By Rev. Canon David B. Tabo-oy
v1One day when many tax collectors and other outcasts came to listen to Jesus, v2the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law started grumbling, “This man welcomes outcasts and even eats with them!” v3So Jesus told them this parable:
v4″Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them—what do you do? You leave the other ninety-nine sheep in the pasture and go looking for the one that got lost until you find it. v5When you find it, you are so happy that you put it on your shoulders v6and carry it back home. Then you call your friends and neighbors together and say to them, ‘I am so happy I found my lost sheep. Let us celebrate!’ v7In the same way, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine respectable people who do not need to repent.
v8″Or suppose a woman who has ten silver coins loses one of them—what does she do? She lights a lamp, sweeps her house, and looks carefully everywhere until she finds it. v9When she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, and says to them, ‘I am so happy I found the coin I lost. Let us celebrate!’ v10In the same way, I tell you, the angels of God rejoice over one sinner who repents.” – Luke 15:1-10
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines has requested executive clemency for Mary Jane Veloso, an overseas Filipino worker who has been detained in Indonesia for over a decade after being convicted for smuggling heroin into the country in 2010. Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo made the request through Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi. (https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2022/09/06). Almost all national news agency carried this headline recently. “Executive Clemency” refers to an act of leniency wherein the executive authority either lessens the severity of a sentence or modifies it. • A Pardon refers to an act of forgiveness wherein the offender is completely absolved of the crime and consequent penalties, and his/her civil rights are restored. • Pardon is one type of Clemency (https://www.the-sun.com/news). The gospel lesson this Sunday is about “divine clemency”, the unlimited forgiveness.
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As Jesus continues on his journey toward Jerusalem, followed by those crowds that include people of every description, his teaching is becoming more and more intense. Last week, we heard him insist that no one could follow him who had not renounced everything else – family, wealth, or reputation – for the sake of being a disciple of Jesus. Scribes and Pharisees had challenged Jesus, but they were still part of the crowd. At first, they had come out of curiosity. Later, they came to discredit this new, unauthorized teaching. Now they were following Jesus with the intent of catching him in some heresy. Whatever their reason for being there, people came and listened. As they listened, they asked questions about the things Jesus said that didn’t make sense to them.
Luke records the story of how the Pharisees complained that Jesus welcomed tax collectors and sinners, and how Jesus told the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin (and the famous Prodigal Son) to illustrate the heavenly rejoicing when something precious that was lost is now found. This rejoicing far exceeds, Jesus says, any rejoicing over the righteous.
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The three parables: Lost Sheep, Lost Coin, and Prodigal Son that make up chapter fifteen of the Gospel of Luke all focus on the central theme of the lost getting found, and the joy that is shared in the finding. Many scholars believe they were told as a single unit from the beginning of the Christian era, passed along through the oral tradition that Luke used to compile his gospel account. Today’s reading focuses on the first two of these parables, saving the parable of the prodigal son for the season of Lent. Running through the Bible is the consoling message of the forgiveness and mercy of God towards sinners. Jesus preached the three parables to answer the bitter criticism of the Pharisees, who accused him of lowering moral standards by associating with public sinners and spending too much time with the dregs of society.
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We Have All Been Lost
There is a story which I read from the internet about a squad of Marines on training. On a night patrol making their way through some thick brush, halfway through, they realized they’d lost their map. The patrol navigator informed the rest of the squad that their odds were 1 in 359 that they’d succeed in getting back to their base of operations.
“How did you come up with that figure?” someone asked, “one chance in 359?”
“Well,” he replied, “one of the degrees on the compass has to be right.”
Those marines were lost. One chance in 359 is not very good. Fortunately it was just a training exercise, but they were lost just the same. We’ve all been lost at one time or another. That’s part of the human condition.
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We must admit that we see and understand sin as a legal category that is primarily restricted to and declarative of physical behaviors rather than descriptive of conditions and relationships. As one preacher observes: It’s seen as a judgment rather than a diagnosis. That’s why it’s often hard for us to hear this good news and to rejoice at the meals Christ offers and shares with the sinners and tax collectors. We often don’t think sin is about us. Compared to “those kind of people” we think we look pretty good. So did the Pharisees and scribes. For Jesus, however, the defining characteristic of sin is not misbehavior but being lost.
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The God we worship has always been a God who have been searching since that primordial words uttered in the Garden, “v9But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” (Gen.3:9). And the idea of God doing the searching continues. We are intimately familiar with Psalm 139: “O Lord, you have searched me and known me.”
Jeremiah the prophet describes a God who searches for any who are good, any who are righteous, but a God who finds a world lost completely to evil.
v20But, O LORD of hosts, who judges righteously,
who tests the heart and the mind,
let me see your vengeance upon them,
for to you have I committed my cause. (Jer.11.20)
v10″I the LORD search the heart
and test the mind,b
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.” (Jer.17.10)
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Within a few years, the Apostle Paul would write to his friend Timothy of his own dependence on God to find him in his lost-ness (1 Timothy 1:12-17). Time and again, we get lost, and time and again, God searches for us to bring us home.
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This is the truth: We belong to God. When we stray, lose our way, or even run away from God, he will persistently look for us, and he is always ready to welcome us back home with joy, because he loves us. God wants us to be in loving relationship with him, because that is how he created us. We are his; we belong to God. The question each of us must answer is simply this: do we want to be lost, or do we want to be found? We can choose to stay lost and suffer the consequences of our rebellion against God’s love for us. But Jesus came to restore us to God, to bring us home to the one who loves us more than we can possibly imagine. We are lost yet He continues to search for us. In our sinfulness… He continues to offer the Divine Clemency… the Unlimited Forgiveness – if only we turn to Him.
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If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. – 1 John 1:9 (ESV).
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. – Isaiah 55:7 ESV
Let us pray.
God our Father help us bring your pardon, forgiveness and peace to all those we meet. We make our prayer through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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