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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Brothers and sisters in Christ, the text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading. So, what really was the attraction? I mean, why draw near to hear someone speak who is decidedly different than you are? I mean, you know the old saying, birds of a feather flock together. What’s the attraction then? I mean, what was it that these people heard that drew them to this man who was decidedly different, remarkably different, observably different than they? It would be expected that in this morning’s reading, the Pharisees would be drawn to Jesus. I mean, the Pharisees are so much like Jesus in this way. The Pharisees were religious, unlike the tax collectors and sinners who were not religious. The Pharisees had an outward adorned life of holy living, which was alike Jesus. The tax collectors and sinners, very outwardly unholy lives. The Pharisees should be drawn because typically they were economically more stable than the tax collectors and sinners whose lives and decisions typically led them on up and down financial problems. The Pharisees should be drawn to Jesus ultimately because they’re very familiar with all of the things about which Jesus preached from the Old Testament. And the tax collectors and sinners could almost be seen as a totally different culture. And yet, which group are you and I more like? Are we more like the Pharisees who we have a religious life and a religious upbringing? We have outwardly adorned lives that aren’t shady or questionable or sorted. We’re typically economically stable because of our decisions that we make. And we’re pretty familiar with this text and this theme about the 99 sheep on the hillside and the one that he goes and searches for. I mean, we’ve heard it before about the coin that’s lost and the woman lights a lamp and looks for it and voila, there it is. We’re very familiar with that, like the Pharisees. We’re really not like the tax collectors and sinners. Few of us, if any, grew up in a home of squalor with a mother who maybe was a drug addict or a prostitute. A Lutheran Christian sermon. The differences are obvious, but the similarities, not so much. And yet, let’s be honest with one another. In our hearts, in our hearts, you struggle with your flesh as much as the tax collector or sinner, hardened sinner, let’s call them, struggles with their flesh. They’re much more readable as an open book than we are, but we struggle just the same. We have learned to paint the exterior so it doesn’t look like we’re struggling. We’ve learned to varnish and to polyglycote the outside so that it doesn’t appear to the world that we’re struggling as much, unless we really do think that there is a marked difference between the hardened sinner and we. And if so, truly we are a Pharisee. It’s not as if the Pharisee woke up one morning and said, Hey, I’m going to be a self-righteous snob! It happens slowly. As the Pharisee began to look at his life compared to others’ lives. It happens very subliminally. As the Pharisee becomes more convinced of his outward adorned life compared to their very unadorned life. And then they go from what they think to be true to believing it’s true. That’s damnable and scary. We have a great need to repent, brothers and sisters, to repent for actually judging ourselves different ways. Then the tax collectors and sinners, because our outward lives look different, we need to repent. For we’re only focusing on the outward things or the things that we know in our mind and facts and data rather than our hearts are the same. And finally, that goes along with this text the most, we need to repent because daily we need to be found in our lostness. Daily we need to be sought after by our loving shepherd. Daily, we need to be found in our abandoning the flock. Oh, not outwardly, of course, but inwardly, where it really matters, where we are just alike and where we have much in common with the hardened sinner. The very people that we’re supposed to be reaching out to and bringing into the church, right? Yeah, those folks. This seeking that’s in this text to And it’s also in the Old Testament reading that you heard. This seeking, this rescuing, this restoring isn’t a one-time event. It’s not as if all of that seeking, rescuing, restoring is bound up in that one action. Because if it is, you and I wouldn’t struggle with it, would we? We wouldn’t struggle with the things that are in our hearts, the things that we’re embarrassed of, the things that we don’t want to confess, the things that get in the way of our marriages and in our families and one another. Right? So you and I know that this rescuing, this seeking out of us, this restoring is a daily event, not a one-time event. It is a daily event of which he speaks because we are always struggling with this so that we don’t become like the Pharisees. We can’t think that simply because it looks differently on the outside that there is a marked difference between we and they. We and they are one because we both are Have the same internal sinful heart. If it happened with the Pharisees over time, then we have the propensity to do the same. It’s as if you have heard, if my father or my mother struggled with suicide, then I’m very likely to struggle with it as well. If my father or mother struggled with their sin, then I will struggle with sin as well. Consider this cost, this magnificent cost with which Jesus died Redeem the tax collectors and sinners of the world. This magnificently exorbitant cost that Jesus paid for that tax collector and those sinners. It’s the same price that he paid for the Pharisees. It’s the same price he paid for you. It wasn’t as if he paid more for them and less for you because you were on bonus blue light special. It was the same price and it cost him his life and he broke his body for you. The Pharisees sadly began to really think that it didn’t apply to them, but only to those kind of people. It’s interesting, at our baptism, in our service, we say this wonderful summary. Listen to it again. We would be lost forever. We would be lost forever unless delivered from sin, death, and everlasting condemnation. But, what a fantastic conjunction, but the Father of all mercy and grace has sent his son Jesus Christ who atoned for the sins of the whole world that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. By impenitence, by not repenting, the Pharisees began to believe this didn’t apply to them but only to them. By God’s grace, they believed in it, which is why they drew near to hear the words from Jesus, because they knew it applied to them. He attracted the people whose lives looked horrible on the outside. And sadly, people like you and me, we were offended by such things. May it not be done among us, dear brothers and sisters. As a body of Christ gathered here, we have to repent. We must repent. Jesus desires to find you in your sinfulness and in your sinful heart. He doesn’t desire to find your outward adorned life. He desires to find you reeking of the inheritance you have from your mother and father and from theirs before you back to Adam and Eve. That’s what he desires to find. We must repent that that’s what we are. Jesus desires us to repent because he wants to rescue us. And you know who from whom he wishes to rescue you? From yourself, from your and my self-righteousness to judge ourselves at a different level and esteem ourselves more worthy than they. Have mercy, dear Lord. We must repent because he seeks to daily rejoice over you, over you and your lostness and to put himself as your rescuer. And find you and bring you back on his shoulders, which is humbling, because it means you can’t walk and you can’t find your way back. But he loves to do that, because to whom is the glory given then? To him, who is the shepherd, the loving one, who seeks out and finds his obstinate sheep, his stubborn sheep, his stinky sheep. He rejoices in finding you. Not how you and I would tsk, tsk, tsk and shake our finger. I hope you learned your lesson. There he is! There’s the one I lost and now I found. Like in the text, he’s happy. Not judgmental. We need to repent, brothers and sisters, as a body of Christ gathered here. Because when Christ brought back that lost sheep, when the woman found that lost coin, what did she do to commemorate that finding again? She celebrated with a feast and invited friends. Here is that feast. Here are your fellow sinners. Now is the time. Come, rejoice with all of the lost sheep who have been found, restored and rescued by him who is the good shepherd. In Jesus’ name, amen. The peace of God, which passes all understanding. Keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
