Whom the Lord Treasures
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“There is a way that seems right to a man,” wise King Solomon begins his warning—twice, mind you—in the book of Proverbs, “but its end is the way of death.” He instructs those who would be wise that those things that seem right to us are all too often simply outlets for the most destructive of our tendencies; leading to misery, pain, and ultimately death. From the most ancient times, those who have followed the wisdom of our Lord have recognized that God’s way is not our way. That applies to several areas of our lives, if not all of them. Jesus Himself spent years trying to show this truth to His disciples. He demonstrated it in the Sermon on the Mount, where He showed what a life that follows His own life will look like—radically different from those lived purely in and for the world. He showed it in His parables with lessons surprising and counter to all worldly understanding. And today in our Gospel reading Jesus’ disciples need this revealed to them to again, as they test the waters with the question, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
This question sets off a long discourse from Jesus that covers what appears to be several different, perhaps unrelated topics. Indeed, Jesus does cover a lot of ground discussing what a life of faith that follows Him looks like—everything from the broad question of who’s greatest to interpersonal conflicts between believers to the activities of angels. But one truth connects all these ideas: God cares about every single one—even the least, the unimportant, the outsider, and the lost cause.
Take for example Jesus’ response to the disciples’ question about ranking in the kingdom of heaven. We heard, “Calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, ‘Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’” For us in the 21st century, this is a lovely image. It appeals to our general affection for children and our protective sensibilities for them. But it was not so back then. Children were not viewed in such an adored light. They were, at best, nuisances, banished far away from the daily activities that were necessary just to keep things going to stay alive. At worst, they were mouths to feed. If someone was lucky, they would raise healthy children that could be married off to successful spouses, or given as an apprentice to a master in exchange for some needed goods or money. And so Jesus’ words—that someone must become like a child to be greatest in the kingdom of heaven—were shocking to His hearers. Become as children? Not contributing? Not working? Being in a continual state of receiving and needing to be cared for? And yet this is the proper description of those who are lifted up in God’s kingdom. Faith—that is, receiving God’s gifts as gifts, being granted all that is Jesus’ simply through trust in our heavenly Father, that He wants to give this all to you because He loves you—that is what makes someone great in the kingdom of heaven. That is how they enter the kingdom, that is how they receive everything good.
Thus Jesus begins His lesson about how God cares for the smallest, the least important. “See that you do not despise one of these little ones,” He says—not to be mindful of the great ones or to go out of our way to make the powerful and rich and strong our allies; but the little ones—“For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven.” And then Jesus sets out what is actually a terrible business model, in the ways that seem right to mortals. “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than the ninety-nine that never went astray.” It makes no worldly sense to risk the fate of 99 out of a hundred sheep, left on their own in the mountains, in order to chase down one that has gone astray. The world would say to chalk up the loss as simply part of the price of doing business in shepherding. There’s bound to be losses, and if it was a sheep that was foolish enough to wander away, so be it. And yet, Jesus shows that the world’s way of assessing and counting is not God’s: “So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”
That sits well with us, for who of us hasn’t imagined ourselves as the lost sheep in need of rescuing? But then—and this is where it gets very difficult for us—Jesus makes the point that because the least of these, even the least of the lost ones, is important to God, they should be important to us too. “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.” You are not permitted to write off anyone, not even those who have sinned against you, nor those you have sinned against. You are to do what your Lord has done for the lost sheep. You are to go out of your way to gain back your brother, just as your Lord has gone out of His way to get back all of the little ones; just as the Good Shepherd has left the 99 to search out the one sheep that’s gone astray. That means no silent treatment, no passive aggression, no ignoring or acting as if they don’t exist or are dead to you. And, to make it even clearer that your God values these little lost ones, Jesus continues. You’re not allowed to give up after just one face-to-face conversation either. “But if he does not listen to you, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.” And even then, if you’ve not accomplished your heavenly Father’s goal of gaining your brother, you are to go a step further. “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.” Only then, if he refuses to hear even the Church, are they then to be treated as a Gentile and tax collector, hearing the proclamation of the Lord through the Scriptures and preaching alone until they can be restored through repentance and forgiveness to a closer fellowship.
It’s not only the sheep that never wander that Lord is interested in. It’s not only the people who have never sinned against you or any of God’s people who are to receive reconciliation and mercy. It’s not only the big and powerful and impressive and important who are to receive our attention. It’s the little ones, the broken ones, the lost, the hurt, the dependent. To drive this home, our Lord closes this entire sweeping discussion by saying, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.” He doesn’t say, “Where two or three hundred are gathered,” or even “two or three dozen.” It’s two or three. Small, tiny, what the world would call insignificant. But they are not insignificant, for the Lord Himself is there with them. It’s there, in this small collection of the Lord’s Church, the collection of the little ones, the weak ones, the fragile ones, the ones the world counted as lost causes and worthless, it’s here that Jesus is present, giving us the gift of binding and loosing sins. It’s here that He promises whatever two of us agree to pray for, He will grant. It’s here that He’s truly present, not just in spirit or in some other vague way, but in His body and blood, seeking out all the strays, all of us children, all of us that the world would write off. But not your Lord. He’s sought you out. He’s assigned His angels to watch over you. He’s opened your eyes to see the great value that He places on you and on every one of your little, hurt, straying, even sinning neighbors. Here He is among you. In the name of Jesus, who seeks all of us strays. Amen.
