Luke 15.1-10

1 Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. 2 This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people — even eating with them!

3 So Jesus told them this story: 4 “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. 6 When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away!

8 Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and sweep the entire house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin.’ 10 In the same way, there is joy in the presence of God’s angels when even one sinner repents.”

Comments

The last thing Jesus said in ch. 14 was “everyone who has ears should listen.” Remember, the chapter and verse divisions were added much later. The very next thing Luke records is how some people were using their ears to listen to Jesus. Tax collectors (essentially private contractors working for the Roman government) and known sinners often came and listened to Jesus’ teaching with open minds and open hearts (rather than the hostile suspicion of the religious leaders). The religious leaders were as offended by the unsavory crowd Jesus was attracting and engaging with as they were with his harsh prophetic words directed at them.

Chapter 15 gives us three stories about lost things as a response to how scandalized the religious leaders were by the company Jesus was keeping: the lost sheep and lost coin for today, and the lost son tomorrow. These two stories are very straightforward. The first is borrowed from Matthew (with nice narrative details added) and the second is a parallel story featuring a woman seeking (Luke often balances his stories with regard to gender, note how often a healing of one gender is following by a healing of the other). The narrative details are worth paying attention to: how the shepherd puts the sheep on his shoulders (I do this quite often with my younger children), how the woman sweeps the house and lights a lamp (just what we would if we were looking for a misplaced paycheck). In just a few words, Luke helps us identify with these characters. We sense the shepherd’s affection for the sheep and the woman’s eagerness to find her coin. 

Jesus liked hanging out with the sinners and teaching them because he was eager to reach them and had great affection for them. He didn’t just tolerate them in the hope that they would someday become acceptable and unoffensive. He liked them and wasn’t offended by them. He relaxed with them, enjoyed their company, and gave them the unconditional love and acceptance that is the only basis for real life change. If we are going to be Jesus’ followers, we have to be this comfortable around people who are far away from Jesus, people who don’t even yet realize they need Jesus. We have to do a lot more than tolerate them and preach at them. We have to love them and share both Jesus and our lives with them. And I don’t just mean we have to do this if we want to reach them, as if we could just choose not to reach them and still be followers of Jesus. Like we’ve talked about this year a number of times, following Jesus is an all or nothing deal. Followers of Jesus care about people and are happy to be with them. To eat with them. Watch a ballgame with them. Drink a beer with them. Be friends with them. Christians who aren’t ready to do this have not yet become followers of Jesus.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale HousePublishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Luke 14.25-35

25 A large crowd was following Jesus. He turned around and said to them, 26 “If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison — your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sister — yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple. 27 And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple.

28 But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? 29 Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you. 30 They would say, ‘There’s the person who started that building and couldn’t afford to finish it!’

31 Or what king would go to war against another king without first sitting down with his counselors to discuss whether his army of 10,000 could defeat the 20,000 soldiers marching against him? 32 And if he can’t, he will send a delegation to discuss terms of peace while the enemy is still far away. 33 So you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own.

34 Salt is good for seasoning. But if it loses its flavor, how do you make it salty again? 35 Flavorless salt is good neither for the soil nor for the manure pile. It is thrown away. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand!”

Comments

This is a hard passage. The NLT wants to make it easier on us in v.26 by adding “everyone else by comparison,” but that is nowhere to be found in the original Greek. I do think some qualification is in order. Jesus used hyperbole on a number of occasions and clearly taught that the second basic command was to love your neighbor as yourself. Still, the task of coming to what this means is something you need to figure out for yourself as the Holy Spirit leads you. We’ve read enough by now that you have a good handle on what Jesus taught. Luke felt confident he could share this with us, that we would figure it out. But that starts by being confronted with the hardness of the statement.

Luke also makes a couple of small adjustments to Matthew’s text in v.27. In Matthew we receive the cross. Here we bear the cross – and the cross is our own. It is personalized and something we actively own and carry on a continuing basis. The last part there is serious – not being a disciple is always an open option. We will see this later in John 13 where Peter refuses to let Jesus wash his feet and Jesus responds by telling Peter, essentially, ‘either I do this or you’re not my disciple anymore.’ You can decide at any time that selling possessions, carrying crosses, loving enemies, ‘hating’ your own life, healing the sick, and preaching the Gospel are more than you can do. Just know that means you are choosing not to be a disciple anymore.

So it is a good idea to count the cost and decide if you have the wherewithal for this sort of thing. Of course, we have the Holy Spirit to help us, to empower us, to give us the resources we need to pay what it costs to follow Jesus. However you take this passage, I hope you see that the way Jesus calls us to live is most appropriately called salty. The life of a disciple is one of great flavor – the sort of flavor that makes other flavors more noticeable and enjoyable. As disciples, we bring flavor to life and help bring out all the flavors life has to offer. It might seem strange that such flavorful results spring from so much self-sacrifice, but if you think about it, I think you will understand it makes perfect sense.

New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale HousePublishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.