Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Our children need to be educated and it’s our job to see to that.

To prove how true that statement is – not that any of you doubt it anyway – I was listening to my favorite San Diego radio station yesterday morning. They occasionally run a contest. I guess you could call it a “Battle of the Sexes” between children. They select two children – a boy and a girl – the same age, supposedly the same educational level and ask a series of age-appropriate questions, keeping track of which of the kids answers the most number of questions correctly. One of yesterday’s questions, asked to two six-year-olds, was answered incorrectly by both children. The question was, “Which is worth more – six pennies or two nickels? Both children said that six pennies were worth more than two nickels.

Our children need to be educated and it’s our job to see to that. That’s why over the past couple of weeks and with this week to come, we see children of all ages returning to the classroom – children and teachers largely unhappy with that fact; parents generally thrilled with that fact – learning their reading, writing and ‘rithmatic. Our children need to be educated and it’s our job to see to that.

That’s why today also we celebrate “Back to Church and Back to Sunday School.” As important as it is that our children learn that two nickels are worth more than six pennies – and many other even more important lessons – it’s even more important that our children – and actually all of us – learn important lessons about our Lord and our Savior, Jesus Christ.

That’s what’s going on today in our Gospel. Jesus taught an important lesson about Himself. In Jesus’ day – and it’s really no different today – people had presuppositions in their head about Jesus that they just knew to be true – presuppositions like that the long-expected Messiah would hob-knob with the rich and famous, with the powerful and mighty, with the “perfect, sinless” people of the world – at least the ones who thought that others thought they were “perfect” and “sinless.” So Jesus raised a lot of eyebrows when He acted contrary to those presuppositions, when He allowed ordinary “sinners” like you and like me to gather around Him, when He didn’t commission His disciples to shoo them away.

Jesus also raised a lot of eyebrows with a couple parables He told – those wonderful earthly stories with Heavenly meanings.

In one parable, a man had 100 sheep and one wandered off. Most of us would have just taken a tax write-off for that one percent loss, figuring that’s just the occasional cost of doing business. What’s more important – the one that wanders off or the 99 that are left? Most of us would probably find it more important to be more diligent in guarding and protecting the 99 that we have left, especially (let’s face it) when that one that wandered off was probably a trouble-maker anyway, always pushing the limits, always causing more work for us. But that’s not how God’s economy works. Jesus speaks as if its foolish to consider anything but the fact that the 99 would be left until the 100th is found and a party thrown in its honor.

In another parable, it’s a little more costly a decision. A woman has 10 silver coins and loses one. Now we’ve gone from a 1 percent loss to a 10 percent loss, but the rest of the equation holds the same. What’s more important – to guard and protect what’s left or to potentially risk what’s left to regain what’s missing? The only other change in this parable is that in the previous parable the one sheep did the wandering off. In this parable it’s the woman herself who has somehow done the losing. Again, God’s economy works against our first inclination. Jesus speaks as it its foolish to consider anything but the fact that the 9 silver coins would be temporarily overlooked until the 10th is found again and a party thrown to celebrate the fact.

And that’s what this Sunday is all about. Let’s admit it. We’ve had a pretty good summer here at Historic First Lutheran. Our attendance at worship and Bible classes and Prayer Force One has remained fairly stable, actually higher on average than in years past. Our generous offerings have allowed us to meet every payroll, to pay every bill and even leave these normally lean summer months with a little money left in the bank. In our economy, those things alone would be worth treasuring. Why make any changes? Why have a “Back to Church and Back to Sunday School” celebration? Why send out literally hundreds of letters and postcards to people over the past couple of weeks, inviting them to be here today, to reconsider their commitment to their Lord and their Savior, Jesus?

Why? Because we as the people of God should never be satisfied with how our economy works. Instead, following the lessons taught by Jesus in our Gospel today, we leave what we have in order to search for that which has wandered off, to find what we ourselves have allowed to be lost. Then we throw a party! We join that great rejoicing in Heaven over the one that was regained, the one that was restored, the one that was missing.

There was not only lip service paid to that otherwise silly economic advice Jesus gave. It’s actually the economy under which God operated 2,000 years ago, sending His Son, our Lord and our Savior Jesus, from Heaven to earth, to search for the lost, to search for even just that one (because God never bunches us all together, viewing us in the corporate, but rather He knows each of us individually by name; He has the hairs on each of our heads numbered; He views each of us as His most priceless possession). And when Jesus had found that one – when He found each of us individually, He suffered and died and rose again to forgive the sin of waywardness, to forgive the sin of busy-ness, to forgive the sin of our inadequate economy, to turn our normal way of thinking and evaluation upside down and to give a reason for there to be great rejoicing in all of Heaven, because when Jesus rose from the dead, when He ascended back into Heaven, when He sat down again at the Right Hand of God the Father, He said, “Rejoice with Me! What was lost is found!”

Going to church and going to Sunday School, of course, has something to do with us. Our children need to be educated and it’s our job to see to that. That education has not just to do with simple equations like that two nickels are worth more than six pennies. That education also has to do with things like God’s economy – that He has gone out searching for each of us because each of us individually was – and is – so valuable to Him.

But going to church and going to Sunday School, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with us. It has everything to do with God’s great party in Heaven and also here on earth as, week after week, we, by the power of the Holy Spirit, confess our sins to God, our Heavenly Father, and then hear Him say, “Rejoice with Me! What was lost is found! Let’s party!”

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pastor Christopher Schaar
Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena