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“This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

᛭ INI ᛭

(5. Oops!: When we engage in sinful behavior, we set ourselves outside the family of God.)

The sheep was lost, the coin lost. So was the younger brother, lost as “he squandered his property in reckless living,” that is, he “devoured [his father’s] property with prostitutes.” The sinners, who were reclining at table with Christ, had been lost, lost and dead, in fact, “dead in their trespasses and sins.”

We take sin too lightly. We don’t really think our sins set us at odds with God our heavenly Father. We don’t think our sins are all that serious. We ignore the true and right teaching that comes to us in the Christian Questions with Their Answers. “16. Why should we remember and proclaim [Christ’s] death?” “Second, so we may learn to be horrified by our sins, and to regard them as very serious.” That sin you think is just a slight bad habit, even though your embarrassed by, not embarrassed enough to stop, the true cost of that sin is the death of the Almighty and Eternal Son of God, our Lord and Savior, IHS Christ.

It’s true that your flesh and blood, our human heart, soul, and mind will continue to produce sin and rebellion against God until it’s dead and buried and back to dust. This should cause you to weep and lament how poor and destitute creatures we are! Rather most just shrug it off, saying, “see it doesn’t matter. Might as well live as I want. I’ll amend my life later.” That’s adding sin on top of sin, rebellion on top of rebellion.

“Do you not know,” as the Spirit says through Paul, “that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither [those who have sex outside of marriage,] nor [those who trust in false gods], nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor [the greedy], nor drunkards, nor [slanderers and gossips], nor [swindlers] will inherit the kingdom of God.” (1-Cor 6)

Yes, every sin is a slight against your sinless, all-holy God, IHS Christ, His Father, and the Holy Spirit. But willfully sinning, well, is to set yourself outside the family of God. Like the younger son in the parable, the coin, the sheep.

(4. Ugh!: Self-righteousness also sets us outside the Feast of Salvation.)

Yes, the sheep was lost, the coin lost. So was the OLDER brother, lost as “he was angry and refused to go in,” lost as he also would’ve condemned his father with the same words the Pharisees used to decry Christ: “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” The audacity!

It’s not only the sins I mentioned before that set us outside the family of God, the exclude us from the Feast of Salvation. The sin of pride and self-righteousness also sets us outside the Feast of Salvation. That sin creeps up from our hearts in many different ways. Pride, after all, was the first sin. Adam and Eve wanting to “be like God.” (Gen 3) The human heart has been doing that ever since.

Pride says, “I’m not a sinner like them.” Pride says, “I’m not actually all that sinful.” Pride says, “I don’t need Christ and His forgiveness all that much.” Pride says, “I’m a pretty good person.” The prideful, as much as the wantonly sinful, stand apart from the feast of salvation and refuse to come in for one reason or another. The Pharisees refused to rejoice with Christ as the older brother refused to celebrate with His Father. The pharisees, as the older brother, rejected the Lord who “receives sinners and eats with them.”

(3. Aha!: THE LORD WELCOMES SINNERS AND EATS WITH THEM.)

The father in Christ’s parable, just like Christ Himself, just can’t help himself! Yes, THE LORD WELCOMES SINNERS AND EATS WITH THEM. But he doesn’t just welcome them; He doesn’t just eat with them; the Lord gives His life for sinners and dies for them! “He gives His life as a ransom for many.” He dies for those whose sins are clearly sinful according to God’s Holy Law. He also dies for the sin of pride and self-righteousness. THE LORD WELCOMES SINNERS—all sinners—AND EATS WITH THEM.

(2. Whee!: The Lord has sinners at His table.)

It’s just that sinners who are like the younger brother are at the table. He was brought to repentance by his father’s graciousness. The older brother self-excluded himself. He wouldn’t be caught dead eating with his brother. He wanted a feast on his own terms rather than his father’s.

But the truth is that when the Lord has gathered His table, there are sinners at it. The Lord’s table isn’t for those who have NO sins, but for those who are not only aware of their sin, but hunger and thirst for righteousness. Those who have sins like the younger brother can hunger and thirst for righteousness just as much as those with sin like the older brother. “I want the Lord to forgive my lust or gossiping or grudges or rejection of His Word” is the same as “I want the Lord to forgiven my self-righteousness and pride.”

As it was with the younger son, so it was with the sinners at Christ’s table. They were brought to His table in true repentance and living faith because Christ’s preaching and His Word brought them repentance and created faith. The younger son was led by the remembrance of the father’s grace and mercy and the recognition that he had spurned it all and was wasting away in sin and death. Open question in the parable about whether or not the older son did, but since he’s the stand-in for the pharisees, pretty clear that their hatred for God’s righteousness and love for their own won the day…

(1. Yeah!: Supped sinners leave satisfied and sanctified.)

What are we to make of the sinners at Christ’s table? What then? Well, THE LORD WELCOMES SINNERS—all sinners—AND EATS WITH THEM. And when the sinners have supped they leave satisfied and sanctified. The Lord creates within them new and contrite hearts. He takes away their rotten sinful heart, their stoney heart of self-righteousness, and gives them a new and living heart that is then a temple of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit then works through them, sinners that they are in their flesh, so that through such flesh a miracle takes place, that is, they become His instruments. The Spirit makes them bear His fruit in their daily lives. They are no longer, live no longer, as they once did. (A life that’s often hidden from their own eyes….) As Paul says:

“Do you not know,” as the Spirit says through Paul, “that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither [those who have sex outside of marriage,] nor [those who trust in false gods], nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor [the greedy], nor drunkards, nor [slanderers and gossips], nor [swindlers] will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord IHS and by the Spirit of our God.” (1-Cor 6)

This happens not only for you through Holy Baptism, Holy Absolution, and God’s Holy Word. It happens also through the Supper. Christ’s body and blood are “the medicine of eternal life, that you would not die forever, but rather live in Christ forever.” It also cures self-righteousness and pride too. Besides the fact that the Bible’s clear, no matter how much you delude yourself into thinking you’re a pretty good Christian, your flesh and blood is a far more sinful that you can even know. “The less you feel your sins and infirmities, the more reason you have to go to the Sacrament to seek help and a remedy.” (Large Catechism)

And the Good News is that THE LORD WELCOMES SINNERS—all sinners—AND EATS WITH THEM. Those who’d rather live a life of sin, separated from God’s Word and family, or who’d rather have their self-righteousness, the Supper isn’t for them. They’re still in the pig slop, still standing outside refusing to come. For when THE LORD WELCOMES SINNERS—all sinners—AND EATS WITH THEM, they leave forgiven, satisfied with Christ’s righteousness, and sanctified with Christ’s own holiness, living the new life of remaining in Christ and Christ in them and bearing much fruit.

And over them, even over just one such sinner, there is much rejoicing in heaven, much rejoicing among the angels, archangels, and the whole company of heaven.

᛭ INI ᛭