Presented to Corps 614 Regent Park
and The Warehouse Mission, Toronto, 22 January 2017 by Captain Michael
Ramsay
In the weeks leading up to St. Valentine`s Day Susan thought
it good that we look at ‘love’ in the Scriptures. Last week she spoke about The
Greatest Commandment, “The
most important one,” [says] Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel:
The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love
your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than
these” (Mark 12:29-31). Susan also spoke to parable of the
Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37).
We looked at Mark and Luke last week. This upcoming Wednesday
is Robbie Burns Day and the Scots have a great tradition of shepherding; so I
though that today would look at how Jesus, according to Matthew, defines love
in terms of sheep in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew 12:7-15, that we read earlier
records:
7 If you had known what these words mean,
‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have
condemned the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
9 Going on from
that place, he went into their synagogue, 10 and a man with
a shrivelled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against
Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on
the Sabbath?”
11 He said to
them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the
Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is
a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the
Sabbath.”
13 Then he said
to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he
stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. 14 But the
Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.
15 Aware of this,
Jesus withdrew from that place. A large crowd followed him, and he healed all
who were ill.
This is the first of the 3 sheep love stories that we have today.
Mercy is defined as love and this exchange is neat. Jesus has just been accused
of breaking the law. He has been accused on working on Saturday, on the Sabbath,
which is prohibited then and there.
He
responds by quoting Hosea 6:6 and then he proceeds to provoke his rivals by not
only continuing to work on the Sabbath but also by doing so right in synagogue
(their near equivalent of church) for everyone to see. It would be like if a
police officer ticketed you for J-walking and then when he was done you left him by
J-walking right over to the police station.
Jesus’ rivals take the bait and they ask him, they accuse: “Is
it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” Now, like Jesus’ adversaries, some
contemporary Christian commentators have accused Jesus of breaking
this law by working on the Sabbath. They, however, have come to the conclusion that either
it was okay for him because he was Jesus or that the law was no longer relevant
since the arrival of Jesus. This doesn’t really seem quite right. It really
doesn’t seem to be what Matthew is conveying through Jesus’ sheep speak here.
When they accused Jesus of working on the Sabbath – not
everyone was accusing Jesus, just those who had that opinion. And in Jesus time
many educated, religious, and other people had many different ideas about what
could be done on the Sabbath.
Priests
worked on the Sabbath and they did not get another Sabbath day off in lieu. Some
in that synagogue would have held that it is quite alright to heal on the
Sabbath. In Jewish communities even today, hospitals are open on Saturday.
Even then – as Jesus tells us plainly in this sheep speak - many
shepherds would save their sheep on the Sabbath. And as Matthew records Jesus
as saying elsewhere, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus did not come to abolish
the law and the prophets but to fulfil them (Mathew 5:17). Rather Jesus is showing his
accusers here that when we interpret our traditions,
our culture, and our religious practices, God’s love needs to be the centre of
it.
God’s love needs to be the centre of God’s law and God’s love needs to be the
centre of our lives. That is what Jesus is telling us here.
Some similar examples from not too distant church culture
could be when people feel unwelcome in church because of the way they are
dressed or smell. One person told me that she remembered that her family was
only allowed to sit at the back in the balcony so others wouldn’t see them
in church; I had one friend tell me once that The Salvation Army was the only
place she felt welcome because she was a single mother. Whatever rules people
have for church, they – we - really need to interpret them through the lens of love
so that we can bring people to God’s love and not turn them away from it. That
is what Christ is about and that is what we the church are supposed to be about.
This brings us to our second of our 3 Sheep love stories
today, Matthew 18:10-22:
10 “See that you do not despise one of these
little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the
face of my Father in heaven.[11]
12 “What do you think? If a man owns a
hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine
on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? 13 And if he finds it, truly
I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that
did not wander off. 14 In the same way your
Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.
15 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their
fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have
won them over.16 But if they will not listen, take one
or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony
of two or three witnesses.’17 If they still refuse to
listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the
church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
18 “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on
earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose
on earth will be loosed in heaven.
19 “Again, truly I tell you that if two of
you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.20 For
where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”
21 Then Peter
came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or
sister who sins against me? Up to seven
times?”
22 Jesus
answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but
seventy-seven times.
Jesus, Matthew records, says that if one of a flock wanders
off, you go and get them; then he explains what it means. If someone gets caught
up in sin; if someone gets stuck in a sin; you do what it takes to free them
from it because you love them. First you try to help them out by yourself like
a shepherd would try to help his sheep from a pit. Then, if you can’t help
them by yourself and you need to go get assistance from one friend or a whole bunch
of friends to help them out of sin and return them to safety, then that is what you do. You do whatever you can to help them return
and if they don’t wish to be a part of you then treat them like you would treat
pagans or tax collectors; What does it mean to treat people like tax
collectors?
Who is a
famous tax collector in the Bible? Matthew is saying, 'treat them as Jesus
treated me' – with the love God – hoping that indeed at some point they will return to the flock.
This is what the second parable for the love of sheep is telling us. And even
more Peter asks how many times must we forgive someone who sins against us,
always? Always times forever Jesus replies.
Jesus, the Church and Christians aren’t about attacking
people with random laws to punish them, we are about loving them so that they
can experience God`s salvation. The vulnerable and the little ones’ messengers
always see the face of God.
A couple of weeks ago, we got back from
Florida. We thought Heather was a good age
to go see Mickey and Minnie Mouse. We had been to
Florida before Heather was born, a long time
ago now, when Rebecca and Sarah-Grace were about her age. This time Susan,
Sarah-Grace and I went Kayaking with Manatee and Alligators.
Last time
we were in Florida we went to a gator farm where Rebecca and Sarah-Grace were allowed
to have their picture taken sitting on real alligators, holding their taped
shut mouths. They did. This was fun.
There was one thing though: there are signs everywhere in
Florida telling you not
to go near ditches, lakes, or any still water because it may have an alligator,
and not a nice tame one, waiting for you.
Rebecca, for whatever reason, just wouldn’t listen.
I was getting quite
frustrated. Every time I turned around 6 or 7 year-old Rebecca would be bolting
to look in another body of water. I kept telling her not to, not because I had
some arbitrary law that I wanted to enforce but because I loved her and I didn’t
want her to be eaten by an alligator. Sure enough, the last time 7 year-old Rebecca
went unaccompanied by any Floridian water, no sooner had I picked her up and
headed up the embankment than an alligator came out of the water right where
she was standing. We were just in time.
It is the same with us and God. That is why we are always to
forgive and to try to restore each other to holiness: not to punish or to be
mean to people but to save each other from the alligator of sin that wants to
drown us eternally. Just as I never gave up, time and time again, pulling my
daughter from the water’s edge, none of us should ever give up on anyone we
know; we need to keep pointing them to God’s love and His Salvation. That is
the point of the second of our sheep speaks today. And that brings us to our third of
Matthew’s sheep love stories - the parable of the sheep and the goats.
Matthew
25 again from Verse 31:
31 “When the Son of Man
comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on
his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be
gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from
another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on
his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say
to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your
inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of
the world. 35 For I was hungry and you
gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I
was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you
clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you
came to visit me.’
To the sheep, Verse 40: “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you
did for one of the least of these siblings of mine, you did for me.’” You are
welcome in my Kingdom. The goats, who (equally unknowingly) did not do these
things, miss out on the Kingdom. The sheep are in; the goats are out.
I
shared this story a couple of weeks ago in the café and the illustration at
staff meeting. When we
were in Florida,
we went to the Animal Kingdom in Disney World. Do you know what is the Animal
Kingdom? It is like a big zoo, nature reserve and/or safari with all the
requisite Disney charactures and rides added to it. It is quite neat.
While
Rebecca, Heather and I were visiting the petting zoo at Disney, all of a
sudden the sheep left the goats. They were all in one place and then the sheep
just split like an invisible hand was separating them. They all ran away from
the goats. Rebecca (my teenage daughter) and I noticed this and so we
decided to go stand with the sheep.
I then
spoke to Heather, my six year-old daughter, asking her if she remembered the parable of the sheep and the goats
and how they are separated. It was at this point that one of the Disney
employees must have heard part of our conversation as he told me that they do
this by themselves. He doesn’t know why but every once and a while the sheep
just separate themselves from the goats.
I
thought about that comment – that the sheep separate themselves from the goats
– and recalled Matthew 7:18, “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree
cannot bear good fruit.” This is true.
Our
actions are the fruit that broadcast to the world whether we are a good tree
and a sheep or a bad tree and a goat. If we are sheep and good trees we will naturally feed the hungry,
water the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the imprisoned. Just
like a good tree cannot produce bad fruit; so too we who love God will
naturally produce acts in keeping with repentance and salvation. God won’t make
us commit those acts against our will and we will not have to master our own
will to do those things. As we love God we will naturally show our acts of love
to God and to our neighbour just like good trees naturally produce good
fruit and good sheep naturally move from the goats.
Today,
as we have been looking at Matthew’s
Sheep Love Stories, I encourage us to that end. Let us love the Lord our
God and show mercy and forgiveness to one another. Let us seek the Lord
with all our hearts and then as we love Him and as we love our neighbour, God
will naturally transform us as easily as He separates the sheep from the goats.
Let us
pray.
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