Not Fractions But Every One
Luke 15:1-10
June 28, 2020 anno Domini – Redeemer
If you aren’t very good at fractions you’ll do well in the Kingdom of God. God doesn’t do things by fractions. It doesn’t matter if you’re only 1/99 of his flock, or 1/10 of his treasure. God desires to find all because all are lost. Therefore He will seek out every one – and that one is you.
Jesus describes the problem in the parable as being “lost.” Fractions don’t work when you’re lost either. No one is ever ¼ lost or ½ lost. You’re either lost or found. That was the problem with the Pharisees – they were running the fractions, doing the numbers. They were mostly righteous, 9/10 righteous, but Jesus was receiving sinners, people hardly 1/10 righteous and He was eating with them.
In that eating Jesus also did away with fractions. To this day Middle Eastern culture puts a high value on dinner guests. If someone sits at your table he is considered family. The Pharisees didn’t mind helping a sinner from a distance, but Jesus was eating with them like they were God’s children. How dare this Jesus do away with the divisions of the righteous and the wicked, us and them! There are no divisions in the Kingdom. We are all sinners and Christ came for all, that’s why everyone is worth His seeking and saving.
To teach them and us of God’s way Jesus told them the parable of Luke 15.
100 sheep is a lot of sheep. By ancient standards you would be a very rich shepherd to own 100 sheep. It’s also possible the 100 sheep represent an entire village’s flock. Either way the odds aren’t in the sheep’s favor. Is a shepherd going to risk his life for 1/100 of his flock? If it is the community’s flock, are the 9 other shepherds going to cover for the one shepherd who lost a sheep? The answer in God’s Kingdom is yes, because that’s the Shepherd’s sheep. It’s His and He wants it back. The Shepherd values the life of the sheep – your life.
We probably don’t appreciate how lost a lost sheep is. Something odd happens when a sheep gets lost, when it wanders away and no longer hears the voice of its shepherd. It becomes paralyzed with fear, so paralyzed it won’t even respond to the voice of its shepherd. It becomes a quivering mass of mutton. So the shepherd has to seek it out, climb down the valleys, look in the ravines, check out the brambles and briars. Even when found the sheep remains useless. It won’t move, so the shepherd must pick it up and carry it home.
That’s how Jesus describes it in the parable but that is also how Scripture describes you as a sinner. You aren’t part sinner, half sinner. You are a lost sinner. A quivering mass of inability to save yourself. So the Good Shepherd seeks you out. He comes down into the mess you’ve made – this mess of sin and evil and death. In order to save you He goes where you are — stuck with sin heading for death condemned to hell. Jesus goes to hell and death to grab you and carry you home. The Shepherd does all the work and you get a free ride – free to you, but not to the Shepherd. He lays down His life to pull you from your sins and to pry you from the devil’s jaw.
The lost sheep is saved by the Shepherd. The lost coin is found by the woman.
You can relate to the woman who lost a coin. You can’t find your phone, your keys, your credit card. Everything gets put on hold. You ransack your junk drawer, check all your pants, rummage through your vehicles, retrace your steps. If all else fails you ask your wife, but only as a last resort. Why go to all that trouble? Because it’s yours and it’s valuable to you.
So the woman lights a lamp. Sweeps up the dust bunnies under the couch. Looks underneath the mattress. Goes into those dark, dirty places you hate to look – under the stove, behind the washing machine, in that wet, dark corner where the creepy things hang out. Why? Because she wants that coin. It’s hers.
So God the Father sent His Light from above, the Light of the World, Jesus Christ. Jesus went to the dark places, where the creepy things hang out – He went to the sick, the dead, the demon-possessed, and those trapped in sin. Remember how the demons couldn’t stand the light, but how the sinners flocked to the light and how the dead came out of their dark tombs to the light of life? It doesn’t matter the darkness of your life – the dark past of your sins, the dark stain on your conscience, that dark addiction. The light of Christ will dispel it. Don’t be afraid of the light – your sins might not like it, the Devil resists it, but it’s the most blessed light to bask in. Jesus Christ is the light of the world. The light no darkness can overcome.
The conclusion of each parable is odd to our ears. Why throw a party over one sheep? Or invite your neighbors over to celebrate one coin? The party will probably cost more than the coin. It’s particularly strange for us because we are living more alone and apart than perhaps at any other time in human history. We have millions of words but no one is really communicating. Such was not the case in Biblical times – everyone in town would have known Joseph was out seeking his sheep or that Naomi was up all night looking for that coin. The individual’s joy was the community’s joy – the communion. That’s how it is in the Kingdom of God – when one lost sinner is found, when one sinner believes in Jesus, when one infant is baptized, when one stray sheep is carried back to the fold, the angels is heaven rejoice. For the church is one — one communion. We might be fractured and divided here, but all who confess their lostness and believe that Christ has found them and saved them by His death and resurrection are one in Christ and the angels rejoice over each one.
So remember – there are no fractions in the kingdom of heaven. You aren’t partly sinful. You’re completely lost without Christ. God does not calculate your worth – you’re not 1/99 or 1/10 to Him. You are one whom He loves, one whom He wants back, one whom He seeks and finds and saves in the name of Jesus. Amen.