Perspective: Celebration in Heaven

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Celebration in Heaven

The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to [Jesus'] disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?"  Jesus answered, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance."

Luke 5:30-32 (NRSV)

I left the ninety-nine to find the one

And you're the one

I walked a thousand miles in this desert sun

Only to bring you back

From "To Bring You Back" by Paul Alan

People spend a lot of time trying to figure out what Bible really means, but I think that sometimes the Bible reads us more than we read it.  St. James compares the words of God to a mirror, showing us profound truths about ourselves.¹  Personally, I would compare the Bible to a Rorschach test, for what we read into the text perhaps tells us more about ourselves than about anything else.  At the right time, even a passage that is totally familiar to us has a way of reaching out and grabbing us.  I think this is especially true about Jesus' parables.

Jesus repeatedly came into conflict with the good, upstanding religious people of His day, namely the Pharisees and the religious scholars.  One point of contention was the type of people with whom Jesus associated - tax collectors, prostitutes, and other kinds of "sinners."  One day, Jesus heard people's murmurings about the company He kept, so He told them a story - a parable - about a shepherd who noticed that one of his hundred sheep was missing.  He went out to search for the missing one, leaving the other ninety-nine in the wilderness.  When he finally found the missing sheep, he put it on his shoulders, joyfully took it back to the rest of the flock, and called his friends over for a celebration.²

Jesus then made a statement I find rather offensive: "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."³

To drive this point home, Jesus went on to tell a story about two brothers, the younger of which approached his father and demanded his share of the family fortune.  After he received his inheritance, he moved away and squandered it all on a life of wine, women, and song.  He fell on hard times, and, when he reached the end of his rope, he decided to go home to apologize to his father and to beg to work as one of the household staff.  When he came home, his father wouldn't even listen to his apology but instead threw him a welcome home party.  The older brother, who stayed at home and did everything he thought his father expected of him, was livid that his wastrel of a brother got a party while his own faithfulness apparently went unappreciated.⁴

Jesus' statement offends me because it makes me feel like chopped liver, like the older son who had to watch his badly-behaved brother's party while his own good behavior went unnoticed.  I have heard the Parable of the Prodigal Son many times over the years, and I have always identified with the older brother.  If I had to identify with one of the sheep in the previous story, I would probably count myself among the ninety-nine who stayed with the shepherd.⁵  Though I cannot say that I've never made any mistakes in my life, I have managed to not mess up my life to any serious extent.  On top of that, I am a devoutly religious person, and I know my way around the Bible.  If I was a first century Jew and not a twenty-first century Christian, then I would probably have the makings of a good Pharisee.

Total screw-ups who turn over a new leaf and get their lives back on track get all the attention.  After all, who doesn't love to hear a good redemption story.  On the other hand, those of us who have kept our noses clean and stayed out of trouble are hardly recognized at all, except for the occasional pat on the back.  Our good behavior is not really rewarded or celebrated: it's just taken for granted.  There is celebration in Heaven for the repentant, but those of us who have been good the whole time have to settle for a measly pity party.

If you are a Type A religious person whose initial reaction to Jesus' words is to angrily call BS, then you're probably on your way to understanding God's grace.

As my initial outrage over Jesus' words starts to subside, I begin to wonder who I think I am to consider myself righteous.  I might be reasonably well behaved, but I am by no means righteous.  Were the religious people of Jesus' day righteous?  Is anybody righteous?  St. Paul laments, "There is no one who is righteous, not even one."⁶  I'm beginning to think that maybe Jesus was being somewhat sarcastic when he spoke of "righteous persons who need no repentance."  I think that maybe He was actually referring self-righteous persons who think they need no repentance.

Jesus once said to the religious leaders, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you."⁷  With that in mind, which people are really lost, the people who mess up their lives or the people who think they can do no wrong?  Reflecting on the family dynamics at work in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, preacher Kent Dobson recently said, "Maybe the one you've lost is sleeping in your own house."⁸

Many Christians believe that humans are evil by nature.  Personally, I don't see how anybody can say that humans are naturally evil if we are all created in the Imago Dei, the Image of God, as we read in the Bible.⁹  I don't believe that humans are naturally evil, but I do believe that the divine image we bear has been corrupted and distorted by sin - but not beyond repair.

A lot of people understand Salvation to be a one-time transaction that changes a person's eternal destiny.  Personally, I believe that Salvation is a lifelong process, an ongoing effort on God's part to restore the divine image we all bear.  God never stops tugging at our hearts, so we must never stop repenting and allowing ourselves to be transformed by God's grace.  None of us are truly righteous: all of us, including those who call themselves "saved," are still sinners in need of ongoing repentance and transformation.

Perhaps there would have been a celebration in Heaven if the scribes and Pharisees had begun to see people the way Jesus saw them.  Perhaps there's celebration in Heaven whenever any of us come to our senses about anything.  Perhaps there's an occasion to celebrate whenever the image of God we bear becomes a little bit clearer.


Notes:

1. James 1:22-25
2. Luke 15:1-6
3. Luke 15:7 (NRSV)
4. Luke 15:11-32
5. most of the time, anyway
6. Romans 3:10 (NRSV)
7. Matthew 21:31 (NRSV)
8. Kent Dobson.  "Parables: Prodigal Son."  Mars Hill Bible Church podcast, 06/21/2015.
9. Genesis 1:27

The photograph of the flock of sheep was provided by the Agricultural Research Service and is public domain.