The great comeback story of the Bible

10:01pm Wednesday, 16th November 2011

David Mansfield

I was the guest speaker at a Saturday breakfast for men at a church in a New South Wales country town.
After the talk, I returned to the table I’d been sitting at for breakfast. Most of the blokes were mingling around the coffee urn or catching up with friends at other tables. There was one man left at my table. As I sat down he smiled at me, leaned forward and said in a whisper, “Thanks for the talk and the stuff you said. I nearly gave this morning a miss but I’m glad I came.”
“Why’d you nearly give it a miss?” I asked.
He said, “I find it really hard coming along to church things. I feel like I don’t belong. The men here are really good people and I just feel so out of place. But I really enjoyed your talk.”
I was at a loss to know what to say next. There were about 50 men at the breakfast and I had been invited to the church for the weekend to give a series of talks about Christianity. There were lively conversations around the room. The men seemed at ease with each other and the setting they were in.
All men are … more or less the same.
I asked my friend to take a good look around the room. I paused while he scoped the place from one side to the next and then I said, “I’ll bet every last one of these men have, at some stage or several stages in their life, felt or feel the way you feel right now.”
“Do you really think so?” he asked.
“I’d be prepared to bet the family farm on it. I reckon that for most of these men Christianity hasn’t made sense because they’ve mistakenly thought that it’s about being good enough for God. But now I reckon they’re all on the road to seeing the very opposite. Christianity is not about being good enough for God. It’s not about trying to be good enough for God, or even trying to be good for other people. Christianity is all about being forgiven.”
We chatted for another few minutes and he told me that he went to church on Sunday night but liked to sit up the back on his own.
Sure enough, at the church service the following night he was there, keeping as low a profile as he could in the back row of seats. After the service we talked some more about how no one is good enough for God, but that through Jesus’ death and resurrection we can be forgiven as we come back to God and trust in his mercy.
He protested! What I was saying might apply to other people but not to him because I didn’t know just how far and long gone from God he was!
I counter protested! It didn’t matter how far he’d drifted away or what kind of a mess he thought he’d made of his life. God was in the business of welcoming back sinners like the both of us.
The Comeback chapter of The Bible
Chapter 15 of Luke’s Gospel is dedicated to this great theme of people coming back to God. Jesus tells three stories to illustrate the depth of love that God has for his lost and rebellious people. Each story also shows us the joy that God, and the entire population of heaven, feels when people lost to God are found and come home.
Luke Chapter 15 shows us the true heart and character of our Creator.
The scandal of the Son who cares (Luke 15:1–10)
Throughout his life Jesus scandalised the self-righteous of society by the company he kept. He didn’t care what anyone thought of him except for his Father in Heaven. He pleased his Father by spending time on the other side of the tracks. He honoured God by hanging out with the wrong crowd.
Have you ever felt embarrassed in some company? Have you ever wanted to quietly excuse yourself so that you wouldn’t be mistakenly associated with the certain people?
I was at a school reunion a few years ago. It was well into the night and I was catching up with a few blokes I hadn’t seen in over 15 years. We were at the bar reliving some old memories when the formal speeches for the evening began. A couple of these men, who’d had a few too many drinks, kept on muttering rude comments during the speeches. Sharp and indignant glances were being directed our way. I began to slide down the wall, wishing the carpet would swallow me up. I was embarrassed to be seen in the company of those behaving in a rude and offensive way.
The company Jesus keeps
At the beginning of Luke 15 we are introduced to the company Jesus keeps:
“Now the tax collectors and ‘sinners’ were all gathering around to hear him.” (Luke 15:1)
Tax collectors were traitors. They were opportunistic Jews employed by the oppressive Roman regime to collect taxes from fellow Jews. Tax collectors were also crooks, slyly inflating the tax to cream off as much as they could get away with.
“Sinners” was a blanket description for all manner of “low life” with a reputation for openly living outside the Jewish law. Petty thieves and prostitutes were among this lot.
A former Australian Prime Minister called people who were profiting from the plight of refugees and sending them on risky voyages in overcrowded, unsafe boats, “the scum of the earth,” who should rot in hell.
It was the scum of the earth in Jesus’ day that gladly heard his message. He was unashamed to be in their company. In fact, such was his habit that the gossip was all over town:
“Here is a glutton and drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and ‘sinners’.” (Luke 7:34)
“But the Pharisees and teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them’.” (Luke 15:2).
Like a badge of honour
The insulting labels of glutton and drunkard were slanderous. But being a welcoming friend of tax collectors and sinners was a label that he wore like a badge of honour.
Scum of the earth they were. In need of grace and forgiveness they were. This is the scandal of the son who cares. He loves people who deserve to rot in hell. He came for people like them, people like people-traffickers, people like me, people like you and people like Australian Prime Ministers. The Bible is quite clear about this:
“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” (1 Timothy 1:15)
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17)
To challenge the callous indifference and high moral hypocrisy of the religious elite, Jesus tells a simple story to illustrate the joy of heaven when scumbag sinners come back to their Creator.
The search for lost things
The character in this story is a farmer. Why is the farmer filled with joy? What brings about the ecstatic impulse to throw a party?
One sheep is lost. One out of a hundred. He still has 99 good’uns. It’s a one percent loss. Any agricultural enterprise could absorb that kind of loss. Farmers are surviving setbacks much larger than that from one drought and locust plague to the next. Play the percentage game and one stupid ewe can hardly be described as a bad day at the office.
In fact, if he just stopped for a break and boiled the billy, by the time he was back to work one of his pregnant sheep may have birthed a spring lamb. He’d be even by lunchtime and in the black by day’s end. Why the fuss?
The fuss is because sheep to a shepherd in Jesus’ day were much more than stock items. They were known by name. They were like pets. They were valued almost like family. Something of great value was lost. Searching was a matter of urgency. Rescue a matter of great celebration.
Greater the value, longer the search
How much time do we give to searching for lost things? It depends on the value of what we lose, doesn’t it? How much time for a golf tee? What about a golf ball? A little longer? What about a set of false teeth, a watch or a wedding ring? We’d turn the house upside down! What about a family pet? We’d scour the neighbourhood for days!
What if we lost a child? We’d never stop looking, would we? We’d go mad looking. We’d think we saw our child in the face of every child we walked past in the street.
Jesus is saying that we belong to God, are valued and loved by God, but are lost to God. We are like senseless straying sheep. We have wandered far from God, and far from living obediently in that relationship he created us to enjoy with him.
For some of us it has been an unconscious or semi¬conscious drift into a lifestyle that is too busy for God. For others it may have been a far more deliberate rejection of God’s claim on our allegiance.
If we are really honest and stop long enough to analyse it, this passive (or more aggressive) rejection of God is hardly radical or thoughtful behaviour. More often than not, we’ve just followed others in a very sheep-like way!
Scandalous scum lover
But see the love of the shepherd for the sheep? It’s the love of Jesus for “scum of the earth” sinners like us. He came to search for and rescue us. No matter how far we’ve strayed, how long we’ve resisted, how low we’ve stooped, or even how high and mighty and precious we’ve pretended to be, he lovingly calls us back. And when we return it’s party time in heaven:
“I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” (Luke 15:7)
This is the scandal of the son who cares: he loves the scum of the earth. But even more of a scandal may be this: he loves the self-righteous religious leaders and stuck-up so-called pillars of society who write the scumbags off or want them to rot in hell.
All people, without prejudice, the scum of society and the self-righteous religious, are loved and called to come back!
This is the message of the great comeback chapter and story of the Bible. This is the message for my friend at that Saturday morning breakfast. This is the message for all humanity, regardless of status or shame, distance or closeness, background or pedigree.
He is calling you, and he is calling me. He is calling us to come back. He is calling us to come home.

This is an edited extract of chapter 5 from David Mansfield’s book, ‘Everyone Loves a Good Comeback’ (Australia, 2010).
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Café

The great comeback story of the Bible