These two parables from Luke are two in a series of
three about the lost being found through very extravagant and wasteful means
and then once found a very extravagant and wasteful celebration happens. The third is the parable we like to call the
Parable of the Prodigal Son although the younger brother’s return from his
prodigal-ness, which we like to stress, should take a back seat to the Father’s
extravagant love and then particularly the older brother’s jealousy.
Jesus aimed these three parables at the religious
authorities, the Pharisees and Scribes, who couldn’t accept him as the Messiah
because he hung with the wrong crowd, the tax collectors and sinners. These very devout people of Israel then also
would not celebrate with Jesus that he was bringing back into the fold those in
Israel who had lost their way. The point
of these parables isn’t so much that wayward sinners lost in moral decadence
are repenting and getting saved, but rather that the Scribes and the Pharisees
cannot see that they themselves are painfully and ironically lost in the
unfaithfulness of their own faithfulness.
The tax collectors and sinners were discovering in
Jesus a very real hope. They could see
and understand that God, their God, the LORD God of Israel, the God of their
fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was present and acting with salvation in
their very midst. With, in, and by the
hand of Jesus the Kingdom of God had come near and these lost, morally decadent
“sinners” and tax collectors were coming by the droves to be a part of it. The religious authorities ostracized people
like this and snubbed and shunned them from coming to the Temple where Israelites
believed the presence of God to be. But,
these lost sheep of Israel were finding the God of Israel in fellowship around
the table when they shared meals with Jesus who was really quite compassionate
towards them.
The Scribes and the Pharisees on the other hand, they
couldn’t get in on the celebration of the Kingdom of God being at hand. They of all people should have been able to
recognize who Jesus was and what God was doing in, through, and as Jesus. They knew their Scriptures. They followed the Law. They believed God was faithful and that the
Messiah was soon to come. Times were bad
in Israel under Roman oppression and only God could make things right. Whereas the tax collectors and “sinners” had
lost hope and bought into the Roman way of life, the scribes and Pharisees
believed that they needed to be ready when the Messiah came which meant total
Law observance. They needed to be living
as if the Messiah had come and was reigning already. If a person wanted to be saved and enter the
Kingdom when the Messiah came, he had to become like them.
In their minds anyone, Jews in particular, who did
not observe the Law was unfaithful and would be rejected when the Messiah came…yet,
here was Jesus sharing meals with tax collectors and “sinners”. Their idea of what “faithfulness” meant
unfortunately kept them from seeing who Jesus is and celebrating what was
happening. They were lost in unfaithful
faithfulness.
These three parables follow a progression. In the first, a shepherd leaves behind 99
sheep to go find the one that has gone missing.
In the second, a woman wastes a lot of time to find one coin lost out of
ten. In the third it is one son out of
two. The way Jesus sets us up with this
progression we cannot help but ask who are really the lost ones in need of
repentance – the “faithful” who can’t recognize Jesus and celebrate the arrival
of the Kingdom or the “sinners” who can.
Well looking at 1 Timothy, I think Paul would
certainly say that in these parables Jesus was certainly pointing at him. He was one of those Pharisees, an up and
coming leader. Educated by the great
teacher Gamaliel in Jerusalem.
In verse thirteen Paul describes himself as formerly
being a blasphemer. This is someone who
offends the power and majesty of God by speaking against what God is doing or
acting like God himself. The religious
authorities back then accused Jesus of being a blasphemer because he spoke
against them and did things that only God could do.
Paul also calls himself a persecutor. Believing himself to be faithful he
persecuted the church. The Book of Acts
tells us that he was there when the temple authorities stoned to death Stephen,
the first Christian martyr. He stood by
watching, holding the cloaks. He used to
arrest Christians to take them before the Temple authorities to be tried for
blasphemy for which the penalty was death.
On such a trip to Damascus, Syria Jesus, resurrected and ascended,
personally confronted him.
Paul also calls himself what the NRSV translates as a
“man of violence”, a hybristes. This is a loaded term. We get our term hubris from it. It means a
powerful person who arrogantly treats others shamefully. Jews in Jesus’ time and just before used it
to describe Greek and Roman leaders who persecuted faithful Jews with great
contempt. The Books of the Maccabees
describe the 200 or so years before Jesus when the Greeks occupied Isreal and
oppressed the Jews. They tell of “men of
violence”, leaders of the Greeks who did things like make the Jews eat pork or
be tortured to death and who put up idols and sacrificed pigs in the
Temple. Paul compares himself to one of
these.
Paul says his life as a faithful, dedicated, and
zealous Pharisee was a life of “unbelief”, “unfaithfulness”. In those days even though he believed himself
to be working for God and protecting God’s honour and being the most faithful
person he knew how to be, he was unfaithful.
God was not working in and through him.
Paul was actually acting against God in hubris.
But Jesus showed him mercy. On the Road to Damascus in a bright light
Jesus called Paul to his service. It is
entirely inaccurate to say that Paul had a conversion experience and suddenly
went from being a law abiding Jew to being a grace believing Christian. It is also inaccurate to say that Paul
realized he was a sinner and like the Prodigal Son he came to his senses and
repented and became a believer in Jesus and got himself saved. Paul is not the poster child for the
Revivalist preachers of the last three centuries who liked to tell people they
were going to Hell if they didn’t get themselves right with Jesus. Paul did not close his eyes, bow his head,
and raise his hand to accept Jesus as his personal Lord and Saviour as if he
were at an Evangelical Crusade.
It is more like this.
Jesus personally called the most unlikely person in all Israel to come
and be one of his Apostles and it turned Paul’s world completely on its head. On the Damascus Road a bright light surrounds
him and a voice asks him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Standing in the presence of the risen and
ascended Jesus Paul calls this presence “Lord”.
Jews only call God “Lord”. Paul
asks, “Who are you, Lord?” The presence
answered, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. Get up and go into Damascus and
you will be told what you are to do.” In
that moment it became obvious to Paul that the followers of Jesus were not
making this stuff up. The prophecies
concerning the Messiah, Israelite hopes for the end times Kingdom of God, the
resurrection of the dead – the core tenets of the Pharisees, Jesus who was
somehow “Immanuel”, God-with-Us, had inaugurated them all. Paul’s image of God being a vengeful God who
punishes the wicked outright had to change.
Paul was a lost sheep. In the midst of his trying to be the most
faithful Israelite he believed he could be, he was a lost sheep. He was lost in unfaithful faithfulness. Blind to his own need for repentance and
indeed unable to come to his senses because he was so sure of his Pharisaic
interpretations of what the Bible said.
He was blinded by his own beliefs.
The word “radicalized” is popular these days. He was radicalized.
These parables about the lost and found and the example of Paul
come as a powerful challenge for us North American Evangelical types to examine
ourselves as to whether we might be lost in unfaithful faithfulness. We look around at our culture and rather
arrogantly judge moral decadence. We
rant on about things like the detrimental effect of the removal of prayer and
religious education from the public schools.
We lament and rant on about how unchristian our society has become, but
rarely do we call into question how un-Christ-like we are. With great hubris we arrogantly judge those
who hang out on Main Street once the sun goes down. We regard as untouchable poor people who
won’t pick themselves up by their bootstraps.
We’ll have nothing to do with such as these for they are the domain of
social services. – and let’s not even get into human sexuality. How lost are we in unfaithful
faithfulness? Lord Jesus, open our
eyes. Amen.
