Lent 4 - Luke 15:11-32

You may or may not know this about me, but I am a gadget person. I love little electronic gadgets and I have a small collection of them. And among those gadgets, my favorite is my iPod. It turn our, a few weeks ago I lost my iPod. Julie will tell you that it is nothing more than a glorified toy. But I bet to differ. There may be a few “fun” apps on it. But it also keeps my schedule for me, my to do list. I have it loaded with several versions of the Bible, including the Greek and Hebrew. In spite of what those naysayers might believe, I find it to be a tool that helps me to do my job more efficiently.

Or at least it was... until I lost it. I have no idea where it went. I have racked my brain trying to figure out where I was and what I did when it disappeared. I have torn apart every cupboard, basket, bag, pocket and box that I could think of. Yet in spite of all my efforts and in spite of the hours and even days I spent trying to remember where I would have placed it, I could not find it. I never found it. I wound up having to replace it.

Perhaps you have had a similar experience. We loose things all the time; iPods, cell phones, car keys, tickets, checks, cash, coins, television remotes – all kinds of things. We hate loosing them. We look for them. We are troubled when we cannot find them and once again have them and use them. It's frustrating.

My fellow Christians, if only we would search for our lost brothers and sisters with the same fervor that we search for our iPods.

This is the point of our parable today. Or at least one of them.

Luke tells us that Jesus was eating with tax collectors and sinners and it turns our that the pharisees and scribes were critical. How could a righteous man spend time with sinners? How could he sit with them? Talk with them? Be in the same room with them? Or Worse, at the same table with them? They called him out on what they thought was a compromising religious position. Jesus was turning himself into a low down and dirty sinner, along with all those tax collectors and prostitutes. Doesn't he know that “bad company corrupts good character.”

Normally it does. Normally good character gets involved with bad company because it seems fun and attractive. Not with Jesus. Jesus gets invovled with bad company because that bad company is lost and needs to be found. Jesus set them straight. He told three parables back to back. Lost Sheep. Lost Coin. And this one, the one that we call the Prodigal Son, but in its context we might call it the Lost Son. A parable about a son who (as the father says at the end of the parable) was lost and is found.

In each case there is something lost; a sheep, a coin, a son. And in each case the shepherd who lost his sheep, the woman who lost her coin, the father who lost his son was not content until the thing lost was found; and in each case, after the one lost was found, there is a party. A celebration. There is joy and elation because what was lost is found and restored to its rightful place.

Jesus goes after those who are lost to bring them back so that they might be found. But are we sometimes like those pharisees and scribes? Are we sometimes like the older son in the parable who stood off at a distance and wouldn't go in to the party and celebrate at the return of his brother? Do we, at times, look down on those who are lost? Do we shun those who are sinners? Do we refuse to reach out in love? Do we fear that we might get ourselves a little dirty? Are we afraid of what our friends might say and keep away from those who are lost?

Perhaps we are. Perhaps we do.

The sin of the Pharisees was that they sized up the sinner by the size of the sin. Tax collecting, prostitution, or in our own day – drugs, alcoholism, all kinds of addictions, adultery, abortion - those are the big sins and therefore those are the big sinners. But... we tell ourselves, a little jealousy here, some gossip there, maybe throw in a small amount of coveting or some lust, that's harmless, that's normal. Right? So we think. We measure and compare sins like fisherman and their fish or like farmers and their tractors, like brides-to-be with their engagement rings. “The bigger the sin, the bigger the sinner.” Or so we think.

Truth be told, there are not small sinners because there are no small sins – not where God is concerned. Every sin is a damning sin. Every sin has death and hell as its payout.

So while we measure and compare and size one another up, we drive away those who we feel are the worst among us. Sinners, those we have labeled as the big sinners, carry their guilt and shame like a scarlet letter emblazoned on their jackets. Meanwhile the rest of us, like the scribes and pharisees, like the older son, sit around and gossip about them, point fingers at them, and tell ourselves that we are glad we are not like them. Instead we spend more time looking for our keys and our remote controls and our iPods then we do looking for our lost brothers and sisters.

But not Jesus. Jesus is the shepherd who leaves the 99. Jesus leaves the safe bet and wastes his time chasing around the runners. He follows them through think and thin, over hill and vale. Through hell or high water so that he can catch them when they have fallen and carry them back when they have come to the end. Jesus will not be denied the rediscovery of those he loses.

Or consider the Father in our text here today. First of all, he doesn't deny the son his request. In spite of his son's hurtful and selfish and foolish request the father gives in. God doesn't ever force us to stay. When sinners choose their sin over God's salvation he always permits us to go our way. Just as with this son. “Dad I want my inheritance now. Waiting until your dead is too long to wait for me to get my hands on your money. Give it to me now.” The father says “Yes.” Our Father says “Yes.”

The son goes out to squander the wealth of his father. Just like rebellious Christians squander their inheritance and trash their baptism, lay aside our Bibles, despise the Lord's body and blood. And likewise this son, He exchanged the house of his father for the temporary glitz of the outside world. He lived “big and rich” a real high roller. But soon his big wad of cash became a pile of pennies so he had nothing. The extravagant son was poverty stricken.

Perhaps that has been you. Perhaps that has been someone you know. Leaving the comfort and protection of God's house to follow the flashing lights on the world's marquee.

The Father permitted the son to have his foolishness. He let him go, but that was not the end of the story. He didn't write his son off. He never treated him like death. Instead He waited for his return. He hoped for and longed for his return.

God's waiting is different from our waiting. God's waiting is active waiting. He pursues while he waits. He sends out his Holy Spirit who convicts and draws and calls and reminds. And in the mean time he waits.

Or Jesus, the shepherd, Jesus the coin dealer, he searches. He seeks. He pursues. He chases. He stops and nothing and goes through everything to find what he has lost.

So often, we think of it as a lost cause. A wasted effort. Why bother. So often we won't even try. We don't know what to say. We don't know what to do. We don't know how to do it. And so we do nothing.

“But what can I do?” You might ask. You can pray. (Don't stop praying. God hears your prayers.) You can write, call, text, send an email – we are more connected today than we have ever been – why let the devil own the technology, lets use it against him.

It doesn't have to be much. You don't have to win an argument. It doesn't have to be an argument. Just a word. An invitation. Letting him know you missed him. Letting her know she is still welcome. There is a place for sinners in Christ's church. There would have to be, or we wouldn't be here. Christ invites sinners to return.

And just like in the parable, the Father waits. He scans the horizon thinking maybe today is the day. Maybe this is the day she'll return. Maybe this is the day I'll see the one I love who left.

But what of the sin. Every wandering sheep comes back a little dirty. The hills and valleys have a way of leaving us with some bumps and bruises, some breaks and strains. Or like the son who was unclean and unworthy. We squandered everything, had nothing and was unfit to be called a son.

Well, its true, bad company does corrupt good character. And so Jesus goes to be with the bad company so that he could become the bad company. Jesus lived with us and among us so that he could be us without ever doing the things that we do so that he could make a trade. He became the bad company and gave us His good character.

And when the son finally returned, when he finally repented of his wrong and came back still smelling of his sin, the father covered him – a new robe. The best robe. And ring on his hand – not a servant but a son. And a party.

And what a party it was. The fattened calf! Not just a meat tray from the local deli. Not just pulling a few steak from the freezer. The fattened calf. Fillet Mignon. He went all out. His son who was lost has been found.

Can you imagine? A party for you, you as the guest of honor in heaven.

We've all seen it before. A team wins the big game, a championship, and the cameras go into the locker room to catch the celebration. There is dancing, singing, hand slapping, hugs. Smiles. High fives. Laughing. Champagne. And why not. It's a victory celebration. And that for a game.

That's the scene in heaven. The celebration for the victory when a sinner returns home to her Heavenly Father.

Amen.

Lent 3 - 1 Corinthians 10:10-13

“The end of the Ages has come.” says the Apostle Paul. That little phrase it kind of tucked in there, hiding in our epistle lesson, perhaps on our first time through you didn't notice it. But sure enough, right there at the end of verse 11, there it is. “The end of the ages has come.” The end times. The last days. The conclusion to history. That time has come!
But then again, you probably already knew that, or at least were thinking it, what with all the crazy earthquakes, ridiculous weather patterns, and terrorists and rouge nations deciding to go nuclear and things like that. It all sounds rather like the apocalypse, does it not?
It all sounds a lot like the world that Jesus describes.
“You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. 7For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.” (Matthew 24:6-7)
And so, as though there might have been some doubt about it, the Apostle puts and end to it and comes right out and says it, “The end of the ages has come.”
But it wasn't yesterday, may or may not be today. We can't say for sure when the day is. So we need to be ready. Our text is telling us to be ready.
To that end, the Apostle considers lessons from history to be appropriate. Paul tells of events from the history of the people of God; in particular, examples of God's judgment on past generations because of their sin. That God had been faithful to them, that he brought them through the Red Sea, fed them with the Manna, quenched their thirst by water that flowed from a rock and all those things pointed them to Christ. And they were members of Christ. This is Paul's point: they were believers. They were the Old Testament people of God.
And even though they were God's people, even though they had received these blessings and were people of faith, when temptations came they indulged; some to idol worship, some to sexual sins, some to grumbling and complaining. And because of their sin God punished them. God punished some by means of a plague, others were punished by means of deadly snakes, still others were killed by “the destroyer” (a reference to the angel of death or perhaps even a reference to Satan).
So Paul walks the Corinthians through these bits of history, and then he makes his point. These things happened to them as an example or a lesson, but they were written down for us so that we upon whom the end of the ages has come, could also receive instruction.
There are two important things to take away from this text. The first is the end of the ages has come. We have been talking about this, we are all probably aware of this to some extent or another, but along those lines there is something to keep in mind. We have been in the end of the ages for the last 2000 or so years. Paul wrote this to first century Christians living in the city of first century Corinth. They, way back then, were in the end of the ages. They experienced earthquakes and weather patterns and lunatic governments. These things are not new. They are, rather, as Jesus puts it, the beginnings of the birth pangs. We should not waste too much time getting excited over stuff we read about in the news papers.
Instead, rather than trying to pin point the day and the hour on our daily planners, we should take a clue from Paul as he gives it here in our text and learn the lesson from history. Learn from the Israelites. They were believers in God. Through the water in the rock and the Red Sea, they were baptized into Christ. Granted their baptism was in leu of what was still to come and our is based on thing that have now come, but in a very real way they were very similar to us. And for them, when they wandered from God's law into apostasy, they were punished.
“Therefore” writes Paul, “let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.”
Don't get cocky! Don't assume that you have sewed up your salvation and its in the bag. Don't make the mistake of believing that you can't fall away, that temptation won't hurt you, that you can dabble in all kinds of sin and come away unscathed. You will find yourself in trouble. You will find yourself at the mercy of an angry God who judges sin and condemns sinners.
So the first lesson to learn is that the end of the ages has come. The second lesson to learn is a lesson from history. Be mindful of history. Be mindful of what God has done and what has been written down for us in Biblical History. God has given these things, not just as stories, not just as children's books and fairy tales. These things are true historical events, and God inspired them to be written down for our learning.
Today marks the beginning in our day school of National Lutheran Schools Week. Those of you who have children in the school are likely already aware of this. There are memos that have gone home about silly hat day, and dress up day and mismatch day and all of that sort of thing.
And while dressing up (or down) is fun, that is far from the point of why we have national Lutheran school week. That is far from the reason of why it is important to recognize our Lutheran Schools.
Our Lutheran Schools are a gift and a blessing from God. All throughout the country there are hundreds and even thousands of Lutheran Schools. These are schools that teach all the academic disciplines excellently, just as our own Lutheran school does here. But beyond being a place to learn to read and write, our National Lutheran Schools are places where these stories of history are important. These biblical events are lifted up. They are studied. They are discussed. They are mined for wisdom because God has given them to us for our learning.
And these lessons are of great importance for our children. Today, our children who are growing up and living in today's world need a place where they can be taught the Word of God. The temptations that our children are facing today are as great as they have ever been. Paul mentions temptations to idolatry. Today false religions like Buddhism, neo-paganism, even atheism have taken root in our popular culture. These false religions have even invaded the Christian and they are taught in some churches along side Christianity.
Paul mentions sexual immorality. These days Christian churches have sanctioned all kinds of sexual and sinful behaviors as being a part of God's plan and design for his people.
Paul mentions grumbling against God and which one of us hasn't complained that God hasn't done for us what we would demand, who hasn't given to us what we expect, who hasn't demanded that any god that we would worship had better meet our felt needs and live up to our demands.
We are on the verge of destruction. Our church, our world, our culture is primed for death and disease and snakes and every kind of evil because of how far we have fallen.
So the deck is stacked against us... and against our children. Wouldn't you agree? Between our sin and the temptations in the world around us and the judgments of God, we are guilty and we are in serious danger.
So in our Lutheran School we study the Word of God and the history it presents. But all of that history wouldn't do us any good if it weren't for one even in particular. All of those stories, all of those events, if it were not for one event would do nothing but condemn us and send us to hell. \
The one piece of history that is of greatest importance for us to learn, to study, to be reminded of every day is the death and resurrection of Jesus. The fact that God himself entered our world to take from us our sin and suffer for it, die for it and then be raised again from the dead so that we who believe this event happened, and more importantly, we who believe this event happened for us, might be receive from God the promise of eternal life. There is no greater lesson to learn and our own Lutheran School teaches that lesson to our children every day.
Paul puts it this way. In our text he writes, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.”
We have listed off a lot of temptations, a lot of potential pit falls, a lot of places where we could go wrong. And often when we begin to examine these temptations and look at these sins our response is one of fear. To tell ourselves that we'd better get it just right or else.
So far we have mentioned two things that our text has taught us: the end of the ages, the need to learn from history so that we don't repeat it. But there is a third lesson. A more imporant lesson. In fact, the most important lesson. And that is the lesson of God's faithfulness.
God is faithful. When we find ourselves in the midst of temptation. When we find ourselves battling it out with the world around us. When we find ourselves floundering and about to fall. God is faithful.
When we are overwhelmed by the world, when we are overwhelmed by satan. When we are overwhelmed by our own history of failures and defeats. God is faithful. God is always faithful.
God sees your struggle. God is acutely aware of your struggle. God knows your strength and your weakness better than you do. God won't let you fall. God won't let you break. As you fight the good fight God strengthens your hands, God strengthens your knees. God provides the way of escape so that your temptations do not take you under.
And even when they do. Even when your weakness gets the better of you, he is still faithful. Even when we have not deserved his faithfulness and have turned away from it, he himself has died for us. He has forgiven us he has cleansed us. He has rescued us.
There are important lessons from history for us to learn. God would have us know and remember all that he has done. God would have us remember his wrath and punishment for sin. But more than that He would have us remember his grace and forgiveness, his love and his faithfulness.
Amen.