Sermon for September 15,16, 2007
Sermon: "Only in the Gospel"
Scripture: Luke 14: 25 - 33
Reverend Larry M. Gerber
Raise your hands if you have seen this in the movies: A cigarette butt tumbles in slow motion into a pool of gasoline, creating an enormous fireball.
Sure, just about everybody has seen this. It's an ear-splitting, eyebrow-singeing, cinematic spectacle. Guaranteed to please the action-adventure crowd.
It's also largely make-believe, one of the many things that happen ? ONLY IN THE MOVIES!
Richard Tontarski is an expert in forensic fire at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms research laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland. He became interested in the link between cigarettes and gasoline because arson suspects frequently claim that a gasoline fire was started by accident. They say things like, "My girlfriend was smoking, I accidentally threw gasoline on her, and she burst into flames."
So Tontarski and his colleagues went to great pains to create fireballs. Fun work, if you can get it. They dropped burning cigarettes into trays of gasoline. They sprayed a fine mist of gas at a lighted cigarette. In more than 2,000 attempts, the gasoline did not ignite. No fireballs.
Tontarski can only guess why, reports an article in The Guardian (February 27, 2007). He thinks that perhaps the layer of ash on the tobacco prevents ignition, or that gasoline vapor naturally moves away from the hottest part of the cigarette.
Please, do not try this at home.
There are a ton of things that happen only in the movies, and they should never be confused with real life. The Nostalgia Central Web site lists 40 of them, including:
-It is always possible to find a parking spot directly outside or opposite the building you are visiting.
-The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window of any building in Paris.
-Plain or even ugly girls can become movie-star-pretty simply by removing their glasses and rearranging their hair.
-Anyone can land a 747 as long as there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.
-And, in line with the cigarette-and-gasoline phenomenon: Cars will explode instantly when struck by a single bullet!
Is this true? Only in the movies!
Reading the Bible is sometimes like going to the movies, in the sense that we encounter stories that don't quite ring true. A man leaving 99 sheep to look for a lost one, or a woman throwing a party to celebrate the finding of a lost coin? Does anyone actually do that?
It seems unreal ? like in the movies, when one person starts dancing in the street, and then suddenly everyone else starts to dance along with him. And they know all the steps!
The lost sheep and the lost coin. These are things that happen only in the gospel.
But maybe stories from Scripture point to a deeper truth, one that is even more real than the day-to-day existence we experience. Perhaps the stories of the gospel are God's truth, not human truth.
Let's go behind the scenes, and see.
As today's passage from Luke begins, Jesus is crushed by a number of tax agents and lowlifes who have come to listen. This drives the religious crowd nuts because they have no respect for tax people whom they regard as collaborators with the oppressive Roman Empire, and they have even less regard for the disreputable who break not only moral laws but also the laws of Jewish ritual purity. With venom, the Pharisees and the scribes grumble, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them" (Luke 15:1-2).
In response, Jesus tells a couple of parables. The first describes a shepherd with 100 sheep who loses one, and then leaves 99 in the wilderness to go after the one that is lost. It doesn't sound like sensible shepherding, but it certainly underscores the shepherd's love for each and every sheep. He goes and finds the lost sheep, and then lays it on his shoulders and rejoices (vv. 3-5).
The shepherd's success at finding the lost sheep ? without losing the other 99 in the wilderness ? is kind of like the remarkable fight scenes you see in martial arts movies. In those films, if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight, your opponents will patiently wait to attack you, one by one, dancing around you in a threatening manner until you have defeated the person right in front of you.
It would be easy to think that this type of shepherding happens only in the gospel.
But this story is not about a human shepherd ? it's about a divine shepherd. It is the Lord God who feels joy because he has found a missing sheep, and he invites us to lay aside our skepticism and rejoice along with him when he carries that lost sheep home. "Just so," says Jesus, "there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance" (v. 7).
More joy over the tax collector who repents than over 99 Pharisees.
More delight over the prostitute who repents than over 99 scribes.
More rejoicing over the drug dealer who repents than over 99 clean-and-sober Christians.
More happiness over the career criminal who repents than over 99 law-abiding Americans.
Hey, wait ? that doesn't seem right, does it?
We'd like God to feel some joy toward us, but instead he says, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost" (v. 6).
This kind of stuff happens only in the gospel. And in the kingdom of God.
John Dominic Crossan, a prolific Bible scholar who specializes in the historical Jesus, makes the point that the parables "ask how God would run this world if God sat on Caesar's throne." That's a fascinating perspective. We live in a world run by secular powers, one in which a succession of human leaders ? some Democrat, some Republican ? sit on Caesar's throne. Their decisions shape our world, and influence our understanding of what is right and what is wrong, what makes sense and what doesn't.
But what if God sat on Caesar's throne? If he did, how would God run this world?
That's what Crossan says this parable is all about.
But it is also about what gives God pleasure. God would run this world in a way that brought pleasure and joy. Obviously.
So what is it that gives God pleasure?
-When the lost are found;
-when the broken are healed;
-when the alienated are reconciled;
-when the sick are made well;
-when those who are dead are made alive;
-when the oppressed are lifted up;
-when the prisoner is released;
-when the humble have been exalted.
The religious leaders of Jesus' day could not do joy. They didn't understand the things that really made God happy. They couldn't picture a God who is a fist-pumper and shouts "Yes!" every time a lost lamb finds its way back to the fold. They couldn't see all the chest-bumping, the high fives, the fist-bumps going on in heaven when something like that happens.
That's the action-call of this story: What has happened to our joy? What has happened to this sublime sense of sharing in the pleasure of God when the brokenhearted are comforted, and when the weak are made whole?
It's also the message of the second story. This parable tells of a woman who has 10 silver coins, each one worth about a day's wage. It's not a huge amount of money, but it's quite precious to her, so when she loses one of the coins she lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and then searches carefully till she finds it. In this parable, it's not the searching that seems odd, it's the party that follows. She calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, "Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost" (vv. 8-9).
Can you imagine getting an invitation to a "lost coin found" party? Only in the gospel.
The point of the story is the celebration. And Jesus nails this down when he says, "Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents" (v. 10).
The question for us is this: Are we willing to join the celebration? If our lives are going to be in line with God's truth, we're going to have to put on party hats.
The problem is that Caesar is still on Caesar's throne, and we tend to play by his rules. We reward people who do the right thing, and we commend those who stay out of trouble ? as well we should. But you've got to wonder whether we have lost our sense of joy working with the lost: those who are candidates for restoration, recovery and discovery. We behave like the scribes and the Pharisees, and we tend to ignore the homeless, the harlot or the habitual user.
But God wants us to start behaving in ways that are seen only in the gospel. Jesus tells us that God's kingdom is coming, and that Caesar will not be sitting on his throne forever. The challenge for us is to join God in feeling mercy toward those who are lost, and to whoop it up when they repent and return to the community of faith. Paul makes this explicit in Colossians 1: Reconciliation is what gives God pleasure. "For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things" (vv.19-20).
When the lost are found, God throws a party and wants us all to join the celebration. There's nothing unrealistic about it. May we be like the ancient Hebrews of old who, when they heard Nehemiah's declaration, they all "went away to eat and drink, to send portions of food and to celebrate with great joy, because they now understood the words that had been made known to them" (8:12, NIV).
Sources:
Crossan, John Dominic. "The parables of Jesus." Interpretation, July 2002, 253.
"40 things that only happen in movies." Nostalgia Central Web Site: nostalgiacentral.com.
Randerson, James. "Petrol lit with a cigarette? Only in the movies." The Guardian, February 27, 2007. http://film.guardian.co.uk.
