“Rejoice with me”
Humility and rejoicing are intimately connected. The one, humility, is the condition for the other, our true rejoicing in the absolute goodness of God’s love imaged in Luke 15 by the shepherd’s care, the woman’s diligence, and the father’s love. The humility of God’s charity calls us to humility against our pride. Pride is that grand delusion in which we think we are totally self-sufficient; as if we stand in need of nothing. We presume to be the centre of everything. The self-giving love of God stands opposed to the self-centeredness of our pride. Our pride opposes God and God’s ways for us and with us in our lives.
In the Gospel, “all the publicans (meaning here tax collectors) and sinners [drew near] to hear Jesus”. But there were others who objected. “The Pharisees and Scribes murmured, saying, this man receiveth sinners and eateth with them”. In other words, the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, the self-righteous about their religion, complain about the company which Jesus keeps, the company of tax collectors and sinners. Jesus tells this parable in relation to this division between tax collectors and sinners, on the one hand, and Pharisees and the teachers of the law, on the other hand.
Tax collecting is a necessary feature of public life in any organized state or political community. Tax collectors are hardly ever regarded in a favourable light, but how much less so in the context of the Gospel? For then, they were seen as traitors to Israel because they were working for the Roman Authorities over and against their own people. And if that wasn’t bad enough, they were seen as extortionists. The business of tax collecting was out-sourced by the Roman government to local agents. They were given a quota they had to meet; anything above that was for themselves. Consequently, the tax collectors were out to get whatever they could from an unwilling and hostile population.
Traitors to Israel and extortionists of their own people. No one could be more despised and seen as a sinner than a tax collector. Hardly respectable company for a teacher of religion, it might seem, or, at least, so the Pharisees and the teachers of the law thought. After all, they saw themselves as the worthy ones, as the respectable company with whom Jesus should be, not this rabble of unworthy tax collectors and sinners. How does Jesus respond?
He tells two stories, three actually: the story of the lost sheep, the story of the lost coin and the third story, which follows these two, is the grand story of the lost or prodigal son. The lesson is plain. Salvation is for all who need salvation, for those who are lost. But who doesn’t really and honestly fall into that category, we have to ask ourselves? To know oneself as a sinner is to stand in need of salvation, to be looking for it and to be where it is constantly being proclaimed and presented.
Jesus tells these parables to the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law who, like the tax collectors and sinners, need repentance and salvation. But unlike them, they don’t think they need anything whatsoever. They think they have it all already. They stand and murmur against Jesus in the pride of their self-righteousness. They claim worthiness on the basis of their observation of the Law. Keeping the Law, of course, is a good thing. That’s not their problem. That’s not their sin. Their sin lies in their attitude both towards Jesus and the company he keeps, the company of the tax collectors and the sinners. They despise them and Jesus. At the root of their despising is their pride in themselves.
But the lesson shows us who Jesus is. He is the infinite charity of God towards us, reaching down to seek the lost, from the greatest to the least. Such is the humility of God’s charity. In God’s reaching down to us, there is also his reaching down in us. His love changes our attitudes towards one another. Humility is God’s grace gathering us into the pattern of his love in us.
In the Gospel lesson, the shepherd seeks the one lost sheep and does not rest until he finds it. The flock itself is not complete until all the sheep have been found and gathered in. Only then is there rejoicing. The woman searches diligently for the one lost coin, lighting a candle, sweeping the house, until she finds it and, then, only then, is there rejoicing. The point lies in the seeking of that which was lost and the joy that comes in the finding and in being found. The parables are pictures of God’s love for us, images of the unconditional love of the Father. They show us the humility of his reaching down and finding us, lost in our wayward ways, like the lost sheep, like the lost coin, (and like the lost son). We are only whole when we are found in the company of God’s love, the love that is shown to us in Jesus.
The challenge, always, is to act out of that love. The obstacle, always, is ourselves in our pride which separates us from God and so from one another. Here are two parables that awaken us to the wonderful humility of God’s charity so that his love can live in us. Then, and only then, shall there be joy, the true joy that rejoices in God and in God in us.
“Rejoice with me”
Fr. David Curry
Trinity 3, 2026 (revised ‘04)