As the branch is to the vine, I am His and He is mine,
Union, this type of intimate communion or fellowship is our theme for today.
Our Gospel Reading says tax collectors and sinners were drawing near to hear Jesus. They were drawn to be in fellowship with Jesus. They would be singing of Him with us
Love that found me wondrous thought – Found me when I sought Him not
They desired to be with Him and hear Him because they recognized He wanted to be with them.
He, He, this One and Only Jesus who can impart balm to heal the wounded heart.
I.
Chief of sinners though I be, Jesus shed His blood for me.
I am that Chief of Sinners, yet Jesus shed His blood for me.
Jesus receives me and eats with me.
As a steward of God’s mysteries I am to preach the Gospel and administer the Sacraments. To proclaim that Jesus shed His blood for you,
And now, take and drink this blood shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins.
Receive it in faith that you, though you are a sinner, and that you’re singing right along with me, pointing at yourself and saying I am the Chief of Sinners, you are forgiven by Jesus, He receives you and eats with you,
But there’s another way of thinking, a different pronoun:
the Pharisees and scribes grumbled because Jesus receives sinners and eats with them –
How often do you think like that?
Them?
Him?
Her?
When have you been tempted to think that or say that?
It could have been a fight in your family, or just you saying in disbelief and confusion,
“I don’t understand him. I don’t get her. I don’t know what they are thinking?”
It could have been when you were deeply hurt, and that they, he, she did this to you.
It could be a honest Christian question: that you as a Christian don’t understand how they, non Christians, can have comfort and peace in times of trouble or death.
We also know that great evil has been done in history when one group is an us and another is a them.
The devil does a great job of stirring up sin and sin divides:
Sin divides us from God.
Adam and Eve, beautiful communion and unity and fellowship with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in the garden, once they sin, then are afraid of God and run and hide from Him.
Sin divides us from each other.
Once sin enter the world, we can see how Adam separated himself from protecting Eve from the devils temptation and then starts to blame her,
Their children, Cain and Abel, become a story of separation of thought, word and deed,
Coveting, jealousy, anger, apathy, “Am I my brother’s keepers?” and ending in murder.
Sin divides
My will vs. God’s will.
Me vs. them.
We vs. them.
We Pharisees and scribes vs them sinners and tax collectors and apparently this Jesus who eats with them.
We righteous ones and them unrighteous ones.
We Chiefs of Sinners, but we’re really not that bad, vs them really bad chiefs of sinners, we actually do mean that when we talk about them.
Now, before we get to the great comforting truth that our Jesus is the great uniter – a beautiful truth.
We all made in the image of God – fearfully and wonderfully so –
We all fall short of the glory of God and are justified by God’s grace through the redemption in Christ Jesus.
We are all a part of a world that God so loved, o that wondrous thought, found me even when I sought Him not.
And we Christians are all one body, though many members.
We though many branches, all receive our life from the one vine.
We are not divided – with God or with each other.
Fellowship and communion with God and with each other.
It’s a beautiful truth and we must get there, but we must consider Jesus as a divider, too.
Jesus speaks about when He comes to judge the living and the dead that He will separate the sheep from the goats. He’ll divide them.
Jesus says another time, “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” (Luke 12:51)
The Lord through St. John in his First Epistle does say a you and we vs. a them. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is great than He who is the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us.
And our Gospel lesson has a division in it, doesn’t it?
Sinners and tax collectors are all drawing near to hear Jesus while the Pharisees and scribes divide themselves away from Him and them.
And then there’s that one sinner who repents that is the cause for angels rejoicing and joy in heaven vs. them 99 who think they need no repentance.”
That’s where all division comes.
The lack of repentance.
That’s why angels rejoice when the Holy Spirit works in us repentance again today –
Recognizing the times when it’s been me vs. God –
Me not believing that God’s commandments are what’s best for me.
Me not believing that God’s promises are enough for me.
All the times when it’s been me vs my neighbor, me vs him or me vs her.
All the times when it’s been me trying to create an incomplete unity, we vs them.
We’re the dividers, so it’s not by our own reason or strength we can be the uniters.
Only Jesus can impart balm to heal all the wounded hearts.
Because Jesus is the only great uniter.
We are either for Him or against Him.
And the way that He gets us to be for Him again today is to preach to us this amazingly good news that He is for us, us sinners, Jesus receives us and eats with us.
Jesus receives you, He shed His blood for you, He unites Himself to you, He forgives you.
You can recall the sins that you do well to hide from everyone except Him and rejoices in repentance that Jesus receives you.
You can recall the sins that you do well to hide from everyone except Him and those closest to you and rejoice in repentance that Jesus receives you.
You can recall the sins that you could not hide, perhaps open shame, and begin again not to care what they think of you but rejoice in repentance that He receives you and eats with you.
In His body you find unity and completeness between you and God.
And in His body, do two different thems or twenty different thems ever become one.
Ephesians 2 says Jesus Himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility…and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross.
Today, He sustains me and you and our hidden life of faith.
Faith that doesn’t hold back repentance because we believe He receives even us.