, and they play a part is ‘grace’ that comes back to her.
The movie ends, of course, with the
widow keeping her farm, but she and the whole community find an unexpected experiences
of grace together in the end. In the final,
unforgettable scene, the widow, her friends, family and church, are all partaking
a simple communion service, singing “Amazing Grace”. The
screenwriter surprisingly ends his very realistic story, with a very
unexpected, wishful ‘spiritual’ experiences. In the final scene, as the church partakes in
communion, he includes two dead people, sharing
the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The
Screenwriter, Robert Benson told the New York Times Review, ''There is something in the image of the man
who has been killed handing the communion plate to the boy who killed him that
seems very moving to me in ways I cannot explain.'' He said: ''I had the ending before I ever finished
the screenplay, although I knew audiences would be confused about it.''
(http://www.nytimes.com/1984/10/08/movies/how-endings-have-affected-two-recent-movies.html).
Confused about what? Well there is a certain confusion to putting two ‘dead’ people on screen, without
explanation. But there can be just as
much confusion on screen and in real life too, when suddenly, in the midst of great
misfortune and pain, people mysteriously experience a moment of unexpected grace;
the kind of grace that brings reconciliation with others and makes peace with
life, and of course with God, so that we find new hope for what may or may not
come next. Such ‘strange’ grace can
surely be disconcerting and confusing, just as it would be for all those sheep
watching their shepherd leave ninety-nine of them alone, just to go after one,
single, lost sheep. What is more
unexpected and more amazing that this kind of unmerited, underserved, and
unearned grace?
UNWANTED
KINDNESS
What may be most surprising in these
parables of Jesus, however, is to discover that the ‘amazing’ and ‘saving’
grace they depict, can also be a much ‘unwanted’ as it is amazing. Nothing might stir the jealousy and contempt
in us, than a God is thought to be kinder to someone else on the outside, than
he is being to us, who are on the inside.
You didn’t see that coming did you?
But what most people have not seen clearly in these parables is that
Jesus told them exactly because God's grace is so ‘unexpected’ and so
‘unmerited’ that not only can we not earn it,
we also can’t control it, and neither can we keep it only for
ourselves---and that could also end up upsetting us, and making us very angry
too.
Isn’t this why Jesus gave us these three
stories about ‘lost’ things in the first place?
The kindness Jesus was showing to the ‘poor’, to the ‘outcast’ and to
‘sinners’, some of whom where even caught in the act, was the kind of kindness
and mercy that was disturbing and infuriating those who thought they had earned
or come to deserve God’s kindness which they thought was revealed in their own
‘status’ of having a ‘blessed’ life. In
other words, isn’t God’s grace an
affront and threat to every good and righteous life, when God leaves the good,
respectable, and the well-to-do, and goes after the wayward, disrespectable,
and the down-and-out. Why would God do
a thing like that? How could God do a
thing like this---treating the people who haven’t lived or had a good life,
pouring on them even greater spiritual riches than those who have all the promise
and prestige?
How can God do this? This was exactly the disturbing question that
was causing such a stir among the religious and righteous who started ‘grumbling’
about God’s grace. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” (Luke
15:2). Because they, the religious and
the righteous like us, did not want this kind of unmerited, undeserved,
unearned kindness and mercy being poured on ‘them’ is precisely why Jesus had
to tell these ‘parables’ (15:3). It is
also why religious and righteous people like us still need to read these
stories and come to terms with not only how ‘amazing’ but also how ‘alarming’
God’s grace can be.
You don’t have to read far in the life
of Jesus, or in the story of the church in Acts, or in the letters of the
Apostle Paul, which is practically all of the New Testament, to read how
surprising, amazing, but also how troublesome, and even controversial God’s
grace was, and still is. However you
end up reading the story of the gospel and the church, it is a story that tried
to take the religious leaders, both Jews and Christians, where they did not
want to go in order, as we can now see, to give them what they could never have
given themselves. You see this gospel
story of grace in the life of Jesus, as he touched lepers and sinners, but
created such a stir that he became such a nuisance to his ‘own’ people that
they crucified him. We also see this
gospel story of grace in the early church, especially in the life of Simon
Peter, who received a vision of taking the newly born church into unexpected
waters of baptizing people who were not Jewish. It was a ‘position’ or ‘proposition’ of
grace that even Peter could not maintain, and later fell away from until he was
confronted by the ministry of grace in the apostle Paul. It was Paul whose experience of grace
himself, made it impossible for the church not to go forward in world, baptizing
and reaching out to the most unexpected, unwanted, and undesired people---the
Gentiles, who R US. This is the how the
message of the gospel of grace came to us,
with a church ‘kicking’ and ‘screaming’ for God to stop taking us deeper
into the lostness of this world than any of us ever wanted to go, or still want
to go.
I immediately think of the hilarious
suggestion one politician has made of having Mexico build a massive wall to
keep people out of the United States. While it is obvious that we have an
immigration problem that should be dealt with, it should also be obvious that
there are right and wrong ways to do it.
I find it most interesting that while the Scripture speaks of ‘tearing
down’ walls as the solution, some find it better to take a different
route. Interestingly, the church also
has ‘walls’ we need to work on taking down between us and others too. The whole
biblical perspective is that we are to become like God, being made holy, which
is to care more, not care less. There is
nothing in the Bible that speaks about doing whatever it takes to make us
happy. Now, can you see even better
why they crucified Jesus? People wanted
Jesus to make them happy to, but he did not come to bring them comfort, but to
call them to ‘take up their cross’ and to follow him. That’s not the ‘kindness’ nor the kind of ‘grace’
that people want.
NECESSARY
AND NEEDED GRACE
So, what do we want? And even more importantly, what do we really
need? With this question, we finally come
to this point primarily made in this parable of the lost sheep, but is included
in all the stories of lost things. Why
does the shepherd leave the ninety-nine and go after only one? Why does the woman turn her home household
upside down and inside out, to go after just a few lost coins? And why does the Father wistfully wait for
his no good, amount-to-nothing, wayward prodigal to come home, when he already
such a perfectly responsible, well-trained son, manning the store and keeping up
the farm for him?
To go even further in this line of
questioning, why did Jesus do what he did even to end up on a cross? Why did Peter see what he saw, even though he
didn’t really want to? Why did the
apostle Paul risk the anger of putting the other apostles, disciples, and the
whole church against him? And Why does Paul
end up practically and theologically saying that the gospel is either all
‘grace’ or it is all for ‘nothing’?
What is it that each of these stories, and of course, this wonderful
song, Amazing Grace, pointing us toward?
Obviously, they don’t point us to what
we, the saved want, because we don’t necessarily want it when we think we’ve
already got it. Isn’t this how we
mostly organize the ministry and mission of our churches, for those of us who
are on the inside, and not for those who are still on the outside--who still
need grace? Don’t we mainly organize
and finance our ministry for ourselves---and those who are already ‘our’ own
Jesus club? Is Jesus still having to
die for us? Is the gospel only for us
and our own continued or increased comfort?
No, they, these parables and this
amazing song, are all pointing us to this God who is always grace, not just grace
for us, but now, also grace for others, whether we want Jesus to be grace for
them through us, or not. This God who
offers grace, is not only who we have always needed, still need, and will
always need, but he is also the God who offers grace to more and more of us, any
of us, rich or poor, smart or challenged, good or bad. We can only find this kind of grace when we
show and pass on this kind of grace together, when we realize that we are all
‘lost’ and poor ‘wretched’ souls who need God and each other to hold out against
the harsh elements of time and life.
If we are to have any kind of hope or
reconciliation with our situations in life, or with the people around us,
including of course, with the Almighty God above and within us---if we are to
find any resolution of purpose and hope, we must somehow and someway
experience, discover, or realize the overwhelming and still underestimated, work
and will of God’s amazing grace that works for ALL of us, or it is really works
for none of us. I like the way one Robert Capon put it, implying
that the gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of grace, for the last, the lest,
the lost, the little and last of all, for the dead.” (“The Parables of Grace, Robert Farrar Capon, 1988, Erdmans, p.
32).
Not long ago I watch a movie, which was
a true biography of an amazing Christian life—a life where grace was needed and
grace was given to others. It was the
biography of Rich Mullins, the singer, songwriter who wrote the wonderful
praise song, “Our God is An Awesome God”, and many, many others. Rich started his career as a Christian
songwriter, writing most of Amy Grant’s songs, but later he went into a singing
career himself.
What was most amazing about Rich’s
biography, was that he had grown up on a farm, but had very little natural
skill or love for farming. His father had
little respect for his son’s talent and he was always critical of Rich’s inability
to do the many ‘manly’ things farm work entails. But Rich went on to follow his dream, to
write and sing, and perform for churches and finally made it to Nashville, and
beyond. His life was a life of grace, in
spite of the negativity of his father.
When Rich’s life came to an end much too soon, due to an auto accident, it
was noted that even though Rich Mullins made lots of money, he intentionally only took a salary of the
average American worker. What did he do
with the rest of the money? He gave it
away to charities and to missionaires.
His whole life, through the gift of song and even through the way he
lived his life, was a gift of grace to the world.
When you have truly experienced God’s
grace, when you know that without God, you really don’t have a chance, and you
would be lost---lost in your riches, lost in poverty, lost in your sins, or
even lost in your success, when you come to realize what it means that you have
had a life that is a gift of grace, then you can’t help love to shower that
grace upon those who still need grace, just like you did, and still do. Amen.
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