Lost and Found

Jesu Juva

St. Luke 15:1-3, 11-32                                                        

March 27, 2022

Lent 4C                                      

Dear saints of our Savior~ 

          A man had two sons. You know this story. The older son inherits the land; the younger son inherits enough money to go off and buy land somewhere else. The older son is dutiful, a “good son,” a “religious son,” who does everything his father asks. But the younger son is impulsive, independent, headstrong. He’s the one who gets in trouble.
          It’s a parable of repentance and rejoicing. Jesus told this parable to people who were grumbling about the company He kept. Jesus had the audacity to sit and sup with sinners—you know, the losers, the riff-raff, tax collectors, street walkers. Not the types you see in the synagogue or in the temple.  Jesus sinners doth receive—dirty, despicable sinners. Jesus ate with them; and the religious elite hated Him for that.

          He told them a parable.  A man had two sons. The younger son couldn’t wait for his father to die. He said, “Father, give me my share of the estate.” In other words, “Dad, you’re worth more to me dead than alive, and since you don’t look like you’re going to keel over any time soon, just sign over the inheritance check now and let me hit the road.” In other words, “Dad, drop dead.” And the father granted the request.

          It didn’t take son number two very long to hitch a ride off to a distant country, far away from his father, his brother, his home. And far from home and family, that young man did what so many young men have done. He squandered everything. We don’t know how. “Reckless living,” it says. No details provided. Wine? Women? Gambling? Who knows? What it boiled down to was no money. Inheritance gone.

          To make matters worse, a famine broke out in that country. Problems always seem to come in bunches, don’t they? (You lose your job, the kids get sick, the car breaks down…Happy Monday!) The young man had no money and no food; he’s broke and homeless. He gets a job slopping hogs—which is about as bad as it gets for a good Jewish boy. Pigs were unclean, remember. And you know you’ve hit rock bottom when pig food starts to make your mouth water.

          Hungry, broke, lost, stinking like a pig sty, “he came to.” “My father’s hired servants are better off than this. They have food and a roof over their heads. I’m going to go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.” And off he went back home.

          He probably wondered whether his father would take him back . . . or whether he would turn his back on his son. Would he be disowned?  There were no guarantees on this young man’s road of repentance. No assurances that his plan would meet with success. He just went to the only place he knew: He went home.

          That’s what repentance is—returning home, where you belong. You’ve been away in a far country. You stink. You’re broke. You’re hungry. You’re alone and ashamed. You want to be home again. You want to be in your Father’s house, where you belong.  If you know what that feels like, then good—because that’s repentance.

          When he was still far off, just a little speck on the horizon, his father saw him. You see, he’d been watching, looking down that road every day for his son. He recognized the boy. He had compassion. He ran down the road – something no self-respecting middle-eastern father would have done – and ran up to him—this boy stinking of pigs—and he embraced him and kissed his filthy cheeks. And the boy can barely get his little speech out. He only makes it halfway through: “Father, I’ve sinned against heaven and before you…” while his father nearly smothers him in his arms and is calling out to the servants for the finest robe and the family ring and shoes for his blistered feet. And he’s ordering servants around to kill the

fattened calf and call the musicians and gather the people for a party. My son, my son, my son. He was dead and he’s alive again; he was lost and he’s found. And the music started and the wine flowed and the party began.

          There are no deals to be made in the arms of our heavenly Father. No quid pro quo.  No penalties to pay.  No interrogation (“are you really, really sorry?”).  And any confession we make, is made in the embrace of our Father’s forgiveness. We don’t earn our way home with promises to “make things right;” we are simply received, welcomed home with open arms.

          This parable really is first about Jesus Himself. Jesus is the Son who left His royal throne, the home of His Father, emptied Himself of all the perks and privileges of being the only Son of the Father, took on our human Flesh and humbled Himself in the lostness of our death. Jesus didn’t squander the inheritance; we did. We all did. We all do. You do.  “Reckless living” is what we do best. Jesus stepped into the pig pen of our sin, our mess, our muck and mire. He was baptized into it. He was crucified in the midst of it. He was buried in it. And having risen from the dead, He goes back home to the Father to be received at His right hand, with a Eucharistic feast thrown in His honor.

          This parable is about you too: You the penitent. You who are sorry for your sins.  You baptized into the Son of God. You in Christ embraced by the Father. You clothed in Christ and forgiven, called to be a child of God. You are that prodigal son—lost and found, dead and alive. God’s Son has found you, claimed you, redeemed you, raised you, clothed you, fed you, forgiven you. It’s because of Jesus that the Father loves you and embraces you and welcomes you. You don’t reek of your sins; you smell like Jesus. You’re not soiled with the mess you’ve made, you’re washed whiter than snow with the blood of the Lamb.

          Don’t forget, there’s an older brother. He’s not at the party but out in the field, doing his work. He hears the sounds of celebration. He smells the roasted meat. He approaches the house and asks a servant. “Hey, what’s going on?” And the servant tells him, “Your brother has returned, and your father is throwing a party for him. He’s safe and sound.”

          And the older brother is furious. He refuses to come near the party. He wants nothing to do with it. Even when his father comes out and pleads with him, he won’t. He says, “Look, I’ve slaved for you all these years, I’ve done everything you asked me, I’ve never gotten into trouble, never done anything wrong, never disobeyed a single command, and you never even gave me so much as a goat so I could party with my friends. But when this son of yours, who wasted everything on prostitutes slinks home, you throw a party for him.”

          But the father won’t let him off so easily. “Son (notice that the father never disowns his sons), you’re always here, always with me, everything I have is yours. But it’s good, right, and salutary that we should celebrate. Your brother was dead and is alive, he was lost and is found. We had to celebrate.”

          And there the story ends. We’re left hanging. Will the older son join the party or not? Will he join his younger brother to feast at the expense of his father’s prodigal mercy? Or will he stew in his anger and resentment outside of a party to which he’s invited? Will he rejoice at the lavish grace of a father who forgives both his sons, the good one and the bad one, who welcomes home the lost, who justifies the sinner?

          At the end of the parable, which son is lost? The commandment keeper. The religious son. The one who did all the right things for all the wrong reasons. And in the end, what keeps him out of the party? Not the father! He’s begging him to come. Not his brother! He has only himself to blame if he’s excluded.

          Jesus told this parable to the religious elite, who imagined that they didn’t need to repent and who looked down on those who did.  We who are lifelong Christians—we who have literally grown up in the Father’s house—we run the same risk when we begin to imagine that a place in His house is earned—that sinners need to clean up and smell nice and pay off their debts before they are welcomed home in the church.  Only those who see themselves as sinners will rejoice in the repentance of a sinner. Only those who see the rebel in themselves, will join this party of rogues and rebels and sinners called the church.

          Jesus our Brother, the Father’s Son, He went to the depths to save us. He was lost but is found. He was dead but now lives forevermore. And you are found alive in Him. And the Father simply has to celebrate.

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

Mother Hen Messiah

 Jesu Juva

St. Luke 13:31-35                                                               

March 13, 2022

Lent 2C                                

 Dear saints of our Savior~

          When Pharisees start doing favors for Jesus you know something’s up.  The Pharisees were the religious superstars of Jesus’ day; but, once again, they’re up to no good.  This time it appears as though they were looking out for Jesus.  Jesus was in Herod’s territory, and the Pharisees came to Jesus with an insider tip:  Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.  Of course, the funny thing was, the Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus too.  They’d been plotting His demise for over a year, but couldn’t quite figure out when or where or how.  The über-religious Pharisees and the über-politician Herod—they hated each other with a passion.  But they were united in their hatred for Jesus.  Both saw Jesus as a threat.  Both wanted Jesus out of the way.

          Jesus doesn’t seem very concerned about it.  What’s the worst that could happen to Him?  He dies?  That’s the reason He came—to die for the sin of the world—to lay down His life and to take it up again.  Jesus is unthreatened by death threats.  He said:  Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.  The third day?  Do you think Jesus had in mind how He would rise from the dead on the third day when He said this?  It’s hard not to think so.  He knew that the politicians and the religious elite were eventually going to catch up with Him and deliver Him over to death.  But it would all happen on Jesus’ timetable, and not on theirs.

          Jesus was on His way to Jerusalem—the seat of all political and religious power in Israel.  The temple was there.  The king’s palace was there.  Kings and priests called all the shots in Jerusalem.  Jesus made no secret of His travels plans, but announced His itinerary plainly:  I must go on my way . . . for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.  Are you sensing a little sarcasm from the Savior?  Jerusalem had a reputation, it seems.  Jerusalem was where the Lord’s prophets had a way of being put to death.

          Most cities have reputations—even today.  Chicago is known for its corruption, Nashville for country music, Kansas City for barbecue.  And what about Milwaukee?  In Milwaukee it’s all about the beverages.  But Jerusalem in Jesus’ day was the place where prophets went to die.  Jerusalem, like no other place on earth, wanted to silence the Word of God by killing those who dared to speak it in its truth and purity.  Jesus wasn’t the first victim, and He wouldn’t be the last.

          Now, you might expect that Jerusalem’s bloody behavior would cause Jesus to be angry.  It makes me angry when Christians who ought to know better ignore the Word of God to pursue their own personal pleasure.  It’s maddening when Christians who ought to know better desire entertainment more than forgiveness.  It’s frustrating when sports and school and drama (and sleep!) become more important to families than receiving the gifts of God together in worship.  The blood pressure of every prophet and every pastor ticks ever upward at such things. 

          But it’s not just pastors and prophets.  You also know how it is when your love is rejected, when your kindness is rebuffed, when you extend a helping hand only to take a slap in the face.  We get angry.  One of the hardest sayings of Jesus is that one about loving your enemies and doing good to those who hate you.  You know as well as I how downright impossible that seems.  Our motto is get angry and get even.

          But not Jesus.  He truly loves His enemies:  the Pharisees and Herod  . . . and us.  Rejection doesn’t make Him mad, but sad.  To Jesus, it’s a crying shame.  It makes His heart ache:  O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city the kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!  How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not.

          With those words Jesus gives us a glimpse into the merciful heart of God.  Jesus spreads out His arms like a mother hen gathering up her wandering, wayward chicks.  Jesus wants them all—the religious and the non-religious, the powerful and the powerless.  He came to save them all, even if they don’t want His salvation.  He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world; and if the world doesn’t want its sin taken away, Jesus does it anyway.

          You and I have to face the facts—and Lent is a good time to do it:  We aren’t much different than the citizens of Jerusalem who had a habit of skewering the prophets of God.  For inside each of us is a self-righteous Pharisee and a Herod-like dictator.  We are so proud of ourselves and so critical of others.  We are constantly trying to orchestrate things our way—to take control of every situation rather than pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  We use our religion as a bargaining chip with God, or just to feel good about ourselves.  We do our best to control Jesus, and to manage Jesus—to make sure He’s there when we need Him, but to keep Him at arm’s length when our pursuit of pleasure conflicts with His commandments.  Herod and the Pharisee are alive and well in each of us.

          And for Jesus, this is a crying shame.  And He explains His pain in a way that few people these days can picture.  He speaks of a mother hen and her chicks.  It used to be that nearly everyone owned hens and chicks.  And I’ve heard that chicken coops are making a comeback in these parts.  I hope that’s the case.  Because Jesus describes Himself as the Christ of the chicken coop. 

          Jesus is a mother hen clucking after her little ones, trying to gather them

under her protective wings, out of harm’s way.  She’s even willing to sacrifice herself to save them.  It’s a wonderful, maternal view of our Savior.  This is His love for Jerusalem, for the church, for you.  The desire of His heart is to hold you close beneath His wings.  He wants to extend His arms over you to shelter you beneath His protection and grace, guiding you to walk in His ways.  He was willing to go to Jerusalem and die for you—for all—even for those who hated Him and wanted Him dead.

          Why does Jesus do it?  Why does He perpetually send His pesky prophets and pastors into our lives?  Because He loves you.  He doesn’t want you to go it alone.  In the kingdom of God there are no rugged individualists, no independent Christians.  Hens and chicks that wander off alone are destined to become fox food.  Far better for us to take Jesus at His Word—to accept the reality of what we are:  just a brood of helpless hatchlings—cheeping chicks hidden safely under the Savior’s protective wing.  In every sermon you hear—in the words of His prophets and apostles—Jesus calls you to safety, to shelter and mercy beneath His outstretched arms.

          Those same arms were also stretched out on the cross, to bear your sin.  Those were the arms that reached out to welcome you in the waters of your baptism.  Those are the arms that comfort and console you when your life is touched by death, reminding you that your citizenship is in heaven—that the Savior will one day transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body.  The arms of Jesus invite you to His Supper to be fed with the bread that is His body and the wine that is His blood—for the forgiveness of every sin.  It’s a wonderful place to be—nestled in the warmth and protection and love of Jesus.  There you are safe.  There you are forgiven.  There you have life that lasts forever.

                    As for the city of Jerusalem, lamented by Jesus—Jerusalem has a future.  For when Jerusalem next appears in the Bible, in Revelation, she comes down from heaven, as a beautiful bride dressed for her wedding—radiant, spotless, and glorious.  Her murders have been atoned for in the death of God’s Son.  The innocent blood shed in her streets has been washed away by the blood of the Lamb.  Her streets once littered with stones hurled in hatred—those streets are now paved with pure gold.  The prophets and apostles she killed are now Jerusalem’s firm foundation.  And Christ the Lamb, who died at her gates, is now enthroned—alive forevermore.  That’s your city—your Jerusalem—your happy home forever and ever.    

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The Word Is Near You

 

Jesu Juva

Romans 10:8b-13                                                                  

March 6, 2022

Lent 1C                                        

Dear saints of our Savior~

          “Where is God?”  That seems to be a popular question these days.  Although it’s frequently asked in the past tense:  “Where was God?”  And the skeptics and atheists will usually ask it this way:  “So, where was God, anyway?”  Where was

God when an armed man forced his way into an elementary school and massacred helpless children and teachers?  Where was God when tornadoes tore through Tennessee in the middle of the night, killing dozens?  Increasingly, many people are simply concluding that there must not be a God at all, or that God is only a remote and distant being, unconcerned with earthly affairs.

          For the Christian, however, the question isn’t whether God exists (He does)—or whether He is good (He is).  The question for us is, “How can I get in touch with God?  Where can I find him?  How can my life be connected to His life—especially when I’ve got trials and temptations?”  It’s ironic that we don’t have to ask those kinds of questions about the devil—who is always prominently featured on this first Sunday in Lent.  There’s no doubt about the devil, is there?  His footprints and his fingerprints are all over the place.  No one ever has to ask, “So, where’s the devil hiding out nowadays?”  I’m convinced that even our dreams are sometimes written, directed, and produced by the Prince of Darkness himself.

          So where is God?  It’s what we ask when our lives are touched by tragedy.  It’s what we ask when we feel the relentless pull of addiction.  It’s what parents ask when their grown children drift away from the faith.  It’s what grown children ask when their aging parents drift away into dementia.  Where is God?  It’s an urgent question.  We need to know.

          Some Christians are content to say, “God is in my heart.”  And the Scriptures do speak of our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit, to be sure.  But to say that God is found in my heart isn’t a very satisfying answer.  Because, you know what?  I don’t always feel God there.  And besides that, we know for a fact that our hearts are already contaminated with hatred, jealousy and lust.  It makes it hard to go looking for God there.

          Other Christians can be rather adamant in declaring that God is in heaven.  Who can argue with that?  But what good does that do us when here on earth we’re faced with no end of troubles and tragedy?  A God who’s only in heaven isn’t much use when you’re stuck on earth.

          Where is God?  The answer—a very satisfying answer to that question—can be found in today’s epistle from Romans 10. If you want to find God in our world today—if you want to know Him and draw strength from the power of His resurrection—you will find Him in His Word. 

          Paul is quoting from the book of Deuteronomy when he writes, “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart.”  And then he clarifies what he means by the “word” when he writes, “That is, the word of faith that we proclaim.”  The words that Paul and the apostles preached—the words written down and recorded in the pages of the Old and New Testaments—even the words preached and proclaimed from this pulpit—in and through these words of the gospel, God Himself is present—present with faith for you, forgiveness for you, hope and peace and joy for you.  In His Word, God Himself is drawing near to you.  In His Word, God is changing your life.

          You can read Moby Dick and learn a little something about Herman Melville, the author.  You can read Great Expectations and take a gander into the soul of Charles Dickens.  You can read Pride and Prejudice and ponder the themes that Jane Austen thought were important.  But Melville, Dickens, and Austen are dead and gone.  But you—you can set your heart on hearing, reading, and learning the Word of God—and, in the process, encounter the presence of the living God and the power of the living God, for your eternal good. 

          In God’s Word, the power of the Holy Trinity is at your disposal.  Wherever His Word is preached, God is there to do for you what you cannot do for yourself.  Where there is the Word, there is the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life.  And only by that Spirit can you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, and so confessing and believing, be saved.

          God draws near in His Word; and yet His Word is often the last place we go looking for Him.  We treat the Scriptures like dry and dusty history instead of a precious means of grace bringing faith and forgiveness.  We treat the Word proclaimed in sermons like an infomercial, words to draw upon if you ever get in a tight spot—kind of like the flight attendant speech about using your seat as a flotation device and how to secure the oxygen mask if the cabin pressure should suddenly drop.  You don’t really pay close attention until your life takes a nose dive.  That’s sort of how God’s Word is for us.  “I’ll tune in when there’s a crisis—when the bombs start falling, or when the shots ring out, or when the doctors say there’s nothing more than can be done.”  If only we could believe that in, with, and under the words we are hearing, God Himself is speaking to us.  He’s so much nearer than we know or believe. And when God speaks, good things happen.

          Precisely because sinful human hearts will never go looking for God in the right places, God in Christ has come looking for you.  He came in weakness, clothed in human skin and bones—vulnerable and tempt-able.  And even though it meant death—a horrible death on the cross—He humbled Himself so that He could take all our sins upon Himself and remove forever the barrier of sin that separates you from Him.  This is the God we have.  He shoulders His cross and carries our sin, and dies our death.  But the grave could not hold Him, and through faith in Jesus it cannot hold you either.

          Where is God?  There’s no shame in wondering about that sometimes.  Even Martin Luther, who knew and trusted the Word of God better than anyone—even he sometimes wondered whether God was as near to Him as He promised.  In the late 1520s Luther was frequently afflicted by serious illness, so serious, in fact, that Luther nearly died.  He wrote about his near-death experience to a friend:  I spent more than a week in death and hell.  My entire body was in pain, and I still tremble.  Completely abandoned by Christ, I labored under . . . storms of desperation and blasphemy against God.  But through the prayers of the saints God began to have mercy on me and pulled my soul from the inferno below.  Luther’s faith had been shaken.  He had felt abandoned.  For him too, the question was, “Where is God?”

          But Luther also knew the answer.  He knew and believed that God’s power to save and to comfort sinners was found in the Word of the gospel.  In fact, it was during these months of suffering and sickness—when Luther was at his lowest point—that he wrote these words from the hymn we sang a few minutes ago:  Though devils all the world should fill, All eager to devour us, We tremble not, we fear no ill, They shall not overpow’r us.  This world’s prince may still Scowl fierce as he will, He can harm us none.  He’s judged; the deed is done; One little word can fell him.  One little word—the Word of God—can stop Satan in his tracks.  And that devil-destroying Word is near you.  It is at your disposal.  And in that Word God has located Himself—His power and His presence—for your salvation.

          Where is God?  Not far away.  Not locked away in heaven.  Right here.  In the precious gospel of Jesus, His Son. He is in your mouth and in your heart.  He is near you today—in every time of trouble—in every time of temptation, and for all eternity. 

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.