I don't suppose anyone likes getting lost. Last month, going on holiday, I was trying to change from one motorway to another, around the north of Manchester. The SatNav was telling me to keep left, so I did, glad to be in the slow lane on roads I don't know. The two inner lanes suddenly became a second carriageway which suddenly turned underneath the road I was hoping to be on and plunged me onto unknown roads in north Manchester. It wouldn't have been so bad if I were alone, but no, my dear wife and two sons were in the car each with that face which says, 'You stupid boy!' So no, I at least don't like getting lost.
I'm happy to sing with you all of once being lost, so long as we all understand that I'm not lost now, and I suppose I will extend the same understanding to you as you sing with me. I find that Jesus parables in Luke 15 shake up my comfortable thinking here.
Jesus is the centre of the Father's purpose to reconcile to himself all creation, the one who will bring the lost people of God home again. And so with joy and thanksgiving I imagine myself to have been the lost sheep, lost coin, lost son, once lost but now found. I am never so full of myself as to imagine that I am the father in the final story, nor am I at ease imagining myself as the stay at home brother. But I need to look at the story again.
The stay at home brother who all these years has been 'slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders' (v. 29) is a direct challenge to the good people and bible preachers of v. 2. They grumble and complain when Jesus eats and drinks with the lost, because they aren't lost any more and don't want to associate with the lost. The great mission of God to redeem a people for himself has already been done, we're in and you're not.
The stay at home son doesn't recognise that he is lost; he needs nothing, his years of stay at home service have proved his worth to his father and to everyone else. And yet, this final part of the story doesn't end with a celebration, it ends with a question. Did the stay at home son go in with his father to the feast? Was he reconciled to his father's welcoming the returning son?
If I imagine myself to have been lost but now found, do I need a Saviour today?
When I confess my sin I re-enter my lostness. Confession of sin cannot be a once every now and then experience either for me as a Christian or for a congregation of God's people. However long I have been a disciple of the Lord Jesus every day I find myself as a tax collector and 'sinner' in need of his mercy and his welcome.
Confession of sin is a direct challenge to my self righteousness. I have become angry at the extravagance of grace and need to humble myself in confession to re-enter the place of Christ's mercy and be found by him all over again. Do I, do you, do we are worshipping congregations faithfully practice such confession as to bring me empty handed to my Saviour?
His amazing grace will not fail to find me in my lostness and bring me safely home. I have greater need to be afraid of self-righteousness than of being lost. Christ finds the lost, the Father welcomes the lost - the self-righteous stand aside grumbling. So, who will you imagine yourself to be when reading this parable of Jesus?
Rev Gordon Kennedy
Gordon has been Church of Scotland Minister at Stranraer St Ninians since 2000. He is also a member of the Evangelical Alliance Scotland Executive. You can read Gordon's Blog at Kennedy's Corner.
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