Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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Luke has three of Jesus’ best-known parables in the fifteenth Chapter of his Gospel – three parables, told one right after the other, without interruption or explanation: “The Lost Sheep,” “The Lost Coin,” and “The Lost Son” (commonly known as The Prodigal Son). Jesus must have told these parables hundreds of times as he traveled from place to place. Luke knows them well. By Luke’s time, they are standard fare in the people’s memories of Jesus. His readers would have known them well. Luke can place these three parables anywhere he likes in his story. But he lumps them together as he does because he knows they all make the same point. And that point is what makes the news about Jesus good news, “gospel.”

Deceptively simple little stories: A good shepherd who hunts long and hard for a lost sheep, and rejoices when he finds it. A woman who searches diligently for a coin she has lost and is delighted when she turns it up. A father who waits on the road, day after day, watching and praying for his wayward son to return, and when he does throws a party.

In the first twenty years of my life I misunderstood these parables. I was putting myself in the wrong place in them. I thought Jesus was telling me, in his parable of the Lost Sheep, for example, that I should be like that shepherd, responsible and utterly dedicated to duty. Or, in “The Lost Coin,” that I should be like that dogged woman, who kept trying and never gave up. Or, in the Prodigal Son, that I should be like that Father who was so kind and generous to his returning, wayward son. But, you see, I had it just backward. I had the gospel on inside out. And one day, by the grace of God, I saw the truth: I was not the shepherd, I was the sheep that was lost. I was not the woman; I was the coin that wasn’t where it was supposed to be. I was not the father. (How presumptuous of me ever to have thought such a thing!) I was that rotten, scheming son, who stole half his father’s wealth and (in the last analysis) came home only because he was hungry. I was the one for whom God had roasted the fatted calf -- when, by all rights, I should have been eating “the husks that the swine did eat.” I saw it, and it knocked my socks off! I was a sinner saved by the grace of God. And all I could say was “thank you.” “Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Early one morning, at day break, a tormented fisherman suddenly jumps from his boat and begins splashing through the shallow waves toward the shore. He is moving toward an old friend he’s just spotted on the beach, an old friend whom he has wronged. A lot has transpired between them, a lot of things the fisherman would like to take back and do again. His offenses, especially his offenses toward this good friend were unspeakable. They have been torturing him inside. He feels so bad about himself. He can’t sleep. His food doesn’t taste good. His heart aches from morning to night. He absolutely must find a way to say how sorry he is. He has to find closure, as we say. And here, quite unexpectedly, is his chance. He runs toward confession, as a moth flies toward the light.

But just as he reaches his friend on the beach, the other fishermen arrive. They all sit down to an awkward breakfast of bread and fish. But there’s tension in the air. Everybody feels it. The others watch to see what will happen between these two strong men. The friend speaks first -- looks the fisherman in the eye and asks, “Do you love me?” “You know I love you.” “Feed my lambs.” “Do you love me?” “You know I love you.” “Tend my sheep.” “Do you love me?” “You know everything. You know I love you.” “Feed my sheep.”

The fisherman is not just forgiven; he is restored. (Which is the way it works: confession – which many think will crush them – actually leads to forgiveness which leads to more abundant life.) For the three times when, in cowardice, he had denied even knowing his friend (and the cock had crowed, as Jesus said it would), he had now answered three times. And, quite unbeknownst to this poor fisherman, as he was receiving forgiveness and professing his love (and, I guess, hoping to go home), he was also being consecrated the first Pope. (There was no closure here. This was the opener! O, my God!) “Peter (petrus),” his friend had said to him in better times, “Thou are the rock (petrus), and upon this rock I will build my church.” The fisherman does, indeed, become the head of the first Christian Church, and an old legend says he cried every time he heard a cock crow.

Less than thirty years later, during the persecutions of Nero, this fisherman would be crucified upside down in the city of Rome. His body would be buried secretly, in a pauper’s cemetery, so his enemies could not steal his bones and thus prevent them from becoming relics. But centuries later, after the Empire had fallen and the Church had triumphed, this fisherman’s followers would build the largest church in the world over his burial place, “St Peter’s Basilica,” in Rome, and his followers would haul a huge stone obelisk all the way from Egypt and erect it on the spot where he was crucified….right in the middle of St. Peter’s square. And when one of his successor fishermen recently died, three million people came to his funeral!

I tell the story of St. Peter this morning to remind us that God does not need perfect human beings to do great things. It is amazing what God can do with second-rate people.

At about the same time I found my rightful place in Jesus’ parables, and began to understand the story of Peter, I read the Hiedelberg Catechism. I was struggling with the question of sin (which we talked about last week), and, as Anselm told one of his students, I had not yet appreciated its enormity. I came to the question, in the old Catechism that asked, “What does the Lord require of thee?” And read the answer: “That I should love the Lord, my God, with all my heart, strength, mind and soul, and that I should love my neighbor as myself.” I was o.k. so far. Surely I could do that – or at least do my best at that. But the next question asked: “Can you do this?” And the answer finished me: “No. For by my nature I am prone to hate both God and neighbor.” If that were true, and I knew it was in my case, then thank God that he does not need perfect people to do great things. Thank God that sheep and that coin were found. Thank God that ungrateful son was welcomed back with such love. Thank God he found a place for a man like Peter. Thank God there might even be a place for me.