Proper 19 - 2025

Sermon for Proper 19, Year C
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
The Rev. Andrew McLarty

If you’ve ever been around a small child who has just learned the power of the word “no,” or if you’ve been that child yourself (and I suspect we all have), you know a fundamental truth about human nature: we have a deep, innate desire to be right. To have our way. To win.

This desire doesn’t leave us as we grow up; it just becomes more sophisticated. It shows up in our daily conversations, online posts, political arguments, our family disputes, and yes, even in our life together in the church. We learn to imbue our positions with logic, precedence, and even lines of scripture, but often, at the core there is the same toddler impulse: I am right, and you are wrong.

Our readings today from 1 Timothy and the Gospel of Luke speak directly into this human condition, offering us a different way of being — to be grounded not in being right, but being grounded in grace.

In 1 Timothy, the writer gives testimony to the grace of God in his own life. “I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence,” he says. He has been objectively wrong, profoundly, destructively wrong. He was so convinced of his own rightness that he dedicated his life to opposing the people of God.

But then, something happened. Or rather, Someone happened. “But I received mercy,” he writes, “because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief. The grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.” His entire identity was rewritten. He was no longer “The Righteous Persecutor” but “The Mercifully Forgiven.” His story was no longer about his own correctness, but about Christ’s love. His life became a parable of grace.

In Luke, we find Jesus surrounded by the very people the “righteous” religious leaders loved to hate: tax collectors and sinners. The Pharisees and scribes are murmuring. They are, in their own minds, right. And technically, by the letter of the law, they are. These people welcomed by Jesus are sinners. But their rightness has made them hard of heart. It has closed them off to joy, to celebration, to the very heart of God.

So Jesus tells them two stories: one about a lost sheep, and one about a lost coin. The lesson is the same in both. Which one of you, if you lost a sheep or a tenth of your wealth wouldn't stop what you were doing to find the missing part? You would. And when you found it, you wouldn’t scold it for being wrong. You wouldn’t berate it for its poor life choices. You would rejoice! You would call your friends and neighbors and say, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found what was lost!’

The economy of heaven is not based on our rightness, but on God’s redeeming love. The shepherd’s primary concern isn’t the morality of the sheep, but its restoration. Just like Paul’s primary identity isn’t his former error, but his present mercy.

The message for us is both challenging and comforting.

The message is challenging because it calls us to lay down the weapon of our own "rightness." In our families, in our community, and especially in the church, we are invited to stop keeping score. We are called to seek reconciliation, not victory. To ask, “How can we restore this relationship?” rather than, “How can I prove my point?” The goal is not to have ninety-nine pristine sheep, but to have the whole flock together.

And the message is comforting because we all know what it is to be the one who is lost. The one who has made a mess of things. The one who has been wrong, or who has been told we are wrong. Luke tells us that God’s love is not a reward for those who never stray. It is the relentless, searching, rejoicing love of a shepherd who will not rest until every last one is brought home.

We are all, every one of us, the beneficiary of that overflowing grace that Paul describes. We are the lost sheep. We are the lost coin. We have been discovered after a diligent search. Our lives are not monuments to our own impeccable judgment, but testimonies to God’s perfect patience.

So, let us go from this place, not to prove we are right, but to prove we are merciful. Not to win arguments, but to restore relationships. Not to be like the murmuring Pharisees on the sidelines, but to join the party, the celebration that heaven throws every single time one of us—when any of us—turns away from being lost and is found.

Amen.