Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven
over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no
repentance. (Luke 15:7)
So, in Jesus’s kingdom it’s
counter-intuitive. The most
disadvantageous thing you can be is righteous -- even if you are in an
overwhelming majority of people who see themselves that way. Martin Luther realised that one day, in a
burst of inspiration which radically changed his life, and changed western
Christianity. After years of trying his
hardest to be righteous, sincerely striving to do what he believed God required
-- and generally failing – it dawned on him, in the writings of St Paul, that
God was not seeing Martin Luther in the way he was seeing himself.
Jesus makes this remark about
what gives pleasure in heaven, to explain the parable of the lost sheep, and
the parable of the lost coin. It is the
one that is lost that is the issue, that is occupying God’s attention. Then Jesus goes right on with the best-known parable
of the lost son, the so-called prodigal son.
The boy’s older brother speaks eloquently for the 99 righteous: All
these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never
disobeyed your command… He believes
he has earned his status, by what he has done and by who he is. He is probably right. Most righteous people are not self-righteous
hypocrites. The chances are they, or we,
are genuinely good and sincere people, possibly also generous and hospitable.
The father however is preoccupied
with the younger son who has turned around and come home, humbled and
penniless. The shepherd has carried the
lost sheep home, on his back, rejoicing.
The woman has run out to her friends and neighbours to tell them, I have found the coin that I had lost.
So there is something we need to
understand about God. It is not what we
thought. If recognising and rewarding
virtue and achievement is what we expected, then we are out of luck. God, whom Jesus called Father, is somehow
absent from the prizegiving, watching instead for the one who has got lost, the
one who has made stupid mistakes, all his own fault, getting what he deserves, the
one who has been told 100 times… It’s
not the sins and errors and calamities that are counted, but the µετανοια, the
turning around, choosing mercy and change.
Pope Francis has declared the
Year of Mercy. The title of his book is,
The Name of God is Mercy. Auckland minister Mike Riddell writes: Mercy is an incisive scalpel that divides religion from faith, piety from
pity, judgement from compassion. The
song of the angels, Jesus informs us, is not so much about all the righteous –
it is much more about the one who is turning around.
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