Trinity 3 July 7, 2019 The Sunday of the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin
Trinity 3
Luke 15:1-10
July 7, 2019
“Be Carried and Carry Others”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Scriptures today are giving us a sermon on humility. 1 Peter 5, “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God….”
You are full of pride. I am full of pride. And pride is the archenemy of God. It’s the anti-God. Pride put ourselves way up here on top where two things happen. One, we don’t need God because we think we’re too good for Him and we do just fine without Him. And two, we don’t love other people because we think we’re too good for them. That’s the Pharisees and scribes in the Gospel reading which I’ll be talking about today.
So we need to think about humility and pride this morning and pray about it. And pray about it every day. That God would give us humility. Or even better, as Peter says, that God would clothe us in humility. That humility would be the clothes we wear every day. And humility is none other than our Savior Jesus. He is humble. And He says, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.” That will be our prayer today. To be humbled. So that Jesus would clothe us with His forgiveness and His humility and love.
Now pride is especially hard living right now in 2019. Because pride is all about me, me, me. And what could better describe our generation right now than “me, me, me”? Sure, it would be naïve to act like this generation is so much worse than generations before. No, we’re not worse than everyone who came before us. But every generation has its own particular struggles. Every generation doesn’t have exactly the same sins. And this generation right now, ours, is struggling above all with “me, me, me.” Narcissism. Individualism. Call it what you want. We’re full of ourselves.
Maybe it’s the technology and medicine. It’s made us think we’re invincible. We think we can solve everything with technology even though it’s possible we might just be creating even bigger problems. Maybe it’s the fact that many of us have grown up being told, “You can do anything you want, you can be anything you want, and nothing’s impossible for you.” Which, of course, is a total lie. Some things, like being a woman, are impossible for me.
Or maybe it’s the over 4,000 ads that we’re exposed to every day. Ads that tell us we can have whatever we want. Ads that tell us it’s all about me, me, me. My happiness. My fulfillment. My dreams. My goals. Those start to have an effect on us, don’t you think?
Or maybe it’s the rise of social media which is like a giant echo chamber where we just hear “me, me, me, me, me” over and over and over again. Social media—Facebook, Twitter, Instagram—make it seem like the world is one big stage and I’m the main actor. That’s a false view of the world and it leads to massive, wide scale pride.
Our generation has a pride problem. Whatever the cause, you and I have a pride problem. So what to do about it?
Jesus deals with people like us in the Gospel reading today. The Pharisees and the scribes. There’s a reason that the Pharisees are always the archenemies of Jesus. It’s because they’re full of pride. And pride is the archenemy of God. They’re always full of this righteous anger.
Do you ever have yourself some righteous anger? I do. That’s the Pharisees. Always righteously angry at Jesus. I see righteous anger all over the politics of our nation right now. It’s almost a contest to see who has the most righteous anger. Righteous anger over the border, over racism, over health care, over taxes.
But think about this term righteous anger. It’s an oxymoron about 99.9% of the time. Anger is hardly ever righteous. I repeat, when you and I are angry it’s hardly ever, maybe even never, righteous. Jesus is the only one who can really lay any claim to anger that is righteous. You and I? Our anger is 99.999999% of the time unrighteous.
What we call righteous anger is really just plain old pride again. It’s really just sinful anger. We think we’re right. Righteous, that is. Even though we’re not. And so we think we’re God and we make all the rules of what’s right and what’s wrong. So we don’t need God. And then we’re angry—meaning angry at everyone else because they’re not as good as we are. That’s our so-called righteous anger. Just plain old pride.
So in the Gospel the Pharisees and scribes are righteously angry that Jesus is hanging out and eating with tax collectors and sinners. They want to make the rules of who Jesus can hang out with and who He can’t. But what’s the obvious problem? They’re sinners too! If Jesus shouldn’t be hanging out with sinners, then he shouldn’t be hanging out with anyone. But their pride won’t let them see that.
So Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep. The shepherd spares no expense to find the one lost sheep. Traveling all over to find just one sheep. And when He finds it, He lifts it up onto His shoulders and carries it home.
Now, of course, that one lost sheep is every single one of us. There’s no such thing as 99 righteous persons who need to repentance. We all need repentance. So the only way to go in this world is to be carried on Jesus’ shoulders. That’s the only way to make it through this valley of the shadow of death. You must be carried by Jesus.
But pride, you see, says, “No, I don’t need Jesus to carry me. I’m already right. I’m already righteous. I’m already fine all by myself.” Will you be carried by Jesus? If not, then you better repent of your pride. If we won’t be carried by Jesus, then we’re Pharisees and scribes.
Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God and be exalted onto the shoulders of Jesus. It’s not a shameful thing to be carried by Jesus. It’s the greatest thing on this earth. To put your entire life into the hands of Jesus. To be baptized into Him. To pray to Him. To receive His body and blood for your forgiveness.
Will we say, “I can handle all this by myself?” Will we say, “I have everything figured out, thank you much?” Will we say, “I’m right and everyone else is wrong?” Will we say, “Jesus, I’m too good to hang out with you on Sunday mornings?” Will we be the Pharisees and scribes?
Or will we say, “Jesus, I’m lost. Will you please carry me?” Thankfully Jesus has broad shoulders. Humble yourself under God’s mighty hand. Confess your pride. And He will exalt you on the shoulders of Jesus. On the cross of Jesus. In the resurrection of Jesus. God will lift you up.
Now the other side of pride, besides the “thinking we’re righteous” part, is the anger part. When you’re a Pharisee or scribe full of pride, you get angry that others aren’t as good as you are. And you think Jesus shouldn’t be hanging out with a bunch of no-good losers. When you think you’re way up here, then you have no choice but to look down on everyone else. That’s what pride does.
And then it becomes a false test of just how pious you are—if you’re really pious then you certainly won’t hang out with other loser sinners. You’ll stand around with your Pharisee buddies and talk about how worthless those other people are…
But that’s not Jesus. And that’s not Christians. Christians are called to stand with their fellow sinners. Christians are called to bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2). Christians are called to not be haughty, but to associate with the lowly (Romans 12:16). Christians are called to cover up their neighbor’s sins and to carry them to Jesus.
In other words, we’re not called to be righteously angry at sinners. We’re called to love and forgive sinners. Of course, Jesus didn’t tell the tax collectors and sinners that their sins we’re just fine and okay. And they could keep on sinning and it was no big deal. No, He told them to repent just like He told everyone else. But He was willing to hang out with them and love them so that they might be brought to repentance. And we ought to do the same.
God grant us humility. Pray for humility. In this current generation and culture of pride and narcissism and “me, me, me”, pray that God would humble us to be carried by Jesus and His forgiveness, grace, and mercy. And pray that we would be willing to carry other sinners, not looking down on them, but lifting them up with us to the glory of Christ.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.