Luke 15:1-2

Transcript

00:00:00:03 – 00:00:36:09
Clint Loveall
Everybody. Happy Monday. Happy Thanksgiving week. Thanks for being with us. We continue through the Gospel of Luke kind of in the introduction of sorts today. The 15th chapter of Luke is considered by lots of Bible scholars and Bible readers as a special work. It is a showcase of three parables that are among everyone’s favorites, probably particularly the last one is very well known, unique to Luke.

00:00:36:14 – 00:01:14:27
Clint Loveall
But Luke has organized these parables around a theme, and that theme is essentially lost ness being lost and being searched for and what that looks like, practically what that looks like simply and then woven into what that looks like spiritually and relationally. And we want to try and we will probably take our time with this chapter, because I think particularly when we come to the parable of the prodigal son or what’s called the prodigal son, I don’t think we’ll get through that in one day.

00:01:14:27 – 00:01:35:53
Clint Loveall
And so we don’t want to leave you hanging on back to back days. So I think, Michael, maybe today we just begin with the conversation about what we mean with this word lost and particularly what the New Testament has in mind when it uses a word like that. That is the anchor of these three stories that Jesus is going to tell.

00:01:35:58 – 00:01:43:54
Clint Loveall
And for Luke, it has a very specific kind of idea that I think he’s trying to share with us.

00:01:43:58 – 00:02:05:06
Michael Gewecke
This is one of the many Luke and themes. We’ve talked about this before, this idea that Luke is very interested in the lost, the outsider, the minority, the person who doesn’t have a voice and to himself. This is in great contrast. I know that we’ve said this a lot in Luke, but if we were studying Matthew right now, we wouldn’t be talking about that as an emphasis.

00:02:05:07 – 00:02:30:36
Michael Gewecke
In fact, Matthew is very much interested in talking to those who have a much more insider kind of knowledge, people who know the Old Testament scriptures, people who are looking for those to be fulfilled. Matthew is speaking to that audience. And so when Matthew gives examples or when Matthew gives quotes from Jesus, there’s a lot of emphasis on either an awareness of Israelite history or an awareness of Israelite scripture that’s taken for granted.

00:02:30:36 – 00:03:08:22
Michael Gewecke
And in Luke, this idea of Lost is really an essential part of this story, because as Luke goes on, you might remember Luke is really written as part one of a Part two work. The part two of Luke is acts. They’re both written by Luke and they’re both really a coherent story when put together, but both are telling this story about how those who were at first seen as being not included, those being outside the realm of the nation of Israel, those who don’t have the awareness of who God is, are invited by Jesus to come in the circle.

00:03:08:27 – 00:03:35:06
Michael Gewecke
And then both of these are stories about how that gospel, that or in translated that good news grows outside of Jesus’s proclamation to invite all of these people who were considered the lost, who are considered the sinners, who are considered to be the ones outside of God’s salvific plan. And so Luke here in including this specific emphasis, and then, you know, we will see it in detail in the stories themselves.

00:03:35:11 – 00:03:50:01
Michael Gewecke
It’s a way of Luke portraying with Jesus’s own teachings, this core movement that’s actually happening in the church, that this growth, this invitation to the lost. And it’s, you know, all the way from the beginning.

00:03:50:06 – 00:04:16:14
Clint Loveall
So let’s let’s get into the occasion of the parables, maybe not the parables themselves, but let’s look at what brings these about. If we just look at the first two verses here of Chapter 15, Luke tells us Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him, and the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling, saying, This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.

00:04:16:19 – 00:04:50:49
Clint Loveall
I don’t know what more you could put about human experience and the gospel into two verses than this. One of the most amazing things about Jesus is that Jesus draws people who are not attracted to his religious label. He’s not he’s not they’re not at the temple. These are not religious people. These are people branded as outsiders. And and again, as Michael has said, that really matters to Luke.

00:04:50:54 – 00:05:27:12
Clint Loveall
So here we have this this simple phrase, all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. You can read that over and and not give it enough thought and enough depth. There is something about Jesus, his person, his words, his demeanor, his character that bridges the gap between people of faith and people outside the faith, people who are living lives where they’re on the outside.

00:05:27:21 – 00:05:54:58
Clint Loveall
Or as Luke may come to call them in this chapter, Lost. They are lost. They are wandering. They don’t have a direction. That’s the definition of the word lost. And here we get told that those people, the tax collectors and sinners, that’s their labels that they wear here in this passage, come to listen to Jesus. And you would think, Michael, that this would be a celebration.

00:05:55:03 – 00:05:58:14
Clint Loveall
And for Luke, it is, but not for everybody.

00:05:58:19 – 00:06:21:48
Michael Gewecke
Right? Because at the end of the day, these individuals don’t fit inside the traditional religious structures that have been created. These people, by definition, are the ones who bear the branding of tax collector, who who. By the way, that is more than just someone who collects revenues for the state. This is an IRS agents who this is their job.

00:06:21:55 – 00:06:53:00
Michael Gewecke
These are people of Israel who have agreed to collect money on behalf of the essentially foreign state that is occupying Israel, collecting money for the enemy. And then oftentimes tax collectors were known to collect extra money for themselves. So they are both turncoats. They’re really they’re people who are standing against their fellow countrymen, and they’re doing so to benefit the enemy.

00:06:53:00 – 00:07:16:33
Michael Gewecke
So obviously, these people, it’s not just that they are disliked, it’s that these individuals are actively despised as as those who stand outside the group. And then you have sinners, which are very clearly the people who that do not fit within the religious order and the boundaries that was known by the people of Israel or what it meant to be Jewish.

00:07:16:44 – 00:07:18:25
Michael Gewecke
So these are all outsiders.

00:07:18:37 – 00:07:40:00
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think we want to be clear here that Luke is not using this word in a theological sense, whereas we would say we’re all sinners, right? These are people who are actively doing things that their religious tradition forbids or frowns upon. And so when you hear that word Luke is connecting it with a certain lifestyle and certain pattern of behavior.

00:07:40:04 – 00:08:02:38
Michael Gewecke
Right? We might be tempted to extrapolate from this some sort of philosophical, theological meaning when what we have quite plainly is this is the group of people not welcome at the table. This is the group of people who are literally not on the inside of the circle. These people are the outcasts. They are lost because they don’t have a home.

00:08:02:38 – 00:08:26:34
Michael Gewecke
They don’t have a person to call them in. And Clint, that’s the heart that Luke has, is to see how the Gospel finds these people in their darkness and their brokenness in their lost ness. And it’s a beautiful it’s a beautiful vision of how Jesus has sort these out. And in this case, let’s be very clear, they have sought out Jesus.

00:08:26:34 – 00:08:33:32
Michael Gewecke
And so Jesus comes into the world to be the lay of the world. And these who are in the darkness are drawn to him.

00:08:33:32 – 00:08:58:31
Clint Loveall
Yeah, they’re moved by what he said. They they feel something that is drawing them closer to his truth and to his message. And just as there are outsiders would imply, there are insiders. And the insiders look at those who are coming in. And there’s this wonderful word here. They were grumbling. That is a fascinating biblical word. It means to be negative.

00:08:58:31 – 00:09:22:33
Clint Loveall
It means to mumble, to murmur, to complain. They don’t see people coming to Jesus and celebrate it. They mutter. They complain, Oh, Jesus is hanging out with them. What’s he who is supposed to know something about God? What is he? Who is supposed to be a prophet of some sort who who preaches these sermons and does these miracles?

00:09:22:46 – 00:09:55:52
Clint Loveall
What does he doing with them? Why would he let himself be surrounded by them or be in their company? And I wish I wish, Michael, that this wasn’t so prominent in the history of the church, that the church has done this over and over, whether it’s been racial or whether it’s been by gender, whether it’s ethnic, whether it’s those who live a different lifestyle and make different choices, that the Bible is never shocked by sinners acting like sinners.

00:09:55:57 – 00:10:26:36
Clint Loveall
The Bible is appalled when Christians treat them as if they aren’t welcome, or that they can’t find their way to Jesus. And so here, here we have this separation. The first season, the scribes, the insiders are grumbling, saying Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them. He has fellowship with the wrong people. And if you are going to boil it, boil down the thing Jesus is most often criticized for.

00:10:26:36 – 00:10:34:30
Clint Loveall
Michael, I think this would be a likely candidate that that Jesus is criticized because he fellowship ups with the wrong people.

00:10:34:35 – 00:11:01:53
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, I want to make something abundantly clear and Luke makes this clear. So let’s be all on the same page about this. The Pharisees and the scribes are correct, right? Jesus isn’t eating with people who he would disagree are not sinners or not tax collectors. No, he’s eating. We use welcome sinners and he eats with them. Luke makes it abundantly clear they are tax collectors and they are sinners.

00:11:01:53 – 00:11:25:46
Michael Gewecke
And Clint, the point to be made there is the Pharisees and Sadducees, the people on the inside, the people who have heard the the religious teachings and who stand inside the fellowship of the people of Israel. They aren’t interpreting what Jesus is doing wrongly. He is eating with sinners what they missed out on is the reality that they were invited from the beginning.

00:11:26:00 – 00:11:59:36
Michael Gewecke
They never even saw that in the field of possibility. That is, I think, the most humbling, the most convicting part of a text like this is that every person of faith, everyone who stands in the tradition and way of Jesus, must wake up every morning with the awareness that it might be them, whoever it is, whatever gap or blank you would fill in there that you are called to have fellowship with you, that you’re called to seek out and to find within that person that connection.

00:11:59:36 – 00:12:26:37
Michael Gewecke
Because at the end of the day, Jesus is the kind of individual who defies the expectations of those who were looking for him. And there’s something deeply wise and saying, Yeah, they are tax collectors and they are sinners and Jesus is dining with it. You see it right now. You have to read, interpret and understand his relationship to them and his purpose for them.

00:12:26:42 – 00:12:33:16
Michael Gewecke
And if you don’t, then like the Pharisees and scribes, you’ll be complaining and you will be grumbling.

00:12:33:21 – 00:13:14:30
Clint Loveall
So describes and Pharisees look at these people who are lost, the tax collectors and sinners, and they see only that. They see people who are unclean and unwelcome. Jesus looks at the lost and sees people who need to be found. And that’s the fundamental difference. And it sets up what comes in the rest of the chapter, these three beautiful stories about things that are lost and things that are found and what is the appropriate response to lost things being found and that is that that is the thread that weaves through the rest of this chapter.

00:13:14:34 – 00:13:31:07
Clint Loveall
Luke does it exceptionally well, particularly in this final story that we will get to. But tomorrow we’ll look at these first two parables and see how this theme begins to set up for what Luke wants to do ultimately with the major part of the chapter.

00:13:31:12 – 00:14:03:59
Michael Gewecke
And one of the very contemporary parts of this teaching, I think, is the reality that we are all tempted to make someone lost and then want to keep them there. Right? If a person is the outsider, we assume that they will always be the outsider. But Luke wants to make it clear that Jesus is always looking. And in fact, in one of these parables, the parable of the Lost Son, we’re going to see that God is never see singly open and looking and actively searching to reunite with those that are lost.

00:14:03:59 – 00:14:30:18
Michael Gewecke
And when we ourselves make the mistake of counting someone out or putting a wall where there should be a door, we are inevitably in danger of celebrating the division or the separation and not the unifier or the one who unites or the one who finds whatever image is going to be helpful for you to understand. That’s the force of the Kingdom of God is it reunites, it finds, it brings light to dark places.

00:14:30:18 – 00:14:45:29
Michael Gewecke
That’s what Jesus came to do. And our human temptation, if we are honest with ourselves, is often to put boundaries up and to say, no, no, that that person is that thing for all time. And the gospel. Jesus has no interest in that.

00:14:45:34 – 00:15:00:05
Clint Loveall
So that’s kind of a long introduction and just a couple of verses. We’re spending a good deal of time here. But as I mentioned, Luke 15 is considered one of the great chapters of the New Testament. So we want to take our time with it. We want to make sure we give it an opportunity to speak to us.

00:15:00:05 – 00:15:24:54
Clint Loveall
We want to try and learn as much as we can from it and do as much work as we need to give it the opportunity to speak to us. So hope there’s something in that introduction that is helpful and more importantly, hope there’s something in it that will help us as we get into the parables to truly understand where Luke is trying to teach us through them and what Jesus has in mind when He tells them.

00:15:24:59 – 00:15:39:12
Michael Gewecke
We’re glad that you spent time with us today. Hope you will join us tomorrow for our final stay, the week prior to Thanksgiving. If you made this far hope there’s been something valuable that you give them that you would like to help others find it in their own Bible study. And we will see you all tomorrow.

00:15:39:14 – 00:15:40:01
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.