“Your Brother Is Here…!”

A sermon based upon Luke 15: 11-32  CSB

By Rev. Charles J. Tomlin, BA, MDiv, DMin.

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership, 

October 27th, 2019

"Amazing Grace" is one of America’s favorite hymns. It is an old one too. It goes back to the 18th century, written by John Newton, who was on the sea from the time he was a little boy. When he was a young man he became the captain of his own ship, a ship that brought African slaves to the colonies to work the plantations.

Back in England, between voyages, he went to hear George Whitefield preach and was converted. He realized the evil of his occupation, left it, and became a pastor in the Church of England and served the rest of his life as the rector of a little church in a town called Olney. Newton wrote a number of hymns which were printed in a collection called the "Olney Hymns," which is one of the classic collections of hymns in the Church, and "Amazing Grace" was one of them.

It is astounding, this song’s popularity. Back in the 1960's Joan Baez sang it. During one of her concerts, she held her audience captive, tears coming down the faces of so many people, as she stood there on the bare stage, in her bare feet, with the light on her, hands at her side, standing there quietly, singing all the verses of this plaintive, Appalachian tune, "Amazing Grace." For those present, it was a stunning moment.

It’s also amazing, this song’s popularity. It often appears in movies, or at public events that are not even church events.  For even people who are not members of churches, and those who do not profess faith, find something in this hymn that connects with them.  This hymn is over two hundred years old. It is uncompromisingly Christian in its language. It is evangelical in its message, reflecting John Newton's experience of being found. "I once was lost, but now am found."   Some say,  the key to this songs  popularity, is because it defines the most basic Christian understanding of our relationship with God: God seeks us.

Of course, God is experienced in different ways in different religions. In some religions God's majesty and God's sovereignty are emphasized.  In others religions it is God's righteousness that is emphasized.  In still others, it is God's hiddenness and the mystery of God's being that are emphasized.  In the Christian faith, it is God's love that is  emphasized:  “For God so loved the world….”.  Other religions also understand that God calls us to love, but what is most unique in Christianity is that God is seeking us.

As Hugh Montefiore, a Jewish biblical scholar and an Englishman, said this is what makes Christianity different from Judaism.   “Most of what Jesus taught, was taught before him by the prophets, especially in their the ethical teachings.  Much of what Christians believe is shared by people elsewhere in world, as most religious teachings are universal.  But in Christianity, the one affirmation that is most unique, is the proclamation that God seeks after us (M MARK TROTTER).

FATHER, GIVE ME….  (v. 12)

But being sought by God has it most intentional Jesus’ most famous parable, we call ‘The Prodigal Son’.   Here, Jesus not only pictures that God seeks us like a Shepherd seeking one lost sheep, or a woman frantically searching for one lost coin, but he Jesus also understands that God is like loving Father, who is waiting for his children to come back home, where they belong.  God is a waiting Father.  God is waiting, because in life, we are free, to go and to live as we please. 

Freedom is both a wonderful and dangerous thing.  Freedom is wonderful because as we grow into adulthood, we get choose to live our own lives the way we want.  We get to choose our own path, use our own talents, and make our own life out of our own decisions and hard work.  This kind of ‘freedom’ can make you glad to be alive and proud of your own accomplishments. 

But this kind freedom can also be dangerous too.  It can be dangerous because we can make bad choices in life.  We can make bad choices that take us to dead ends and leave us nowhere.  We can end up nowhere because we have listened to bad advice, or we got lost in wayward desires, or we can get devoured by forces stronger than our own.   Freedom invites to a wonderful, but also a wild world.  By ‘wild’ we mean untamed, unpredictable, and often deadly, as in a ‘dog eat dog’ world.

This is what happened to the ‘prodigal Son’.  As he grew up, he decided he would live better, if he would leave to go out on his own.  He thinks he would enjoy his life better without his current responsibilities.  He wants everything now.  Like so many who have had life ‘handed to them’, he has come to believe that ‘the grass will be greener on the other side’.  He hopes that living by his ‘own’ choices, without the burden of life’s responsibilities, would be a better choice.  He desires freedom---freedom from his father, freedom from his family, and freedom from the responsibilities that have been passed down to him.  He is ready to strike out on his own.  He wants all of life, especially the fun, now.  He decides that he doesn’t have to work and wait, but he can live lavishly and luxuriously today, living out all his wants and desires.  This is why the ‘prodigal’ goes to his Father and says, ‘give me my share of the estate I have coming to me… (v.12). His idea of life, is ‘I WANT IT NOW!’

The point that Jesus makes, is a point very much worth making in a ‘free country’ like ours.  Freedom is good, and it can be our best friend in life, but freedom can also be dangerous, and it can become our worst enemy.   Because we are free, we can become our own worst enemy.   This is at the heart of Jesus’ parable of this ‘lost son’.

HIS FATHER…FILLED WITH COMPASSION (v 20)

Into this world where we are ‘born free’, come a God who seeks to save us.  Jesus understands God just as this ‘waiting’ and ‘worrying’, and finally ‘joyful’ Father who has compassion and full forgiveness for his wayward child who comes home. 

Again, what is most unique about Christianity is not that God saves sinners, for most all religions have a view of salvation, but the good news of the gospel is that God himself came into the world ‘to seek and to save the lost’.  God doesn’t wait for sinners to shape up before he came.   This is the gospel ‘point’ that the Apostle Paul couldn’t get over .   It stopped him in his tracks.   Paul understood, as a ‘Pharisee of the Pharisees’ that he could, by being good enough, and working hard enough, that he could find his way to God.  

But the great surprise, which was the surprise of the gospel, is that Paul finally came to realize that even his ‘good was not good enough’.  It was when he became humiliated by his own ‘lostness’ that the true God was revealed to him.  When this true, loving, seeking, and calling God came to him, Paul found his true self and his true calling in life.  So ever since Paul met the searching, seeking, and calling Jesus on the Damascus road,  this became his message to preach to the world: God has come to seek and save us; not just from the wildness of the world, or our lostness in the world, but this God has come to save us from the ‘lostness’ within ourselves.  This is the gospel. That is the good news.

And ever since Paul since this message came to Paul, he made it his mission in life to help people to understand not only what happened to him, but he also wanted people to know what could happen to them.  This can happen to you, especially when we realize that we have become lost, and are not worthy of God’s attention, or that God never could ever speak their name. God would never know me. This could never happen to me.  But it can, it did.  It still does.

There is a wonderful story about Maya Angelou, the great writer who ended her career teaching at Wake Forest University. She was an active member of Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco. She wrote that years earlier when she first came to San Francisco as a young woman she became sophisticated. She said that was what you were supposed to do when you go to San Francisco, you become sophisticated. And for that reason she said she became agnostic. She thought the two went together. She said that it wasn’t that she stopped believing in God, just that God no longer frequented the neighborhoods that she frequented.

She was taking voice lessons at the time. Her teacher gave her an exercise where she was to read out of some religious pamphlet. The reading ended with these words: “God loves me.” She finished the reading, put the pamphlet down. The teacher said, “I want you to read that last sentence again.” So she picked it up, read it again, this time somewhat sarcastically, then put it down again. The teacher said, “Read it again.” She read it again. Then she described what happened. “After about the seventh repetition I began to sense there might be some truth in this statement. That there was a possibility that God really loves me, Maya Angelou. I suddenly began to cry at the grandness of it all. I knew if God loved me, I could do wonderful things. I could do great things. I could learn anything. I could achieve anything. For what could stand against me with God, since one person, any person, with God form a majority now.”

There are many people who are just like that. They think it is unbelievable that God would know me, that God would love me, that God would know my name. Just the grandness of it, as Maya Angelou says, that God would really love me. But that is the gospel. He seeks you until he finds you. She found that God found her, in San Francisco.

Jurgen Moltmann, a famous German theologian, was in the German army during World War II. He was captured by the British and placed in a prisoner of war camp in Scotland. It was there that God found him. It happened through two incidents. The first was in reading scripture. The chaplain of the camp gave Bibles to the prisoners. Moltmann said they were hoping to get cigarettes, but they got Bibles instead. He read the Bible, and he read the psalms. He said, “I was dumbfounded.” He was like Paul on the Damascus Road, dumbfounded, knocked down. He said, “The words of the psalms were the words of my own heart, `Hear my prayer O Lord, and give ear to my cry. Hold not thy peace at my tears, for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as my fathers before me.’”

Then he turned to the New Testament and read of the passion of our Lord, “My God, why hast thou forsaken me.” He wrote, “I knew with certainty this is someone who understands me. I began to understand Christ because I realized Christ understood me. And I began to summon up the courage to go on living.”

The second incident came when some Christians visited the prison camp. Paul was knocked down on the Damascus Road, dumfounded, then led to Damascus. There the Christians came to Paul and ministered to him. I believe it was through their love that God changed the life of Paul. So Moltmann, after being dumbfounded by grace in the scripture, was visited by Christians who asked to see the German prisoners.

They were from Holland. Moltmann said, “I was afraid to go see them because I had fought in Holland. I was there at the battle for the Arnheim Bridge.” The Dutch students said to the German prisoners, “We are here because Christ has sent us here. We will tell you that without Christ we wouldn’t even be talking to you.” Then they told of the Gestapo terror, of their homes being destroyed, of losing their Jewish friends. Then they said this. “Christ has built a bridge from us to you, and we come across it to greet you. Now you come across and confess your guilt and seek reconciliation.”

Which they did. They all embraced. Moltmann wrote, “It was a richly blessed time. We were given what we did not deserve, and received the fullness of Christ, grace upon grace.”  Amazing grace! How sweet the sound  That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found; Was blind, but now I see.

OLDER SON… BECAME ANGRY… (V. 28)

There is so much to rejoice about in this great parable, but you’ll never fully understand this great story Jesus told, until you understand that it doesn’t have a completely happening ending.  The whole reason Jesus told his story was because ‘religious’ and ‘righteous’ people where grumbling about Jesus spending too much time ‘welcoming and eating with sinners’ (15:2).  Jesus ends his story with the grumbling, complaining elder brother, who is upset because his ‘brother’, has a ‘party’ thrown for him, while he has done all the work, and like Rodney Dangerfield, ‘gets no respect’.  Why would Jesus focus his ministry on sinners, rather than focusing on those who are doing all the work?

Here’s a question that brings this parable home to us ‘church folks’.  We think the church is about us, but God wants the church to be about them.   Jesus came for them, ‘not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance’.   ‘Those who are well, don’t need a physician.  I have come to those who are ill, sick, and hurting!  These are words we read throughout the gospel of Luke, especially.  The work of Jesus is not about us, but it’s about us, caring, waiting, working, and seeking ‘them’. 

One of the major issues in church life today, is ‘how can we survive?’   It’s hard for a church to survive, when we focus on ourselves, because we are a ‘dying breed’.  But if we ever learn to focus on them, there will always be someone, somewhere, lost, in need, hurting, needing help, needing to be found, and needing to find someone who cares about them, as a person, not because of what they did or didn’t do.   Can we learn to care about ‘them’?

Evidently, Jesus believes that not only sinners can change, but Jesus believes that religious, righteous people can change too.   What will it take for someone to care about them?  Well, Jesus also taught us, that it will probably take a ‘dead body’.  When we survey what is happening around our world, with all the rising suicides, the school shootings, mass massacres, and the increase awareness of mental illness, and person pain and brokenness in our world, we see all kinds of ‘dying’, ‘hurting’ and ‘dead bodies’.  This is what it took for some Jews to finally get it, and become followers of Jesus to seek and save the lost. 

I wonder sometimes, if we’ve seen enough, to know that ‘lostness’ is right here, ready for us, not just to criticize and complain about, whether we’ve seen in these ‘dead bodies’ the same kinds of needs and hurts that Jesus saw: that the God of love is a ‘seeking’ and ‘saving’ love; and that now, in this world, in our time, and this moment, God has brought his saving mission right up to our own door step, so that we can open our hearts to love someone who has lost their way?

Our world, in it’s freedom, is increasingly losing its way.  There’s no doubt about this.  But what caused Jesus doubt, and me too, sometimes, is whether there is enough love in us religious, righteous, established types, to be the kind of ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ who joins God on his mission to ‘seek and to save’ and will get excited about a lost child coming home. 

What you will feel, think, and do, can make a difference.   Sir Arthur Keith (1866-1955), of the Royal College of Surgeons, claimed that if 300 individuals were taken out of human history, we would still be living in the Stone Age. But it is also true that if you add to history a handful of people and let get what they wanted, like Hitler, or Stalin, or Osama bin Laden, we would find ourselves back living in the Stone Age.

We live in the age of ‘Me’; no doubt about that.  Our world and the world markets established upon making people rich, happy, successful, so you, the individual, can have what you want.   But what we often forget, is that unless there is a “WE”, there really can’t be a “ME”.   Just as the idea of being free to live and choose as a ‘me’ is born out of the hard work of people pulling together and working hard as “WE”,  in the same way the ability to continue to live ‘free’ as we “ME”, still depends on us being ‘WE”.   Without living with the sense of “WE”, we lose the ability to be a “ME”.

Biblical faith insists on living on a two-way street, a ME/WE highway: faith is individual, but faith is also communal.  Faith is about us, but faith following Jesus requires a team of people working together.   Let me end with an example of how following Jesus to ‘seek and save’ the lost means becoming both a ME and a WE people.   This is really what the story of the Prodigal Son is about.  That lost son could have survived without the ME of those who ‘loved him back’; and that elder son, would never learn what love means, unless he learned to be someone who loved, just for the sake of loving. 

The ME/WE story I want to end with, goes back to one of the biggest one-time gifts in the history of US philanthropy: the 1.7 billion gift of Joan Kroc (1928-2003), the wife of the founder of McDonald’s, Ray Kroc, which was given to the Salvation Army  (This story and final idea comes from a sermon by Len Sweet). 

When Joan was a small child, her father abandoned the family and left her mother to figure out how to feed the family. In Joan’s memory, these were difficult, dark days. But she remembers one beacon of light in the midst of those difficult times. Every Friday night an officer from the downtown Salvation Army would visit their inner-city home, carrying in his arms two bags of groceries. Sometimes he would come in and play with the kids, giving them a father figure to relate to as well. Without that one Salvation Army officer showing up with those groceries, she doesn’t know how they would have made it each week.

So when it came to decide how best to invest the billions left her by her husband, she remembered that Salvation Army officer and his faithfulness to a needy family. And before she died she handed a billion dollar check to Salvation Army General Linda Bond. Today you are seeing in the poorest parts of town beautiful “Kroc Centers” going up to bring health and happiness to needy kids because of one person who was faithful to his mission.

 By the way, when that Salvation Army officer died, he had no idea what he had done. When that Salvation Army officer died, he thought he had just had an ordinary ministry and been an ordinary officer. He didn’t think he had done anything special as a Salvation Army officer.

Sometimes the greatest blessings of your life you will never know about. Sometimes the greatest impact of your life will not be revealed in your lifetime. Sometimes your faithfulness will bear fruit long after you and I are gone.

It’s not about recognition and reward. It’s only about serving Jesus as an individual ME in the context of a communal WE.  This communal kind of “ME/WE” love is what Jesus was trying to teach about in his parable.  It’s the kind of seeking love of WE that can save the ME that gets lost, for whatever reason.  But it is also the kind of seeking love can also save the ME, who is lost in his own heart, not because he did something wrong, but because he did everything right, and missed the greatest party of life, which is the party of celebrating God’s saving, seeking, love.   Surely, we don’t want to miss a party like this.  It’s a party that accepts God’s invitation,  hearing God’s call to mission with these words:  “YOUR BROTHER, or SISTER is here….”    Amen.