“Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.”
Today is part two of a three-part series exploring the themes of the Triennium Youth Conference. Today we’re talking about sin. You should be glad to know we talked about sin. We didn’t shy away from it. We talked about sin as a thing we do, but also as an orientation and as a system.
We sang, “O to grace, how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be. Let thy goodness like a fetter, bind my wand'ring heart to Thee. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for Thy courts above”
I love that tune. I even loved singing In an Age of Twisted Values to the same tune earlier this morning. Now, I know what some of you are thinking. You’re thinking, “Didn’t we do the whole sin and repentance thing in Lent? Isn’t the prayer of confession at the beginning of the service enough? It’s kind of like a “mini Lent” even Sunday anyway, right?”
Sure, none of us come to church to get beat up. Sure, we need some blessed assurance every now and again, yet these words still resonate: we are prone to wander. We are indebted to grace. In fact, if it were our own choosing, we would choose ourselves and those like us any chance we got. That’s why we say that our baptism is not just entrance into the family of God, it is a sign that we have been sealed into the covenant of grace and mercy by God.
That’s the good Presbyterian Christian answer to the question of involvement with sin, but how did Jesus answer it? He told stories. In our readings today we hear three stories about being lost and being found. Most of us have heard these stories a million times, but something you may not have thought of is why he told these stories.
That’s the good Presbyterian Christian answer to the question of involvement with sin, but how did Jesus answer it? He told stories. In our readings today we hear three stories about being lost and being found. Most of us have heard these stories a million times, but something you may not have thought of is why he told these stories.
Jesus had just been the invited guest of a Pharisee – a keeper of the law of Moses, one of the good guys, right? In that dinner, he gave an etiquette lesson warning about choosing places of importance for yourself, and he told stories about throwing banquets for the poor and discipleship that included a cross. I’m thinking that was an awkward dinner party. No wonder he was heckled once he left. “What a hack! That guy eats with sinners and tax collectors!”
Jesus responded to the crowd that had begun to follow him as if he were a rock star stage diving into their midst. He told them three stories about being lost and found. First, he spoke of the sheep because they had all heard this story from at least someone, “Ugh. I had them all together in one place. Then I counted 99. Of course, I had to go find the other one.” That’s what it’s like in heaven when one sinner repents!
Something I noticed in reading this text that I had not noticed before is the way Jesus talks about the 99 as “not needing repentance.” Somehow I doubt that. Somehow I wonder if saying they did not need it was a bit of a “slow burn” for those who think that they are without sin. Somehow I think the idea is that any of us could be the one in need of rescue, especially if we think that we are one of the ones who have no need of repentance. Mostly that’s because we aren’t sheep.
That’s why Jesus takes it a step further. “What about a woman who has lost her coin?” he says. Then she searches for that coin as though it were a life and death scenario because it probably was. Some say the coin was part of a dowry and strung on a necklace to be kept in the event that she ended up widowed. Regardless, it was certainly part of her safety net for times of trouble. Jesus told this story to let us know that we are sought by God because our lives matter!
Knowing that we may wander and that our lives matter wasn’t enough for Jesus, though. He needed to bring it home. He needed to make it real, so he told the story of the lost brothers. That’s how they framed it at Triennium, and I’m thankful for it. We always talk about the “lostness” and the squandering of the “prodigal son,” but the character that most of us really identify with is the elder brother. His “lostness” is often our “lostness” when we can’t separate sin from individual action. We are lost in our own sin when we can’t see the systems that we participate in that cause distance between us and God, between us and one another, between us and God’s creation!
It’s unsettling to think that this parable ends without resolution. We don’t know what the elder brother will do. We only know the promise of the Father. “My son, all that I have is yours.” Will he wander? Will we?
The core of all of this today is the Biblical truth that we are prone to wander, but that is not the end of the story. Our story includes a constant call to repent, a constant call to recognize how and where we have circled the wagons, because it takes too much work to do anything about poverty or gun violence or any of those things we sang about earlier this morning – really anything that impacts those more vulnerable than we already are. Limiting our own vulnerability is kind of what we do to survive.
Yet we are called today to repent of the sin of neglecting those who are outside of our circle. More than that, our repentance will restore us in good and right relationships, and it will move us from mourning into a celebration every single time.
I want to share with you one more story of repentance and restoration and celebration. Robert Robinson is the author of the hymn, Come Thou Fount. He was not exactly the kind of guy you might have thought of when I said, “the author of the hymn.” I don’t know what kind of person you might think writes hymns, but I’m betting it wasn’t him.
He was born in England in the 1800s. His father died young, and he had to work at an early age. He fell into a rough crowd, and the story goes that they found an old gypsy woman and forced her to drink in hopes of free fortunes. She told him he would live to see his grandchildren, which was actually a sobering thought for a young man that thought he might die young like his father.
Robert grabbed his crew and took them to a revival, telling them that they might heckle the preacher. Well, George Whitefield was not a man to be heckled, and young Robert was converted. He later became a Methodist Pastor, and after that, he became a Baptist Pastor. Somewhere in his religious fervor, he wrote the hymn we know and love, but that wasn’t the end of his story, either.
Eventually, he had some form of falling out with the Baptists and left the ministry altogether. Years later, he somehow he ended up in Paris and happened to be riding in a stagecoach with a young woman who was humming the tune to the hymn he wrote. He asked her if she knew the words, and she did. She said that it was a favorite of hers and asked if he knew it.
Jesus responded to the crowd that had begun to follow him as if he were a rock star stage diving into their midst. He told them three stories about being lost and found. First, he spoke of the sheep because they had all heard this story from at least someone, “Ugh. I had them all together in one place. Then I counted 99. Of course, I had to go find the other one.” That’s what it’s like in heaven when one sinner repents!
Something I noticed in reading this text that I had not noticed before is the way Jesus talks about the 99 as “not needing repentance.” Somehow I doubt that. Somehow I wonder if saying they did not need it was a bit of a “slow burn” for those who think that they are without sin. Somehow I think the idea is that any of us could be the one in need of rescue, especially if we think that we are one of the ones who have no need of repentance. Mostly that’s because we aren’t sheep.
That’s why Jesus takes it a step further. “What about a woman who has lost her coin?” he says. Then she searches for that coin as though it were a life and death scenario because it probably was. Some say the coin was part of a dowry and strung on a necklace to be kept in the event that she ended up widowed. Regardless, it was certainly part of her safety net for times of trouble. Jesus told this story to let us know that we are sought by God because our lives matter!
Knowing that we may wander and that our lives matter wasn’t enough for Jesus, though. He needed to bring it home. He needed to make it real, so he told the story of the lost brothers. That’s how they framed it at Triennium, and I’m thankful for it. We always talk about the “lostness” and the squandering of the “prodigal son,” but the character that most of us really identify with is the elder brother. His “lostness” is often our “lostness” when we can’t separate sin from individual action. We are lost in our own sin when we can’t see the systems that we participate in that cause distance between us and God, between us and one another, between us and God’s creation!
It’s unsettling to think that this parable ends without resolution. We don’t know what the elder brother will do. We only know the promise of the Father. “My son, all that I have is yours.” Will he wander? Will we?
The core of all of this today is the Biblical truth that we are prone to wander, but that is not the end of the story. Our story includes a constant call to repent, a constant call to recognize how and where we have circled the wagons, because it takes too much work to do anything about poverty or gun violence or any of those things we sang about earlier this morning – really anything that impacts those more vulnerable than we already are. Limiting our own vulnerability is kind of what we do to survive.
Yet we are called today to repent of the sin of neglecting those who are outside of our circle. More than that, our repentance will restore us in good and right relationships, and it will move us from mourning into a celebration every single time.
I want to share with you one more story of repentance and restoration and celebration. Robert Robinson is the author of the hymn, Come Thou Fount. He was not exactly the kind of guy you might have thought of when I said, “the author of the hymn.” I don’t know what kind of person you might think writes hymns, but I’m betting it wasn’t him.
He was born in England in the 1800s. His father died young, and he had to work at an early age. He fell into a rough crowd, and the story goes that they found an old gypsy woman and forced her to drink in hopes of free fortunes. She told him he would live to see his grandchildren, which was actually a sobering thought for a young man that thought he might die young like his father.
Robert grabbed his crew and took them to a revival, telling them that they might heckle the preacher. Well, George Whitefield was not a man to be heckled, and young Robert was converted. He later became a Methodist Pastor, and after that, he became a Baptist Pastor. Somewhere in his religious fervor, he wrote the hymn we know and love, but that wasn’t the end of his story, either.
Eventually, he had some form of falling out with the Baptists and left the ministry altogether. Years later, he somehow he ended up in Paris and happened to be riding in a stagecoach with a young woman who was humming the tune to the hymn he wrote. He asked her if she knew the words, and she did. She said that it was a favorite of hers and asked if he knew it.
The story goes that he said, “Know it? I wrote it, and I would give a thousand words to feel as I did when I wrote it so long ago!” Some say that the woman answered him with the invitation to the song. “Streams of mercy, never ceasing are even flowing in the streets of Paris tonight!”
We do not know, and how could we know, how deeply this must have affected him. What we do know is that heaven rejoiced when he realized the invitation was not his own, not her own, but from God alone.
Here’s what we know about all of this:
We are not alone, even when we choose to be. You still matter to the One who is always seeking for you. When we realize that we are not alone, it gives us the courage to repent and see where we are lost and how we are dependent on God’s grace. When we feel the embrace of God, we realize that what we have to invite others into is not our own.
In the hymn, we sing that we are “raising our Ebenezer.” That means that we are claiming this place as a space that reminds us that God is with us in all of our places and spaces. As we continue to grow and challenge one another, let us think of this place as a reminder that we each have value, that God seeking us whenever we feel lost, and that we are called to do the same for the vulnerable ones in our midst. Amen!
We do not know, and how could we know, how deeply this must have affected him. What we do know is that heaven rejoiced when he realized the invitation was not his own, not her own, but from God alone.
Here’s what we know about all of this:
We are not alone, even when we choose to be. You still matter to the One who is always seeking for you. When we realize that we are not alone, it gives us the courage to repent and see where we are lost and how we are dependent on God’s grace. When we feel the embrace of God, we realize that what we have to invite others into is not our own.
In the hymn, we sing that we are “raising our Ebenezer.” That means that we are claiming this place as a space that reminds us that God is with us in all of our places and spaces. As we continue to grow and challenge one another, let us think of this place as a reminder that we each have value, that God seeking us whenever we feel lost, and that we are called to do the same for the vulnerable ones in our midst. Amen!
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