Lost in Tranquility, Found by Grace
Pastor Mathew Magera – 9/11/16 – Sermon 184
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace
and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and
the Holy Spirit. Amen.
So, Jesus tells two parables
today about being lost. In fact, if you remember we heard of these two parables
over the summer during the parable series. Leading into the parables themselves
Jesus is obviously in a place where both sinners, tax collectors, Pharisees and
teachers of the law are in in close proximity. For being as well versed in the
Law as Jesus was, the Pharisees are amazed that Jesus would even interact with
people like this. The tax collectors were greedy and likely stole on the side,
the sinners were, well, they were sinners. They didn't keep the law. They are
no good. So, the Pharisees mutter to themselves, "This man welcomes
sinners and eats with them." So, Jesus starts to tell these Pharisees two
parables about two lost items, a lost sheep and a lost coin. It wouldn't be
difficult to imagine the Pharisees listening to these parables in such a way to
identify the lost sheep as the sinners. But, we might really see that Jesus is
talking about the Pharisees. It is really them who are lost.
The Pharisees take comfort
in the law of the land. Their peace comes from obedience to the Law. As long as
everyone lives up to it, things are fine. The sinners, thieves, adulterers, law
breakers, they are lost. All they need to do is shape up, according to the
Pharisees. They don't want any part of breaking the law so they punish people
for it. They demean people who cannot follow it. But, what do we know about the
Law? Can we really keep the Law? No. Can the Law save us? No. So, if anything,
these Pharisees, who are seeking to follow the Law to the T, they are actually
further away from the source of salvation than the sinners who are eating with
Jesus. It's the Pharisees who are the lost ones because of the vision in their
mind that everyone can and must follow the Law, but they can't. The Pharisees
believe in having peace in the world. They want peace of mind. They want to
live in tranquility.
During the time between
graduating from seminary and receiving the call to come here, I enjoyed my
transition time as a bus driver. I enjoyed the challenge of driving a large
vehicle, I enjoyed the kids, it was really good. As a bus driver, I always had
information on all of my students. I knew their address, their phone numbers,
their parents’ names, their allergies, health concerns, medications, you name
it. But, one other thing I had for each of my students was their birthday. If I
knew it was one of my students' birthdays, I would always wish them a happy
birthday in the morning. Some of the younger kids would simply be amazed that I
knew. Yeah, it's a gift. Not everybody's got a bus driver like you, Jimmy. But,
as I looked at all of these birthdays, I noticed that none of them, not a
single one, was born in the 90s. None of my students remember Y2K. Even some of
my 8th graders never lived at the time of the attacks on the World Trade Center
on 9/11. It floored me to realize not only how young they were, not only how
old I was, but that there were people in the world that didn't have a story
about 9/11.
For many of us, that day
started off as normal as any other. I was a sophomore in high school. I likely
had homework for a class that I didn't finish or didn't practice some of my
music for band. I remember going to my first class for that day, Driver's
Education. On my way to Jazz Band after that is when I started hearing people
talk about it. Fellow musicians had said that a plane had crashed into the
World Trade Center and they spent much of the class watching the TV. So in Jazz
band and in other classes throughout the day, we had the TV on. There were some
classes that the teacher ignored the news and continued with their lessons, but
others stopped to watch and listen. Later that night, our congregation called a
community prayer service. I remember being there as we sat in almost deafening
silence amongst the tears that were shed. Several offered prayers for the
victims, for the helpers, for the families, for the nation and the world. Each
of us has a 9/11 story. Even those who were not old enough to witness it. We all
have that event in our lives that seemed to go over the top in chaos, sadness
and loss. We remember these events like they were yesterday.
When was the last time you
said, "I just can't watch the news anymore, it is just so negative."?
We say that a lot and I'm not denying that it's true because it certainly is.
What are the headlines on the news now? Fires, robberies, shootings, drownings,
kidnappings, domestic violence, rape. Have you ever just turned it off because
you couldn't take it anymore? Have you just stopped watching the news
altogether? We hate the recurring violence, starvation, crime, and depression
that we find in the daily news. We just want it to go away. But, the news is no
longer just on TV at 4, 6, and 10, or whatever times they show news nowadays.
News is everywhere. Computers, magazines, smart phones, tablets, you name it.
If the news has the ability to find you, it will. It seems the only way we are
able to get rid of all of this negativity is not to remove it from society
altogether but to remove it from our minds altogether. We are left with nothing
but our ability to build a wall in our mind that prevents that negativity from
coming inside and taking up residence. If it can't get in, then we don't need
to worry about it.
We set up camp in our mind,
being able to say we are at peace. We can take a deep sigh of relief and
finally obtain the peace we have always wanted. But outside those walls is not
peace. Outside those walls it still pain and hurt, tears and fears. We have
just chosen to ignore it because we don't want to hear about it nor trouble
anyone else with our own. For instance, how often do you have this
conversation? "Hi, how are you?" "I'm fine, how are you"
"I'm fine too." How often are we really fine? How genuine is the question
asked by the teller at the bank? Do they really want to know how you are? Do
you really want to know how they are? Social protocol says no. It has just
turned into a part of common courtesy to ask how someone is and to receive
nothing more than something positive or at least neutral.
We have this vision in our
minds that we can block out and just fall asleep to the world around us. All of
this violence, the hurt, the headlines, the corruption. We push it aside so
that our minds can be at ease. We put up a wall but it only creates the
illusion of tranquility. It doesn't take away the hurt and pain that exists. We
want nothing to do with those who are outcast, those who are victims of
shootings, those who appear to be terroriests, the war veterans, the thieves,
the homeless. The most we might do is we’d greet the war veteran with a
handshake or hand a sandwich to someone who is homeless. We want bad news out
of our house. We want to stay away. If only they didn't carry that pain and
anxiety, the depression, maybe we would be more comfortable. But, Jesus
encourages us to engage that pain, the stories, the realities that others live.
It's as if we are living the words of the Pharisees themselves when they say,
"This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." Jesus welcomes those
who are hurting, who have post-traumatic stress, those who are depressed, those
who have lost loved ones. Jesus not only welcomes them but shares himself and lets
them open their hearts to him. And all the while the majority of society, us
included, still are tempted to stay away from yet another depressing news
headline on the TV and we turn it off. We can’t turn off hurt with the push of
a button.
Jesus does eat with these
people, he invests in them, and he wants us to do the same. But it's hard. I
mean, we just can't take any more depressing encounters or stories. We just
can't do it. Then Jesus looks at us and explains that this is why it is we who
are the lost sheep. We have wandered away, seeking that peace and tranquility and
we think we can achieve it on our own but true peace only comes from Jesus. On
our own is really where the enemy waits to trample us. He will lure us through
the promise of peace but it is a false promise. He will help us build walls in
our minds to shut out what we don't want. But the only real thing we shut out
of our minds is not the chaos of the world but our loving God and Savior as
well.
Jesus eats with sinners.
Jesus eats with those who are suffering. But we wander off seeking a false
peace within ourselves. Perhaps we might realize that we are the lost sheep,
caught in the thickets, our enemy licking his lips, drooling over this savory
sheep who wandered away from the shepherd. It's only a matter of time before he
pounces on that lost little sheep and takes the life right out of it.
But, lucky for us Jesus
comes looking. He comes looking and he finds us. He finds us, walks over to us,
picks us up, puts us on his shoulders and carries us back. We can't handle any
more negativity, Jesus. He knows. If we could handle it, if we were perfect he
would have no need to die for us. And now he carries us back, his helpless
little sheep to be returned to the herd. And he walks back in the midst of the
other sheep, the angels hootin' and hollerin' and Jesus says, "Hey
everyone look what I found. Look at this sorry little sheep that got lost.
Lucky they've got me to go find 'em." And heaven celebrates. Oh, do they
throw a party when Jesus brings us back. They go nuts for the lost sheep has
been found.
Jesus calls us and leads us
back to the herd to engage with one another, to listen to one another, to be in
relationship with one another. Jesus comes to us in the tranquility in which we
have lost ourselves and he finds us with is graceful arms as he lifts us onto
his shoulder away from the grasp of the licking lips of the enemy. He can knock
down those walls that we have put in place to keep out the chaos of the world
so that we might find relationship and meet these victims of the chaos where
they need to be met. It's not that Jesus wants us to be surrounded by hurt.
It's his presence within us that can share healing through the hurt. We are
vessels of the Gospel message that people need to hear. We are His ears that
can hear their stories. We are his shoulders that can be cried on. We are his
arms that can be wrapped around someone. But the Gospel calls us out of our
comfort zone.
The Pharisees never did go
out of their comfort zone. The Pharisees never left their comfort zone in
obeying the law. Those who were lost were lost and not to be approached. Yet,
Jesus claimed it was the Pharisees who were really lost. The Pharisees never
figured out that Jesus was with the tax collectors and sinners because he wanted to offer them grace and they
never figured out that the reason Jesus was with them telling these parables
was to offer the same grace to their lost souls. The Pharisees never figured it
out. Well, except for at least one to whom Jesus appeared on the road. Jesus
converted Saul the Pharisee into Paul the apostle. Paul realized that Jesus was
after his heart, that he sought him out in his quest for tranquility in the law
and Jesus found him, carried him, and brought him home and he became the most well-known
preacher of early Christianity, if not, ever. And it was Paul that we hear of
who says he was the worst sinner of them all too.
It's not far off that Jesus
can find us too, grazing in the fields, lost. But Jesus assures us that we can
enter into the herd again, we can sit with those who have stories to tell, we
can acknowledge the difficult realities that people live in. We can identify
with the soldier who has missed their families all for the sake of fighting for
our country. We can identify with that neighbor with cancer who only has months
to live. We can identify with the victims of violence and terror. We can do
this because Jesus takes us there. That is where he resides.
So, if you are old enough to
remember events like 9/11, don't forget them. For as anxious as these events
might make us, there are people suffering who need the healing touch of God's
grace. So, just as Jesus is able to find us who can so easily lose ourselves
within ourselves, Jesus, through us, can bring His grace to those who really
need it especially on a day like today that is filled with anger, grief, scars
and tears. Though we can be lost in the tranquility, we are found by His grace.
To God be the glory now and always. Amen.