“Offensive or Offended: Which Are We?”

Luke 15:1-10

As part of an exercise designed by Betty-Ann for this past Thursday night’s choir practice, a choir member and I got to share some things about ourselves. Part of this involved sharing the names of our favorite musical performers. My partner in this exercise shared with me that one of her favorite performers is Amy Grant. As an aside she then shared an opinion expressed by someone close to her. That opinion was that Christians shouldn’t listen to Amy Grant because she has sinned. My response, “Well, haven’t we all?” Not knowing where Amy Grant is or isn’t in her walk with the Lord, I hesitate to make such judgments about her. Or anybody else.

Moving on, allow me to share with you two brief quotes from William Barclay’s commentary on Luke 15: “… God is kinder than people.” [and] “It is a thousand times easier to come back to God than to come home to the bleak criticism of [other people].” People, even Christian people – sometimes especially Christian people, can be harsh judges of one another. Like the elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son that immediately follows and is intimately related to today’s text, we are often extremely hard hearted toward those we deign to be less righteous than we. We are often guilty of turning our backs on or giving a cold shoulder to the prodigals in our lives, the black sheep in our families, and the skeletons in our family closets. And those are supposedly people we love!

Sometimes we act the same way toward our church’s prodigal members, black sheep, and skeletons in the ecclesiastical closet. I still remember the way a young woman was treated by my home congregation. I cannot forget all the snide whispers, rude snickers, and self-righteous stares going on behind her as she walked up the aisle to join her family. Her crime? Daring to attend worship in her obviously pregnant and unmarried state. Yes, she had sinned. Yes, she had failed to live up to her vows of church membership. Yes, she had disappointed all those folks in the church who had been her Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, and choir directors. But did she not need the love and nurture of those same folks then more than ever?

Of course she did. Did she receive it? From a few, yes, she did. But what she mostly got was a ton of that “bleak criticism” of which Dr. Barclay wrote. And those of us willing to maintain fellowship with her weren’t looked upon all that kindly ourselves. Our crime? We dared to fellowship with a sinner, welcome a prodigal, try to bring a black sheep back into the fold, and not be ashamed of this skeleton in the church’s closet. We dared to take seriously all that stuff we’d been taught about grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness.

In today’s text the Pharisees were offended because Jesus was eating and drinking with sinners. He was being accepting of and identifying with “people with whom no respectable Jew would consort… men and women of doubtful reputation.” While the Pharisees’ attitude toward sinners can be summed up as, “Prove to us your worthiness and we’ll invite you to join us,” Jesus’ approach was, “Come in, and discover what you’re missing.”

Jesus responded to the Pharisees’ self-righteousness by telling the parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. In that day the loss of even one sheep would have had a major financial impact on a family of shepherds. The loss of the coin he used as an example would have been financially disastrous. To bring back that lost sheep and to discover that lost coin would have been reasons for great celebration, not to mention relief. In each case something of great value had been lost, but now was found.

The point Jesus was making is that any human being, no matter how sinful, is of great value to God. In his incomprehensible mercy, kindness, and grace our Father God is willing to hug returning prodigals, welcome black sheep, and bring any and every skeleton out of the closet. Their behavior may offend him even more than it offends us, but still God loves them with a love that will not let them go. Like the proverbial Hound of Heaven, our Lord God pursues sinners with an unrelenting passion. In Jesus Christ he has come to seek and save the lost, and great is the celebration in heaven when one of the lost has been found.

There is not a person here who has not, at one time or another, been offended by someone else’s sinful behavior, and then judged that person from some undeservedly high throne of self-righteousness. We all have a great capacity for bleak criticism of our fellow sinners. On the other hand, each of us has probably offended someone else by way of our sinful behavior. In one way or another we’ve all been somebody’s prodigal, black sheep, or closet bound skeleton. And even if that’s not true, we have all been those things to God. Each and every one of us has offended, hurt, disappointed, and angered God. “None is righteous, no not even one. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

All that’s a frightening commentary on the human race. We the unrighteous, who are also self-righteous on occasion, are all lost sheep blundering around in the wilderness of our own sinfulness. We’re all lost coins, condemned by our own prideful waywardness to the darkest and dustiest corners of the human household. Or maybe our sinfulness is more like that of the elder brother in that other parable, the one whose self-righteous indignation has cut him off from the love of his father and his brother. That little Pharisee residing in each of us just has this way of popping out from time to time.

Going back to that incident from my younger days, was the self-righteousness exhibited by supposedly Christian people any less sinful than was the pre-marital sex engaged in by the young woman they were condemning? No, their sin was of no less consequence than was hers. Their response to her offense was in itself offensive. But the God who loved that young unwed mother-to-be also loved them. In Jesus he came to seek and save her, and them, and all of us. In the person of the Holy Spirit, our Lord God passionately and relentlessly pursues all sinners when our prideful foolishness has led us away from where he wants us to be. We are of value to God even when we’re worthless in the eyes of the world - even when a pervasive sense of worthlessness fills our own hearts. We are each of us, valuable enough, important enough, and precious enough to God that in Jesus Christ he died for us on a cross. He died for you. He died for me. He died for all those folks out there we sometimes self-righteously consider unworthy of our fellowship.

That, my friends, is God’s way of dealing with us and our sinfulness. As Christians it is the way we are called to deal our fellow sinners. Behind all that is an attitude of mercy. This attitude is beautifully described by the second and third verses of the hymn “Depth of Mercy!” “I have long withstood His grace, Long provoked Him to His face; Would not hearken to His calls, Grieved Him by a thousand falls. Still for me the Saviour stands, Shows His wounds and spreads His hands; God is love! I know, I feel; Jesus weeps, and loves me still.”

Know any sinners? Have any prodigals of whom you’re ashamed? Just remember how valuable such lost ones are to God. Amen.