Sermon on Luke 15:1-10, for the 3rd Sunday after Trinity (1 yr lectionary), "The Faithful Retriever"

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. Luke 15 has three of Jesus’ most recognizable parables. Sometimes called the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son, though perhaps the parables would be better identified by pointing to the “Finder” or “Retriever” in each story. But in any case, our reading was the first two. The Pharisees and scribes didn’t like Jesus receiving sinners and eating with them. Jesus shouldn’t be mixing Himself up with that crowd, they thought. The three parables point to God’s powerful love for the lost, and what He does to bring them back. Each parable gets sharper in its application, until in the last one, the Pharisees and scribes are confronted by their own unwillingness to welcome back the lost, in contrast to the redeeming love of God the Father.

But back up to today’s parables and reflect. Thankfully, God’s love for the lost has long been on record in the Bible. But we’re ever forgetful, and so constantly need to “rediscover” that truth, both to appreciate it and to let it transform our lives. When we forget God’s love for the lost we take it for granted, or worse, ignore it and act against God’s love for the lost. Think about the alternatives. If God were purely a God of justice, and not of mercy and love for the lost, there would be no point of return to God. There would be no pathway to repentance, no road home, no return to God’s good graces. God could be entirely just—punishing sin, and rewarding obedience, but never allowing the lost sinners to return to Him. That would be His prerogative.

But wonder of God’s love—that’s not how He deals with us. From the very beginning—from Adam and Eve’s first fall into sin—God has mercifully and lovingly made a pathway of repentance for us. There is a road home, there is a return to God’s good graces. These parables show us how eagerly God desires it!

100 sheep and 1 lost. 10 coins and 1 lost. In a day like ours, of such privilege and excess and waste, you could hardly know whether any given person would have the same drive and determination to retrieve their lost property. When we possess so much, it’s easy to be casual or careless about our losses, as though they are insignificant. By contrast, someone who is as determined as the shepherd with the lost sheep, or the woman with the lost coin, is someone who truly values what is lost, takes responsibility for it, and keeps a careful accounting of all that belongs to them. There’s a big difference in how someone cares for what is theirs, when they value it, take responsibility for it, and keep careful track of it. It’s easy for things to get lost, mistreated, or broken, when we don’t value them and take responsibility. God takes the maximum value, responsibility and accounting for all that He has made. He’s not careless, irresponsible, or inattentive. There is no loss that is insignificant to Him. The persons in the parable drop everything to find what is lost. That only happens for someone who cares deeply and considers it their responsibility to retrieve what is lost.

God is, if you will, “the Faithful Retriever.” In other words, God doesn’t sit back and complain about what is lost, or leave it to someone else, or pass the blame. Jesus, our Good Shepherd goes out hunting in the wilderness for even one lost lamb. Jesus, like the woman, gets down on hand and knees, and goes sweeping and searching through a peasant’s dirt floor house, to find the lost coin. God is not afraid to get His hands dirty, because He is the Faithful Retriever, who will not rest until He recovers what is lost and is precious to Him. God got His hands dirty, through the blood and water of Jesus’ human birth, entering on our level in the most fundamentally human way. He lay in a straw manger, bedded beside farm animals. He was circumcised in the flesh, according to the Law. He washed in a sinner’s baptism, to the surprise of John the Baptist, though Jesus had no sins of His own. He embarked on a teaching journey of dusty roads and forsaken villages, of forgotten lives and lost causes, bringing the light of salvation to those dwelling in darkness.

He found lost sheep and lost coins everywhere. Teaching on lonely hilltops, eating with tax collectors and sinners, conversing with disciples who were trying to wrap their heads around the kingdom of God. He was patient, He was determined—He met people in their suffering and agony and distress, and brought His healing touch, His authoritative Word to drive back evil, illness, and lies. And His determined search for the lost took Him all the way to the cross. Where the Shepherd laid down His life for us sheep, and took on Himself the awful curse of our sin.

How much more responsibility could God take, than to bear the very curse of what we ourselves had done in our lost-ness and rebellion against Him? He truly took maximum responsibility for all of us, His creatures. And our value—however we measure it, or others measure it—He alone sets our value. He created us. And whatever value we lost through our fall into sin—God has restored and even increased by redeeming us in Jesus’ death on the cross. You are precious to God—this is the unmistakable and heart-healing discovery of God’s love for the lost, in these parables. It’s that God spared no price to redeem you.

What a marvelous model and example of love for our earthly fathers to imitate. The way God values what is His, is the way earthly fathers should strive to value all that is entrusted to our care—our children, spouses, our family coins or finances, and everything else. The responsibility that God places on what is His, is the way that we as earthly fathers should take responsibility. God is sinless, and we are not. He was not at fault for our sins, waywardness and rebellion. He nevertheless took responsibility to retrieve what was lost, to sacrifice Himself for our restoration and reconciliation. Earthly fathers, and men in general—we need to take responsibility—even the greater share of responsibility, and to sacrifice, to lay down our lives for those whom we love. Whether you have children or not, a godly and positive sense of masculinity drives us to protect, to lead, to see what needs to be done and to get it done.

It’s a heavy load of responsibility. Many men today are glad to shirk responsibility. In a society where people are purposefully blurring the distinctions between male and female, and in some situations even hating the difference between male and female, we have a real crisis. Youth, boys and girls, need good, positive male role models just as much as positive female role models. But men face the temptation to abdicate that responsibility. And as men, it’s all too easy and natural to our human nature, to give up the masculine responsibilities of leadership, protection, and self-sacrifice. That’s not to say that women don’t often do some of those things—but we have a real crisis when men step away or are chased away from the positive, godly roles that God has called men to. And we have a real crisis when we cannot see the positive good in what is masculine or feminine, and the uniqueness of how God made us male and female. The world needs both godly men and godly women, in all that each uniquely brings to God’s created order. The world needs young men and women who are not conformists to this world, but who are transformed by God. The June issue of the Lutheran Witness just arrived in the mail, and is an excellent exploration of biblical manhood, and I recommend all of our congregation to take a half hour or so and read the many valuable articles in it that help to faithfully interpret our world. Also, some statistics about absent fathers, (not in the magazine) are that children raised without fathers are 5 times more likely to end up in poverty, 9 times more likely to drop out of school, and 20 times more likely to end up in jail. That doesn’t mean that no child can overcome the odds, but that the cards are stacked against them. Fathers have huge impact on their kids.

God is our Father because He leads, corrects, and shapes us in what it means to be godly men and godly women. He pulls us back from falling in on our own selfishness, irresponsibility, or envy of the opposite sex. God reorders our desires from jealousy toward a joyful love and appreciation of what makes us unique and different, so that we can see His plan and purpose in life as male and female. We can find joy in blending our complementary gifts into joint service to God. What beautiful things can happen when we put our love into service of God’s goals, and not first our own? What goodness in life can we discover when we walk in harmony with God’s pattern and intent for our life, rather than kicking against it or walking away from it?

Perhaps you know how you’ve fallen short of praiseworthy goals. A heavy load of responsibility weighs on fathers, on boys growing into men, on mothers, on girls growing into women. We have a high and lofty example in the love of God—but the burden is not ours to carry alone. Scripture says His commands are not burdensome. God’s redeeming love was not shown to us by a crushing load of responsibility that we could never carry, but it’s shown in Jesus taking up the crushing load of sin’s curse on His cross. He bore with all our waywardness, sin, and rebellion, carrying that awful guilt to its dreadful conclusion in His death. And there sin’s guilt is concluded. In His death. We daily drown our sins in repentance and returning to our baptism, where our sins meet their conclusion in Jesus’ death. They go no further than His cross. Sin’s wage is paid in full in His death. He gives us a light and easy yoke, a joyful responsibility to follow in His footsteps. He sends His Spirit to accomplish in you all that He desires.

No one says being a father or mother is easy. It’s not, and the responsibility that one either carries or drops, is not easy. God, the Faithful Retriever, is alongside every Christian disciple—father, mother, son, or daughter. The God who is filled with wonderful, redeeming love, is ever at your side, and carrying the burdens of your sin and failures. How many times, without knowing it, were you joyfully carried home on His shoulders? Lost and trapped away from the safety of the sheepfold, but our Good Shepherd faithfully searched and found us, and tossed us lightly upon His shoulders, wrapped us close around His neck, safe again in His warmth and embrace, a child on their father’s back? And not only do we experience the amazing mercy and love of God in these parables, we also discover His joy at retrieving the lost. 1 lost sheep, 1 lost coin, FOUND, is worth calling in friends and neighbors for a party, God says!

I don’t know when the last time you called your friends and neighbors and threw a party for recovering your lost wallet, phone, or maybe even a lost pet—but God and all the angels in heaven thrill with rejoicing when the lost repents and comes home. Heaven’s great joy is for the lost to be found. We began by thinking about the alternatives—God could have left no way of repentance, no road home. But gloriously and to His eternal credit, He has. The path of repentance is the open way for the lost to return home. He has traveled out to us and found us, to carry us and lead us back in. Everything aimed at recovery and retrieval, because our God is faithful, because our God is Love. Because He is a Good, Good Father, who took maximum responsibility to seek and to save the lost. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Sermon Talking Points

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1. Luke 15 is a remarkable series of three parables that portray God the Father’s redeeming love for the lost. Read in its entirety, it’s clear that God loves and longs for both the lost sinners, and those, like the Pharisees, who think they are righteous, but need to return to God’s redeeming love. What qualities of God are shown in this parable? How do they relate to fatherhood?
2. How might a “hired hand” treat sheep differently than a good shepherd? John 10:11-16. What does the shepherd do for the lost sheep?
3. How does our society experience confusion over the differences of what is positively masculine and positively feminine? How does society try to erase, blur, or otherwise treat these differences negatively? What is lost by failing to appreciate the distinctiveness and uniqueness with which God has made both sexes?
4. God was willing to “get His hands dirty” to recover what was lost, as depicted in the parable. How is this combination of taking responsibility, loyal love, self-sacrifice, and determination a perfect role model for earthly fathers to imitate?
5. What creates profound joy in heaven? Luke 15:5-7, 9-10. What does it mean to “repent?” Joel 2:12-13; Jeremiah 3:12; Acts 3:19-20. What follows after repentance? Acts 3:20; 22:16.