- Christ Church - https://christchurchwindsor.ca -

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity, 8:00am Holy Communion

“Rejoice with me”

“There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance”, Jesus says in a series of three famous parables that comprise the 15th Chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke. The parables appear in response to the criticism of the Pharisees and Scribes – 1st century Jewish religious authorities, as it were – who criticize Jesus for the company he keeps, the company of tax-collectors and sinners. Jesus response is to tell three parables two of which are before us in this morning’s Gospel: the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin.

The parables are all about repentance and joy, about being lost and found. They illustrate the deep love of God which seeks our restoration to wholeness in the community of spirit, the ekklesia of God, the Church universal. The return of the lost is the occasion of the greatest joy, a joy both in heaven and in earth. Redemption occasions a greater joy than the joy of creation itself, it seems. It is a powerful moral and intellectual idea.

What is so powerful is that there is something more precious and more important about our humanity and our individuality than just our wayward and sinful actions. Good news indeed! For if we are defined simply by our thoughts, words and deeds that we are utterly condemned. Our hearts condemn us but God we have learned in these early days of the Trinity season is greater than our hearts. Such is the divine mercy.

Shakespeare has Portia say in The Merchant of Venice that “mercy seasons – perfects – justice”. For “though justice be thy plea, consider this: that in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation”. Therefore she says, “we do pray for mercy and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy”. Our thoughts and prayers shape our actions – it is one of the themes of the Trinity season. The parables of the 15th chapter of St. Luke’s gospel show us mercy in abundance. “The quality of mercy is not strained”.

The shepherd leaves the ninety and nine sheep in the wilderness to seek out the one lost sheep. The woman seeks diligently for the one lost coin. In finding the one lost sheep and the one lost coin, there is occasion for great rejoicing. There is something precious about each of us and there is something precious about the whole of which we are a part.

We are found in the God’s love where we are restored to the community of our humanity. Jesus speaks somewhat tongue-in-cheek about the ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance. They don’t exist. For there are none of us who do not stand in need of mercy, the mercy that seasons justice and restores us wholeness in the community of the spirit to which we belong. It is Portia’s point: we all stand in need of mercy. To know that is the occasion of the greatest joy.

“Rejoice with me”

Fr. David Curry
Trinity III, 2016, 8:00am