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“Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned.”

To judge means to declare someone guilty of something and liable to punishment. We take it at its face, Biblical value. It means to declare someone should go to hell, or be eternally punished for their sins.

When Jesus says, “Judge not,” He’s doing so for a specific reason. It’s because His death will have rendered moot all such judgments. How can you judge a person guilty of something when the Son of God died for that sin? For this reason He also says, “Condemn not.” Christ’s death has ended condemnation.

So, for any disciple of Jesus to judge or condemn another is really a denial of Christ’s death. Christ died for sinners.

Yet, even if Jesus does not judge, He certainly rebukes. He rebuked the disciples all the time. On what basis did He rebuke? He rebuked them in accordance with a standard He was applying, which they were not living up to. So, “judge not” does not mean, “remove all standards.” We’ve spent some time emphasizing this point.

How would we apply this in our own lives? It is certainly in keeping with Christian behavior to rebuke those who do not live up to Christ’s calling. Jesus gives guidance here, however, as well. It might help one’s cause of loving rebuke to first deal with ones own sins before dealing with others. Take out the log in one’s own eye before taking the speck out of others eyes.

What about judging other things? The word Greek word for “judge” is the basis for the English word “critique.” Certainly doing “cultural criticism” is something Christians should do as part of their discernment. While many people may look at Christian discernment as “judgmentalism” – when, say, they evaluate the effects of the sexual revolution – this is not what Jesus is talking about. Perhaps critiquing is etymologically related to judging, but in our usage, to critically discern is not to judge. It’s the sense St. Paul used it when talking about women’s apparel in the church, and he said, “Judge for yourselves.” (This is a rare usage of “judge.” Almost universally the word “judge” is used in the New Testament in the context of Jesus’ teaching, that is, something reserved for God alone and not us.)

So, rebuking and critiquing are not judging. Are there other forms of judging that are acceptable? What about judging doctrine? Clearly the Bible teaches we should carefully know our doctrine, and be willing to condemn false doctrine. Did not St. Paul say, “But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us.”

Well, how does one get from the point of walking with a brother to deciding that they are not walking according to the doctrinal tradition? At some point a “judgment” needs to be made. In this context Jesus judged the Pharisees all the time. But even to them, Jesus said, “I judge no one.” But as Jesus said, their words would judge them. Their proclamation of bad doctrine would stand against them on judgment day.

Even the way St. Paul speaks of the unbelievers is interesting. He writes, “If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed.”

Notice, St. Paul himself is not doing the judging. He’s not saying, “Damn them.” Rather, he’s taking a more passage approach, “If they continue in this act of rebellion against Lord, thus gaining for themselves His judgment, let them receive the condemnation they deserve.” This passage approach carries over in the Church’s condemnation of false doctrine. “Anathema,” means “Let them be condemned.”

But it’s not doing the judging themselves. It’s handing God’s judgement over to the unbeliever and rebellious based on their own self-accusations.

Perhaps it’s in this sense that “the saints will judge the earth.” Perhaps we will be evaluating the words people have said, and letting God’s judgment upon them stand. Meanwhile, perhaps Jesus’ “Judge not” teaching will guide the judgment of many other situations: those who sinned in ignorance, those for whom the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak, those who were frail, those born in blindness or poverty, caught up in a cycle of dysfunction.

“Judge not” means something very special and very comforting, because of what Christ’s death has done to judgment. But, it doesn’t mean (1) loss of a standard by which to rebuke others (in accordance with Jesus’ logs and specks teaching), (2) not discerning or being culturally critical, (3) not evaluating doctrine, or (4) not handing over to the rebellious, based on what their own words have declared, the judgment of Christ.

“Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you.”

For last week’s Gospel, we spent some time contemplating the subtle differences in the sheep, the coin, and the son, that is, how they each ended up in their lost status. Sheep have some culpability, but not a lot; wandering away is what they do. Coins have no culpability as they are inanimate objects. The son has the most culpability of all of them, but still, even his “coming to himself” was deficient.

Rather, we pondered, the focus of each of these parables is on the one finding the lost one, the shepherd, the woman, and the father. We concluded that similar to us, we all find ourselves in our lost conditions for a variety of reasons, and with a variety of levels of personal, conscious awareness of how we got there. But our Lord is the focus. Wherever we are at and however we got there, the point is not on what’s going on in our psyches, but what He’s doing in finding us.

This week’s Gospel gives some behind the scenes information on what’s going on. Be merciful, says Jesus, meaning, consider the frailty of those who are living lives according to God’s perfect standard. Don’t just harshly, as their sins deserve, but mercifully. Don’t condemn them, but again, consider their frailty.

This is the driver of the seeker of lost ones! The shepherd doesn’t judge the sheep as if it should know better. The woman doesn’t condemn the coin to be lost forever. The father takes into consideration whatever huge personal defects the son has.

Putting these two Gospels together actually explains much and provides a lot of comfort. The shepherd, woman, and father each know what the standard is, what right looks like. It’s all the sheep together, all the coins together, and a son acting right. Whatever happened to cause the lost ones to fall away from this perfect order is almost irrelevant as far as the end result is concerned.

The shepherd, woman, and father are merciful regarding what was lost. They also display giving hearts as they throw a party.

As we look at ourselves and our sins, we could come up with a variety of reasons why the Lord need not be merciful to us. But when we fall into this self abuse and guilt, we are not being faithful to the Lord’s nature, which is to be merciful. He doesn’t judge us as our sins deserve. He doesn’t condemn us. This is how the Father is. Why? Because He knows we are frail. He knows the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. He sympathizes with us in our weakness.

Jesus didn’t condemn the disciples when they lacked faith, or slept in the garden, or spoke foolishly. He rebuked them and taught them harsh truths, but He didn’t condemn or judge them. That is, He didn’t condemn them to hell. Rather, as He says, “For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” And again, “He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him – the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day.”

It is the rejection of Jesus and His word, and the malicious use of our own words to do so, that leads to our condemnation. But Jesus Himself, for the one who goes to Him, will never deny the one seeking mercy or His goodness.

Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned.

This is among the most abused verses in Scripture currently. “Don’t judge me,” people will say, meaning, “This is my lifestyle choices, and no one should judge me negatively about my lifestyle choices.”

This is not at all what Jesus meant. As mentioned in the previous devotion, there is a difference between saying, “Eliminate whatever standard that puts my behavior in a negative light,” and “With the standard at hand, please apply mercy regarding how I measure up to it.”

The former is antinomian, that is, against the Law as such. The Gnostics were antinomian to the extreme, an extremism we find ourselves in once again. Think of the Law not so much as a set of rules, but as the hardline blueprints for how existence is to happen. One God, a specific (denominated) God, time set aside for God, families headed by parents, the life of one’s body, marriage of man and woman, property rights, reputation rights, and the reality of sanctioned possession (no one should desire what is not their’s) are not just rules embedded in the Ten Commandments, but principles governing this world order.

Gnostics have always been against each of the Ten Commandments. If you notice, each of the principles exists due to the realities arising from substantial existence. One God is not two gods, but the concept of “two gods” is only possible when a substance is divisible. The idea of God having a name arises from the reality of language, something that again happens (as we see in the creation account) as the chaotic substance became divided. God is the eternally existing “named one,” and He bestows His “namedness” on us, that we may have individual existence. The idea of specified time for God assumes the creation of divisible time.

The same we could say about the latter seven commandments. Parents, bodily life, marriage of man and woman, physical property, one’s reputation, sanctioned possession, these are all things arising from material, or substantial, creation. The Ten Commandments set up the blueprints for existence.

Gnostics, because they deny the material, substantial creation, deny the necessity of the Ten Commandments, and see them as rules imposed by a lesser deity to prop up his material order. Here we can begin to see why Gnostic antinomianism is popular again today. The commandments on marriage and family codify the reality of male and female, and what family means. The commandments on property and possession codify the reality of property rights and possessiveness. The commandment on reputations assumes the reality of objective truth. Of course, the first three commandments codify a doctrinally correct God that does not transcend all paths, but is demarcated by specific teachings.

A Gnostic culture eschews each of these commandments. An authentic “Self” trapped in a substantial world must become liberated from all the things imposed on him by his substantiality, like his family, the God of his upbringing, or his gender. Property is communally owned, regardless of what property owners might thing. Reputations are governed not by objective truth but by mythological narratives (all paralleling the original Gnostic mythology, incidentally).

You become liberated by breaking free from the laws and principles governing this world order. These laws and principles govern hearts and minds by their sheer pervasiveness in our material order. Christians call it the conscience; the radical left calls it structural oppression. Christians believe they are something to submit before, and the reason for Christ’s advent. The radical left believes they are something to iconoclastically overthrow.

“Don’t judge me,” must be seen in this context. What is meant is the overthrow of the Christian standard as governed by the Ten Commandments.

Applying this understanding to Jesus’ words is impossible, because if the standard as governed by the Ten Commandments is overthrown, then why did Jesus have to die? Jesus had to die because of the accusations of the Law against humanity, because man was not living up to them. Jesus is the ultimate supporter of the Law, the fulfiller of it, the administrator of it.

To say, “Judge not, and you shall not be judged” is to apply what Christ’s death means for people other than oneself. That person struggling with the sin of homosexuality, Jesus died for. Ours is not to judge him for his sins if Jesus died for all his sins. By contrast, that person identifying with his sin of homosexuality and saying, “Jesus wouldn’t judge me, so you shouldn’t either,” well, let’s ask him, “Are you saying homosexuality is a sin that Jesus died for?” You know what the answer will be.

Because if he’s just using Jesus’ death as a license to immerse in his homosexuality, to such an extent that he identifies with it, he’s wrong. St. Paul condemns this use of grace. Freedom of the Gospel does not mean liberation from the Law’s standard.

But realistically, he’s probably not thinking in these terms. He’s thinking “don’t judge me” means Jesus has removed, or at least revolutionized, the standard to mean only “love and tolerate everyone, no matter what they do, so long as they’re not racist, sexist, homophobic.”

And this simply is not what Jesus was teaching. He’s absolutely teaching a merciful application of God’s judgment based on the Law, due to the fact that He died for all the sins against the Law. So radical was His act of redemption that all judgment ends, to such an extent that He can say, “Judge not.” Judgment ends for the believer. Judgment ends for all people, in fact, but sadly not all will avail themselves of that reality.

Who are such as these? Those who do not know what Christ has done with judgment, who do not know that Christ has been judged in our place, and who therefore believe there are some who remain under that judgment, themselves included.

But the Christian who lives in the new reality, the liberation from judgment, is joyful to pass this blessing on to others, others who struggle in their sins, who struggle under the burden of the standard. “Fear not,” he says, “You are not judged!” And he himself enjoys this same announcement.

 

This week’s Gospel is about the character of our Lord, and how this character leaves its imprint on us. It’s the “family way” so to speak. And that “way” is mercy.

First lets look at the cool Christology going on, Jesus’ subtle teaching that He and the Father are of one divine substance. Jesus first teaches that the Father is merciful, and that this is how we should be as well. Be merciful as the Father is merciful. Then Jesus gets into specifics about what this looks like. Don’t judge or condemn, but forgive; give abundantly from the overflow of our hearts.

Then Jesus explains the principle with parable, that is, the principle that we should be merciful as the Father is merciful. He says, “Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.” Here, He explains that, just as each of us should be like our Father in His mercy, so also will we be “like [our] teacher,” which is Jesus. The word “as” in “as your Father is merciful” is similar to the “like” here in “like his teacher.” The teacher (Jesus) is of one substance with the Father! (In the Greek the two words are similar as well, the one kathos, and the other hos.)

The Father is merciful; the Son teaches this mercy and lives it out, thus making it something to emulate. Jesus is God’s mercy in action.

And this explains each of the five verbs we see in the Gospel. Jesus acts out each of these verbs.

Jesus was merciful. No one in the Gospel who ever prayed “Lord, have mercy” was every denied. In fact their faith was praised. Why does Jesus have mercy? Because He knows our frailty. As the Psalm says, “Have mercy on me, O LORD, for I am weak; O LORD, heal me, for my bones are troubled.”

In Christ we are not judged as our sins deserve, as Jesus says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.”

In Christ we are spared condemnation on the day of judgment, for as it says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” And again, “He who believes in Him is not condemned.”

Jesus teaches forgiveness and lives it out. “Whatever sins you forgive, they are forgiven.” Or think when Peter asked, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”

In Christ God gave us everything. For “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son.”

Now, as it is for our, so it is for us who should be “as” our Father and “like” our teacher.

We should be merciful. Where we are tempted to say, “They get what they deserve.” Mercy says, “I myself know how frail and weak I am. How can I not have mercy on you?”

We should not judge. Judging not is not the same thing as “Let me remove the standard of judgment.” This is the world’s “non-judgmentalism.” So, for instance, if someone is fornicating with his girlfriend, he might say, “Don’t judge me.” And what they mean is not, “Yeah, I know I’m sinning, but go work on your own sins first, and then come back and talk to me.” No, what they mean is, “That’s an old fashioned idea of sexual ethics, based on the bible, that should no longer apply.” This is clearly not what Jesus means when He says, “Judge not.” He means we should have mercy in the application of God’s eternal standard, knowing how frail we ourselves are before it. “Judge not” means, don’t go around looking for specks, looking to apply God’s law harshly to satisfy some personal lack of mercy. Rather look out for people’s good. Live your life in such a way so that you can help others as they try to live according to God’s standard.

We should not condemn. God is the final judge. This is why the “GD” curse is so very wrong. This is why the Lord says, “Vengeance is mine.” It is not ours to condemn, but to have mercy. The Lord will be the final judge. Here’s an interesting question for a later meditation, but does our media/internet culture foster judgmentalism or mercy? I think we all know the answer to that.

Finally, we should give. When your heart is anchored in heaven, where you possess all things, there is nothing you can lose. This is why Jesus focuses on the heart. Hearts filled with God’s mercy and grace overflow. “Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom.” Hearts are what we “lift up” during communion, so as to fill with that heavenly vision, where our treasure is. When we have all the treasures of heaven, it is impossible to lose anything by what we give on earth. The Father gave in this way. Jesus gave in this way. And those whose hearts are in Christ give this way as well.

“Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?”

Who’s to blame for the lost coin? Interesting question, no? Because clearly the coin cannot be held culpable for getting lost. It’s an inanimate object. If with the sheep analogy, Jesus tempered the culpability of the lost one a bit – because when sheep get lost it’s what they do – with the coin analogy there’s no ambiguity. Coins have no conscious involvement in their getting lost.

The only thing they have is value.

What is the Lord telling us with this analogy? And for those who say, “Well, Jesus also compares man to the lost son, who very definitely had culpability,” keep in mind the words used to describe him. The father says, “He was lost, now he is found. He was dead, now he’s alive.” Dead things and lost things are things passively acted upon. If anything, Jesus is teaching that the lost son’s “coming to himself” was really not so much of a focus. He was dead and lost until the father ran out and reclaimed him into the family. Again, the son’s “repentance” meant abandoning his status as a son and assuming the status of a servant. What kind of repentance is that? Certainly not one that ends up in the household of faith.

We’ve probed in previous devotions how the focus of these parables should be the action and work of the finder. We love him because He first loved us. He grants us repentance and faith. If we are saved, it’s all His doing.

But let us unpack this idea of the coin, the inanimate, unconscious item which is found. What are some of the inanimate, unconscious items in the Bible which are enlivened (found) by God?

First, there’s Adam, the pile of mud made into a man. Eve was made from a bone. There’s the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37. Jesus says of the stones on Palm Sunday, “ “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.” Finally, St. Paul writes, “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins.”

In church life today, we can think of infants being baptized, or the severely mentally disabled going to communion, or those with Alzheimer’s receiving communion. They’re like coins. They have value, but no conscious involvement in their faith.

How wonderful Jesus used the analogy of the coin. Because how often are we those coins? We have value, because God created us, but beyond that, we do nothing but become acted upon.

We can analyze the lamb’s wandering away. We can probe the psychology behind the lost son’s “coming to himself.” But the coin just sits there, all in its silver glory and value, waiting to be found. It’s not unlike the treasure, lost (hidden) in the ground, having been buried there, and Jesus gives up everything, including His life, in order to find redeem that ground, that creation, that earth, and so have all the lost treasures – all those bones returning slowly to the dust – and repossess them.

Maybe here and there one may be a lamb, or the son. But one thing is for certain, the coin is far truer to what we are for so much of our history, particularly in that period after our death when we’re awaiting the Lord Jesus. How good to know He’s prepared to scour the earth to find us.

“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?”

In the three parables of the “lost ones,” it’s interesting to probe the analogy of what got lost: the sheep, the coin, and the son. What does those analogies tell us about our fallen nature?

Each “lost one” who got lost did so due to varying degrees of self-responsibility. The coin that got lost was clearly different than the son who got lost. Coins have no consciousness. Sons do. Yet, both are described as “lost,” and that’s a passive mood. There’s something profound going on here. How conscious really are we in regards to sin? As the Psalm says, “Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults.” Is our confession of sin similar to our confession of faith, a holding onto truths that we don’t really understand, but confess because it’s the word of God?

We think we’re confessing an obvious sin. Meanwhile, the non-understood error – that default mode of our personality, or perhaps some cultural disposition – goes unnoticed, like the smell of the house we live in, or the wetness of a fish. Who can know our faults? And we’re left to confess only that we are sinners. How we are sinners we have to leave to the Lord God. Ours is only to look to Him, and to seek to please Him. Keeping this focus on the positive may help. “I cannot know the sins I’ve done, or understand how I have transgressed, but I do have an idea of the things I should do out of love.”

Today we look at the sheep who got lost. This is one of the more popular understandings of sin, rooted in that famous verse, “All we like sheep have gone astray.” Each going his own way, and this is described as the “iniquity” laid on Jesus.

But again, notice how the Gospel for this week describes the sheep, “if he loses one of them” and “the one which is lost.” The shepherd lost it! He’s the focus! Us going our own way and going astray is the shepherd losing us so that we’re lost. Somehow He’s the focus.

Going back to the creation and fall, this can be understood. We’ve pondered several times here that when man fell into sin, it wasn’t like this came unexpectedly. Jesus saving us from sin was not Plan B. It was the plan all along. It was part of the creative process culminating in Jesus’ “It is finished.” Then the Lord was finished with His work, as Jesus said, “My Father is still working.” Yes, until He said, “It is finished.” The cross is the completion of man’s creation.

If that’s the case, then yes, the Lord is the focus. His creation becoming lost is somehow written into the plan. It’s what sheep do. There are a few pieces missing in this analysis that are hidden in mystery, obviously. For instance, does this mean we don’t bear responsibility for our own sin? Of course not. God may have written our fall into the DNA of our creation, but still, when we fell, that was all on us.

But again, the focus isn’t on us, not in the parables or in our own theology. The focus isn’t on our sin. It’s like the disciples trying to figure out whether the blind man sinned or his parents did. Jesus says, in essence, don’t focus on them. Focus on the Lord and what He’s working on in the blind man. It would be like blaming the pile of mud shaped in the form of Adam for being muddy. “Who’s to blame for him being all dirty?” And God says, “The focus isn’t on him; but that the works of God should be revealed in him.”

Our involvement in this is our repentance. And what is repentance, but turning to the Lord when He comes looking for us. It’s a way of saying, “I think I’m lost. I don’t know how I got here, but you’re the one who finds, so I’ll stick with you.” And at that point, the wandering of the sheep ends as the focus of the story. The story is now about the sheep being with the shepherd, and the ensuing party.

A Christianity obsessed about navel-gazing and that “iron couch of introspection” is like the lost sheep, after being found, going off into some corner at the party and contemplating, with furrowed brow, how he got in his predicament, and how he can do better next time. Well, he may end up just learning how to wander with greater confidence. Rather, he should be partying with the Shepherd, because the focus of the story is not the ins and outs of how he got lost, but the fact of his being found.

Focusing on the Shepherd and His party is the remedy to not wandering. Say, for instance, the party moves to a new location, and the sheep stays stationary, thinking, “I will not get lost again. I’m going to close my eyes and stay put.” Well guess what. He’s lost again, not because he did a thing, but because He failed to stick with the shepherd.

Same with us.

I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.

Who exactly are the ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance? Who are the nine coins not lost? Who is the elder son?

The interpretation isn’t as easy as it would seem.

On one hand, Jesus could mean “just persons who need no repentance” ironically, because, who doesn’t need no repentance?

But yet, in each of the parables, while the “lost ones who need repentance” are clearly the focus, still, the ones left behind are by no means excluded from the party. “There is more joy in heaven” for the repentant lost one, true, but that doesn’t mean there’s not “joy” in heaven over the “just ones.” The same is true with the elder son. He’s clearly the “one who needs no repentance,” but there’s no implication he’s not still in a favored position. There’s no suggestion that he really needed to repent just as much as the younger son. Rather, the implication is that, exactly as the father said, everything he has still belongs to him, and he’s always been with him.

So who does the elder son represent? The Pharisees? That is the actual context. Or perhaps, the Jews? Was Jesus dealing with His blood relatives as still “in the family”? Was He giving them a warning, that they should join the party and not be jealous? Or perhaps was he forecasting the inevitable, that, as St. Paul wrote, “to provoke [the Jews] to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles.”

Or does the elder son represent any and all who are in fact in a state of grace, Christians included, who should not begrudge unrepentant sinners coming to the faith.

Which ones are you and me? I personally identify with the sinners and tax collectors, just because “if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” Yet, in practice, as a baptized and practicing Christian wrapped in Jesus’ “just” righteousness, I’m among the “just persons who need no repentance,” repentance understood as coming to faith – I’ve already come to faith. And if, on judgment day, God were to declare that a bunch of sinners who had never stepped foot in a church were somehow to be among the saved, I might take the attitude of the elder son.

How would 99.999% of everyone ever react if, on Judgment Day, God said Adolf Hitler was in? “Oh, but he didn’t repent!” Neither did the coin. The coin did nothing but get found. And the party was over that coin being found.

At the end of the day, we are side characters to a story a rather strange Lord is playing out. Strange because of what we learn from the characters in the parables, the shepherd, the woman, and the father. Our Lord is operating at a level we cannot possibly understand. His love and grace is unfathomable, as unfathomable as spending a thousand years with one group of people, only to turn on a dime and suddenly welcome into His plan the very people who tormented His people all along, all to make them jealous. Huh? Has anyone ever figured out what St. Paul meant in the latter chapters of Romans regarding the Jews? Who cannot conclude as St. Paul concluded, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the LORD?”

There is awaiting us a great party revolving around a gracious and loving Lord. Ours is to join that party, and celebrate whoever is found. If that is us, how awesome. If that is someone who seems to us “undeserving,” who are we to not join that party? We are not the hosts of that party. A rather strange Lord is. Strange on the side of love , mercy, and grace. At the end of the day, isn’t that always a reason to celebrate?

“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ ”

Jesus’ opening words, “What man of you,” almost come across as a challenge. The whole tone of his examples, both of the man and of the woman searching for the lost coin, propose a certain character. And by Jesus beginning the characterization as “What man of you…?”, He’s setting up this character as a standard. It’s as if He’s saying, “What real man or woman wouldn’t be like this?”

And what character is it? Well, let’s review. What they possess is extremely important to them, so important they go to extreme measures to regain what they’ve lost. As Jesus asks His “What man of you” question, one can’t help but respond, “Y’know, not a lot of us would go to those extremes. Lose one sheep? Shoot, is it worth the trouble to hunt it down? Lose one coin? Is it worth the trouble to scour the house for it? Maybe, maybe not.” But with the characters Jesus introduces, there’s no doubt. What they possess is extremely important to them.

Then there’s this aspect of their character. When they find what they’ve lost, they celebrate with a party and invite their friends and neighbors. Was this normal? It’s normal in Jesus’ world. What can we say; Jesus likes to party.

The whole Gospel is full of innocent, wholesome earnestness. Earnest care for what one possesses. Earnest seeking. Earnest celebration. By Jesus saying “What man of you…?”, He’s introducing a new way of being human. Of course that’s how one should be, He says.

Because that’s how His Father is, and that’s how He is. He cares deeply about what He possesses, for He created it. It belongs to Him. To lose what He has created leads to a deep yearning to find it again. He will go to extremes to save it, like taking the form of the beings He created and enduring suffering at their hands.

The character introduced in these first two parables takes on more dimension in the parable of the prodigal son. The father in that parable is a rather odd duck. He’s not how a normal man in those circumstances would behave. He lets the boy act as if he’s dead. He lets him take a third of his property. He lets the son go his wayward way. And then when the son returns, he expresses nothing but joy.

I’m not sure we’d take parenting tips from the father, but somehow this character is revealing something about our Father. He too let us go our wayward way. He too let us basically whittle away our inheritance, which was the world. And if tradition can be trusted, when Satan rebelled he took a third of the angels with him. Man in his fall joined in with this cohort, squandering his inheritance.

And the Father just sort of let it happen. Why? At some level, in His wisdom, there is something fulfilled by lost man being found, part of that fulfillment including his becoming lost in the first place. Isn’t that the whole theme of the chapter? The lost found? Furthermore, the tone isn’t, “Now look what you’ve done, you lost ones, now I have to go out and find you.” Rather, it’s as if the things being lost are a matter of course. Even with the lost son, the tone is, there once was this son who got really, really lost, and then when he got found, his father was so happy. The odd man out in that story is the older son, who reacts the way any rational person would.

But our Lord is not like any rational, fallen person. He does things His way, and His way is a way of unfathomable love, mercy, grace, life, and wisdom. That is His character. His character is to celebrate, to feast, and to rejoice at the restoration of what was lost, as if all of history is an orchestrated plan culminating in a way none of us can really fathom.

“Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, ‘This Man receives sinners and eats with them.’… [T]here will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.”

I’ve often commented in these devotions how study of some Biblical topic will yield results bearing a strong resemblance to the liturgy. Peter’s first sermon and the events which follow are liturgical. The “new song” is the liturgy. The work of the Holy Spirit looks a lot like what the liturgy does. So many of the miracles of Jesus have a liturgical structure.

So much of the Bible is liturgical, and the passage quoted above, the opening verse along with the conclusive comment about joy in heaven, is among the most blatant proofs of the truth that the liturgical is Biblical through and through.

On Sunday morning the world over there’s something in roughly a billion people that says, “Get up and go to this place called the church.” That “something” is the voice of Jesus calling, by the Holy Spirit, not just anyone, but sinners. The sinner gets up and draws near to the Church.

The Church is the body of Jesus Christ. So we can rightly say the sinner is drawing near to Jesus. He’s taking part in the great separation, the Holy Spirit’s separating of sinners from the righteous world. He’s “calling them out” of the world, which is where the word ecclesia comes from, or “church.” Church is where sinners are called out of the world.

Church is God in human flesh locating Himself where the lost sheep, coin, and son are. Church is the shepherd (what “pastor” means) bearing the sheep on his shoulder, the woman picking up the coin, and the father running out and embracing the son.

How is Jesus present in the Church bodily but where two or three call upon His name? Or where sinners are posturing themselves before Him as one who can remedy their sin? Invocation and Kyrie.

And why are they there? To hear Him. Readings and sermon. This is where Jesus teaches the ins and outs of what it means to be in the sinner-Jesus gathering.

Now is where things get interesting.

As Jesus teaches, there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents. When sinner and Jesus are reunited, by His drawing them to Himself, by His seeking and finding them, there is joy in heaven. Very importantly, this joyful celebration – if the parables are to guide us – happens in the same location where seeker and lost are reunited. The shepherd brings back the sheep and invites his friends there. Same with the woman and the father. Why is this important?

Because the joy in heaven, by implication, is going on exactly where sinner and Jesus find each other. The joy in heaven is located where tax collector and sinner were hearing and eating with Jesus. Heaven is on earth! Unseen, of course, but still on earth. The angels are present there, invisibly, celebrating the arrival of sinner and tax collector to hear Jesus.

Likewise are the angels present in the Church on Sunday morning. They are celebrating the arrival of all the coins dragged in by the woman, the sheep carried in by the shepherd, and the sons embraced by the father. Doesn’t that cover just about every way someone ends up at church, from the three year old “coin” dragged in by mom to the forty year old “son” who has a moment of clarity about where “home” truly is, or from the forty year old “coin” dragged in by habit, to the fourteen year old “sheep” wandering aimlessly around, needing to be carried in?

And what is the nature of that joyful celebration? In the Bible to be joyful is to sing, like the Psalm says, “Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth; Break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises.”

So, if the angels are breaking forth in joyful song, are there instances in the Bible where we see heaven opened up, and we get an example of what the angels were singing, so that we can get an idea of what that song might look like?

We get three instances of the angelic song: Isaiah 6, Luke 2, and Revelation 5 and 7. Here they are:

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!”

“Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”

“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain To receive power and riches and wisdom, And strength and honor and glory and blessing!” … “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, Thanksgiving and honor and power and might, Be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”

If anyone knows of another instance we get of angels singing and rejoicing, I’d love to hear them. But as far as I know, these are the only words we get of what “angels rejoicing” looks like.

Do these words look familiar? They will to anyone familiar with the liturgy. The first song is basis of the canticle, the Sanctus. The second is the Gloria in Excelsis. The third is the “Worthy is the Lamb.” The first two have been part of the historic liturgy from ancient times. The “Worthy is the Lamb” is a recent addition, but proves there is a way the liturgy can evolve in a non-revolutionary manner.

These canticles demonstrate an important point about worship. Worship is not something “we come up with.” It’s not the product of the “worship team” gathering together Thursday night. Worship is what the angels have been doing eternally. Eternally they have been confessing the Lord’s mercy, goodness, and glory, particularly with regard to His creation. We don’t invent worship; we take part in this worship!

So, the question is not, “Are we going to do the Sanctus or not?” But rather, “Are we going to take part in that reality of worship or not?” Remember, the angels are singing the Gloria in Excelsis, the “Worthy is the Lamb,” and the Sanctus because sinners have drawn near to the Body of Christ that is the Church.

Why would anyone cut himself off from that? Why would anyone cut himself off from that witness of their salvation? It would be like having a birthday party in 1969, and the host informs you, “Hey, guess what, at 9 PM on TV, the Beatles are going to sing ‘Today’s your birthday’ and dedicate the song TO YOU. Let’s watch!” And you say, “No. How about we sing this song I wrote up today.” If you don’t like the Beatles, pick your own analogy – you get the point.

And then we get the Lord’s Supper, the Lord receiving sinners and eating with them. This is the climax of the rejoicing. Each parable ends with a meal as well. Lurking in the background is that something has to die in order to celebrate the sinner’s restoration. Jesus dies for the feast, for He’s both the host and the feast, serving us His very body and blood.

It’s all there, the liturgy: the gathering together of sinners with Jesus (Church, invocation, Kyrie), the hearing of Jesus (readings, sermon), the angelic rejoicing (Gloria in Excelsis, Sanctus, Worthy is the Lamb), and the Lord’s Supper. The liturgy is the earthly manifestation of the Church’s heavenly witness. It’s where angels rejoice over the gathering together of lost sheep, coins, and children, and where the Lord receives them and eats with them.

Can it not get any more clear?

Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man receives sinners and eats with them.”

This passage from this week’s Gospel sets up the entire context of the three parables He tells. Few words better describe what it means to be a Christian. Sinners draw near to Jesus, to hear Him, to eat with Him, and He receives them.

First there’s the word “sinners.” As we commented in our previous devotion, not everyone is a sinner. Some don’t classify themselves as “sinners” but as “good people with some defects” that can be changed with a little willpower. Others don’t classify themselves as sinners at all, not believing in sin.

What then exactly is a sinner? Our instinct is to immediately jump to some sort of subjective, psychological, self-referential answer. “A sinner is someone who knows he’s broken God’s law.” “A sinner is someone feels sorry for his sins.”

But if you follow the rest of the parables, the “sinners” in these parables are a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. Coins especially but even sheep do very little in the way of personal self-evaluation and introspection. The son, meanwhile, did “come to himself,” which suggests some self-awareness. But the actions which follow show misguided behavior. In any event whatever was going on in his mind was completely disregarded by the father.

What then is a sinner? Perhaps we should define it not subjectively, but objectively, that is, it’s someone who is the object of Jesus’ mission. Jesus defines sinners; sinners do not define themselves. And Jesus defines sinners as those He receives. By implication, it’s also those who do not reject this reception. Lots of “sinners” (in an abstract sense) will go all over the world to deal with their sin – self-help gurus, therapists, books, groups, or Jesus falsely understood (that’s the scary one!). Real sinners are those received by Jesus correctly understood.

I think an interesting question Christians should out of curiosity start asking others – particularly their lapsed acquaintances and relatives – is, “Do you believe you’re a sinner?” I think how that question is answered will reveal way more than “Do you believe in God?” or even “Do you believe in Jesus?” Everyone believes in God and everyone likes Jesus. But only sinners truly understand and know Jesus, for He is their friend.

The next phrase, “draw near” might suggest some sort of willful involvement of the sinner to come to Jesus, some psychological self-awareness. Yet, whatever powers are suggested in the sinners insofar as they “drew near” to Jesus, Jesus Himself deflates that power by the analogies he pins to them: sheep, coins, an ignorant son. Sheep are dumb animals who easily get lost. Coins do nothing to get lost. And the son wasn’t thinking clearly. Three totally different ways of ending up at that place of “being found.”

Rather, the point of the “draw near” is where it leads, “to Him,” that is, “to Jesus.” Interestingly, Jesus interprets the reality of sinners drawing near to Him, as Him drawing near to them. What was it that was drawing them near to Him, but the fact that He had first drawn near to them, by incarnating, by becoming God in flesh.

But the bigger and subtler point is that there is indeed movement from one to another. It’s like the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters and drawing the land out of the waters so as to create land and seas. At first there was just a hodgepodge of earth mixed with waters – chaos and void. His action drew the earth out of the waters. There was movement. There was separation. That is what the “Holy” Spirit does, He separates one thing from another.

Jesus was doing the same thing. He was drawing sinners to Himself. He’s separating them from the world. He didn’t come for the righteous. There’s a movement going on, and where it’s going to is to Jesus, the only Savior, the God in flesh. The Gnostics would say there need not be movement going on, because movement suggests spatial relationships, which can only occur in a material realm. They’d say you just have to “ascend” out of this shadow world of delusion into the realm of light, and that this all happens internally or psychologically. In the Gospel, as well as in the Church, however, there is indeed spacial movement going on. The sinner goes from one spatial location to another: whatever dark nook he’s wandered in, whatever dusty corner he’s fallen in, or whatever pig slop he’s lying in…to Jesus.

Finally we get some answer to the paradox we’ve been contemplating, whether the sinners are moving to Jesus or Jesus is moving toward the sinner. The setup of the parables says sinners “drew near” to Jesus, that the movement was all theirs. The parables say the movement was all on the part of the shepherd, woman, and father. How do we resolve this paradox?

The next line helps: “to hear Jesus.” Sinners drew near to Jesus to hear Him. His Word drew sinners to Himself. His Word was what flowed out into the highways and hedges seeking the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind. It may have been the woman saying, “Come, see a Man who told me all things that I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” It may have been crowds who were “the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” Whatever it was, His Word was going forth and seeking sinners, to bring them to Himself, like a groom seeking His bride. As Isaiah says, “And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, So shall your God rejoice over you.”

But the foundation of Jesus’ ministry set up this marriage. The waters of the Jordan was where sinner and Jesus first met, where they were first introduced to one another. John had preached, “Repent and be baptized,” which amounted to saying, “Draw near to the Jordan – get over here – and here in that same Jordan you’ll find the one whom sinners need. You’ll find your husband.” So sinners go there. After that, Jesus opens His mouth and teaches the ins and outs of what this “sinner-Jesus” relationship means.

And it all culminates at the table, for as the Pharisees observed, not only did Jesus receive sinners, but He ate with them. Of course this brings up the Lord’s Supper, which is exactly what the Lord was receiving them to, His supper, and where He still receives sinners.