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The Message for Sept 11, 2016
This Changes Everything – God a Grownup or a Parent?[1]
Luke 15:1-10
Rob Miller, Pastor
Today we begin a three-week worship series called, “This Changes Everything.” We will consider three questions over the next three weeks -- that can change everything for us.
- This week we consider how we see God –as a grownup or as a parent…
- Next week we will consider how we see ourselves –as trustworthy managers or not so trustworthy…
- In two weeks we will consider – how we live our lives in this world matters for life in the next world…
This changes everything.
This can be anything – a new job, getting let go from a job, your house get flooded, going to college, graduating, moving, getting married, getting divorced, having a baby, losing a loved one. There are all kinds of things that can change everything for us – in a heartbeat.
Today we are going to consider -- how our view of God changes everything. Do we see God as a grownup or as a parent?
Prayer
Read TextLuke 15:1-10
Story: One day a little girl came home and asked her mom this question. “Is God a grown-up or a parent?”
The mom was a little confused by her daughter’s question. “I’m not sure what you mean… What’s the difference between a grown-up and a parent?”
“Well,” her daughter said, “Grown-ups love you only when you’re good and parents love you anyway.”
“Is God a grown-up or a parent?” What a great question.
In other words -- does God love us only when we’re good or does God love us anyway? I believe God loves us anyway – that’s because God’s loveis perfect and complete and unconditional. I hope you believe that too because – this changes everything.
If God loves everyone like a parentthen what does that mean for us? Do we have to love everyone, too? Or are there some people we’re allowed to dislike because we’re pretty sure God doesn’t like them either?
Here’s the thing -- God doesn’t say anything about liking – it’s about loving. We are to love one another whether we like each other or not.
Throughout Luke’s Gospel, the Pharisees and the Scribes are consistently portrayed as the grown-ups. They spent a lot of time figuring out all the do’s and don’ts of life. They know what good behavior is and what bad behavior is. And bad behavior will not be tolerated in their eyes.
The Pharisees and the Scribes are unhappy when Jesus acts more like a parent than a grown-up. Jesus went aroundloving people even when they were bad. Jesusseems to know -- the people he was hanging out with were not acceptable. They were not nice and certainly not “good” people. They are not very likable either. And yet, Jesus parties with them anyway.
What was Jesus thinking? I would like to know, wouldn’t you?
The official good people can’t stand it. They perhaps thought Jesus was one of them, thinking he was on their side. They thought this way because Jesus knew so much about Scripture and because Jesus talked so much about the kingdom of God.
Jesus was obviously a good man, so he must be a Pharisee or a Scribe or someone acceptable to Pharisees and Scribes and …well, they just could not figure out why Jesus acted the way he did. And they didn’t like it.
What was Jesus thinking – eating with those people? Doesn’t he knowwhothey are,wherethey’ve been, andwhatthey’ve been doing? Everybody knows what kind of people they are… bad people.
The Pharisees and Scribes (the religious leaders, the good ones, the grown ups) decided that the people Jesus was hanging out with were hopeless. People who violated the rules of good behavior and they should be avoided and shunned and treated badly – both by God and by us –you know - us good people in the world.
When they saw Jesus eating and drinking and partying with these “tax collectors and sinners,” they were appalled and disgusted and decided that Jesus could not possibly be the “good person” or the “God person” they assumed he was. Jesus is not playing by the rules – that the religious leaders had created…
Like a good parent, Jesus responded to their dismay not with an argument or a protest – but by telling stories. Who doesn’t love a good story?
These stories have two “God figures” in them –two people who, according to Jesus, act the way God acts. One is a shepherd; the other is a woman. These are interesting choices.
Shepherds were nomads. They can’t be trusted. They slept, ate, bathed, and lived outdoors. Because of this they were unable to keep most of the purity laws that were so important to the Pharisees.
And women– they can’t be trusted either. Women were a problem for Pharisees, who preferred to neither see them nor speak to them, any more than was absolutely necessary. Shepherds and women in the first century we second-class and third-class citizens - aka nobodies… and certainly not important bodies.
Jesus uses these two stories to point out two important things about God and this changes everything:
- God loves everyone extravagantly.
Like a shepherd who cares about a lost sheep sparing no effort in looking for it -- God cares about everyone and spares no effort in looking for us. God values us the way a woman values a rare coin, and God will ransack the universe to find us like the woman ransacking her house to find that valuable coin.
These are what we call incarnational stories –stories about God coming into the world to seek out and save the lost. Jesus is the shepherd looking high and low for those not in the fold. Jesus is the woman sweeping the house, turning over chairs and pulling out the couch cushions, looking high and low for a valuable possession. God loves everyone extravagantly.
- God loves to party with sinners – everyone is a sinner.
God loves to party with everyone – the more the merrier. And sinners know how to party – or so I’m told... In telling about the parties given by the shepherd and the woman, Jesus is really teaching the Pharisees and the scribes – that their hearts are hardened and they are not being very godlike. God’s heart is not hardened.
“Look,” Jesus says to them, “God is excited that these people are open to God at work in their lives and God’s love will change them for good. That is something to celebrate.”
Love has a better chance of changing people than pointing out their faults and failures… How many of us like to be reminded of our mistakes and our failures? I don’t.
It’s as if the religious leaders just wanted to complain about how bad those people were and not really do anything to help them grow spiritually. As one pastor put it… “Instead of being happy that these sinners came in for a bath—those old sourpusses sat around complaining about the smell.”
It’s clear -- for Jesus, God is a parent, not a grown-up. God loves us when we’re good and when we are bad. God loves us anyway… The question for us is this -- do we know that God loves us anyway?
I’m here to tell you -- God loves you anyway… Turn to someone right not and say to them, God love you anyway.
Story:Dr. William McElvaney (Mac-el-va-nee) was president of the St. Paul School of Theology in Overland Park, Kansas. One day he was driving to the airport to pick up someone who was giving a speech at the seminary. To get there he had to drive over the Missouri River on the Paseo Bridge.
About a half mile from the bridge he got stuck in traffic. Nothing moved. After about 20 minutes, traffic began moving again. There was no indication why traffic had stopped—no road work, no accident, nothing.
The next morning he read in thepaper about a depressed man who stopped his car on the bridge, got out, crawled over the railing, and got ready to jump off the bridge. People saw him and called the police.
Police officers leaned over the rail and talked to him, trying to get him to come back to safety. Meanwhile another police officer fitted himself with a harness and a long rope. He secured the rope to the bridge and crawled over the rail, inching towards the man.
Just when he got close enough to reach out and touch him, the man jumped off the bridge. The officer jumped after him, wrapping his arms and legs around him in a tight embrace. They fell together until the rope was tight, and there they swung above the river. Up above, on the bridge, people could hear the police officer telling the jumper, “If you go, I go! Because I’m going to hold onto you until hell freezes over!” (Tex Sample, “The Spectacle of Worship in a Wired World” p. 117)
The good news for us today is this – God is not a grown-up, God is a parent. That means God loves us when we’re good and when we’re bad. God loves us anyway, all the time, until hell freezes over.
God – revealed God’s self to us in Jesus – as a loving parent who will never stop loving us, ever. Jesus left the safety of heaven and jumped into our world to seek and to save us. Jesus has grabbed onto our souls andhas promised to hold onto us until hell freezes over. This changes everything.
So now what? Well… there are a lot of people in the world who are lost and do not know about God’s love for them. So here is what I am inviting you to do. Let’s get the word out this week. Tell at least three people– God loves you anyway.
Will you? This changes everything. Amen.
[1] Inspiration for this message from a blog article by Delmer Chilton Sept 5, 2016, Living Lutheran.