Exodus 32:7-14
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10
The Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling at Jesus.
Why? Because he was welcoming sinners. We don’t want that sort of person
getting into the inner circle of the religious, the holy, the respectable, do
we? They’re not people like us, after all.
Jesus, by contrast, talks about joy. The joy of a shepherd
and a woman who find the lost sheep and coin. The joy in heaven when one sinner
repents. Joy because his lost children, the sinners, the outcasts, the
disrespectable, were drawing near to him, and, through him, coming home to
their Father.
Jesus was rejoicing because the tax collectors and sinners
were drawing near to him. The Pharisees were grumbling. Two different reactions
to the same situation. Jesus is quite clear which reaction he wants to see. But
where do we see ourselves in this story?
Do we grumble, or do we rejoice? There’s probably a bit of
both in each of us, if we’re honest.
For instance, I like the traditional liturgy and proper
hymns – you may have noticed. I think how we worship is important. But I have
to admit I can get rather grumbly about it. If I go, for instance, to an event where
there’s a worship band playing a chorus over and over again. I can grumble with
the best Pharisees on those occasions! “They’re not doing it right, it’s not
proper worship!” – and so on. Meanwhile, the people I’m grumbling about are
drawing near to Jesus, and there is joy in heaven – which I’m missing out on.
Joy is the keynote to the gospel. Joy because the Father’s
lost children are coming home. Joy because of repentance which leads us out of
the pointless misery of sin. Joy shows us what our Father is like. One who is
yearning for us to return to him, wanting to rejoice over us, to heal the
wounds of our straying rebellious hearts.
You see God is our Father, not a stern distant tyrant whom
we have to placate. It’s true that seems to be the idea that Moses had in our
first reading, but that was early on in God’s revelation of himself to his
chosen people. The Bible gives us the idea of “progressive revelation” – the
full truth of God being disclosed gradually, because people couldn’t bear the
whole truth all at once. As the Letter to the Hebrews puts it, “Long ago God
spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these
last days he has spoken to us by a Son.”
But even with Moses, we see something astounding. God has
delivered his people from slavery in Egypt, and straight away they have
rebelled against him and started worshipping other gods. But Israel’s God, the
creator and ruler of all things, listens to a man, a bit of earth who has been
lent breath and speech for a brief span of life. God listens to a creature, and
forgives. Already the revelation is there of a God who is surprisingly willing
to forgive.
But Jesus his Son shows us the full extent of God’s love
and forgiveness. Our Father rejoices over one sinner who repents. And that
includes the grumbling people too.
Saint Paul was one of them – Saul the Pharisee, he was
called, and he didn’t just grumble about people drawing near to Jesus. He
persecuted them, threw them into prison and had them killed. He was, by his own
account, a violent fundamentalist bigot.
Until Jesus met him on the road to Damascus, and showed
him how much he was loved. As he said in today’s reading from 1 Timothy, “the
grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ
Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost”. Imagine how much joy
there was in heaven when that particular wandering sheep came home!
Joy is the keynote of the gospel, repentance is its call,
grace is its gift, and mercy is its name. If we want people to hear the gospel,
brothers and sister, we have to be joyful, not grumbling! Sour faced saints put
people off, but joy is attractive.
We are joyful today at Max’s baptism, as we should be.
Here is one of the Father’s children being welcomed into his embrace as a new
Christian, a disciple and an ambassador of Jesus Christ with all God’s people.
He’s not old enough of course to have strayed from the right path yet.
But as he gets older, like all of us, he will need to
follow the path of repentance, constantly turning to Christ, and away from our
sins. Not out of fear, though God will use a healthy fear if he has to, to get
us out of a dangerous place. But out of joy. Our repentance brings joy to the
Father and to the angels in heaven. Our joy is attractive and draws other
people to the Father’s love, for the name of our God is mercy.
Max, you begin your walk with Jesus today. Be a joyful Christian,
not a grumbling one! And we rejoice with you as we all strive to follow the
Father’s way of mercy, love and joy.
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