What makes God happy? --Perhaps I should ask, what makes God the happiest?”

    Is it seeing people build to the divine glory a great cathedral? --That might have been the answer back in the Middle Ages.  Or is the Lord most pleased when great Christian COMPOSERS, such as J.S. Bach, write and perform glorious, sacred MUSIC?  --That might have been someone’s answer back in the 18th Century.

    Today, more typically, Christians often argue that God takes the most pleasure in seeing you and me practice piety.  They stress how delighted the Deity must be when we Christians gather to pray or to study, or when we can turn out a big crowd on Sunday morning or night, as if packing the pews somehow were a virtue in and of itself.

    But, friends, what really DOES make God the happiest? --- How beautifully, how clearly our gospel today, from Luke, chapter 15, gives us the answer!  LISTEN!  Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees and scribes--and to you and me (vs. 7):  “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!”


    There you have it! -- God apparently takes more delight in the repentance of a sinner than in most anything else!  C.S. Lewis, that eccentric Oxford don who became a Christian in middle age, declared: “Joy is the serious business of heaven.”  And, friends, when I read that God takes the most joy in the repentance of a sinner, I like to let my imagination run WILD!  I like to picture in heaven not only God’s shouting for happiness but all of Paradise JOINING in:  the angel choirs!  And the strings, woodwinds, brasses, and percussion of the whole celestial orchestra!

    But, you know, at least three questions arise.  The first is, WHO IS THE SINNER WHO REPENTS?” -- Most of us, I’m afraid, define “sinner” wrongly and define “repents” wrongly.  In all honesty, now, when you hear the word “sinner,” don’t you think automatically of the so-called Saturday-night sins?  Of notorious sins?  For instance, should the town DRUNK show up at the revival meeting, and get converted and walk down the aisle sobbing, wouldn’t you and I tend to say, “My! THAT really makes God happy!”?

    Or what if the village atheist – the know-it-all who delights in attacking the “simple faith” of the pious – came to church.  And then he stood before the pastor and elders and declared that he now believed and wanted to be baptized.  Wouldn’t we again cry, in joy: “That surely is what makes God the most joyful!”

    Or what is the town woman of SCARLET do the same:  rush down to the altar with red skirts RUSTLING and mascara running down her cheeks in black streams of tears.  Wouldn’t we cry, “GOD SURELY IS DELIGHTED WITH THIS TRIUMPH!”?

    But, friends, the gospels seldom speak of Saturday-night sin!  Instead, they denounce OVER AND OVER AGAIN pride and selfishness and sanctimony -- the same kind of egoism that seems to characterize the Pharisees and scribes here in our lesson, who look down their noses at the street people whom Jesus has befriended.  “This fellow welcomes SINNERS and eats with them!” they bellow in horror-- meaning those unclean tax collectors who work for the hated Roman government, and those ordinary folks who don’t have either the leisure or the inclination to observe all the little laws that the Pharisees so idolize.

    Friends, the so-called “Saturday-night sins,” I’m convinced, are mere symptoms of far WORSE spiritual sickness.  And a “sinner,” in the Bible’s definition, and to paraphrase Paul Tillich, isn’t so much a publicly notorious person, but basically one who’s ESTRANGED -- SEPARATED: FROM GOD, FROM FELLOW HUMAN BEINGS, AND EVEN FROM HIS OR HER BETTER SELF!

    Ironically, this definition of “sinner” includes the VERY PHARISEES AND SCRIBES here who criticize Jesus! -- Yes, those pious folks who pride themselves on how religious they are.  In fact, this definition includes you and me.  For no matter how good a Christian you may be, none of us is ever FULLY in harmony with the Lord or with others or with God’s intentions for our lives. That's why, from the earliest days of John Calvin in Strasbourg and Geneva, we Presbyterians have included, toward the beginning of our services of worship, a prayer of general confession -- a means by which VOCALLY the congregation acknowledges our need for forgiveness and for reconciliation with God.
    
    But this brings us to a second question:  what does it mean to repent?  Does repentance mean to feel all guilty and depressed?  Is it the church’s job to make folks hate THEMSELVES FOR SIN?  I’ve met (and heard) some preachers who think so.  Haven’t you?  Barbara Tuchman, in her marvelous history of 14th-century Europe A Distant Mirror, tells of the so-called flagellants, who used to march from city to city -- in groups sometimes numbering a thousand.  Stripped to the waist, the flagellants would whip themselves with leather thongs tipped with iron spikes -- until their blood flowed.   As watching townsfolk sobbed and groaned, the flagellants would cry to Christ and the Virgin, “SAVE US!” “SAVE US!”

    Now is that repentance?  Is that the reason for joy in heaven?  Is God a CELESTIAL SADIST who DELIGHTS to see foolish human beings PUNISH ourselves?  OF COURSE NOT!  Repentance means to hope, NOT to despair!  Repentance marks a turning point.  Repentance means coming to grips with REALITY and turning towards Christ, our only help.  Repentance isn’t self-HATRED, but it’s the point where NEW LIFE in Christ begins!

    I love the way Clarence Jordan put it.  Jordan, as you know, nearly 70 years ago, founded the Koinonia Community (of Christians) up near Americus, Georgia.  And from that ecumenical, interracial community has arisen so many wonderful things -- HABITAT FOR HUMANITY, perhaps the greatest.  Born in rural Georgia, Jordan was a Baptist minister, a New Testament Greek scholar, and an expert farmer.  He compared repentance to the beautiful process by which a caterpillar becomes a butterfly.  Jordan asked (and I quote):  “Would you say to the caterpillar, ‘Well, little caterpillar, you know I sure do feel sorry for you--you’re fixin’ to become a butterfly.  It’s terrible, man!’  And the little caterpillar weeps and moans and groans because he’s fixing to be a butterfly.  No!  His birthday is here! , , , ,The happiest thing a little caterpillar can do is to metamorphose!  And the happiest thing that can happen to a person is for the light of God to shine on her, for him to be taken out of his darkness and put in a new order of things.”

    Yes, friends, THAT’S what makes God happy! -- TO SEE US SINNERS BEING TRANSFORMED!  To see us -- ALL of us--not only initially, but day-to-day and week-to-week (as in this service of worship), we repent, we turn from our caterpillar nature and stretch our glorious BUTTERFLY WINGS that cause us to SOAR!

    But this brings up a THIRD MAJOR QUESTION:  WHERE IS GOD IN ALL THIS?  Does God just sit back and WAIT until we repent--until we finally wake up, turn to God, and at last, allow the Lord to change us?      Again, I’ve heard some preachers put it that way, haven’t you?  “Christ is waiting here for you” — they put it almost that bluntly.  “But God can’t do a thing,” they imply, “until you move to come to God!”

    RIDICULOUS! --THAT’S NOT JESUS CHRIST; IT’S LITTLE BO PEEP!  It was Little Bo Peep who sat back, wrung her hands, and cried:


    But JESUS CHRIST ISN’T LITTLE BO PEEP!  Instead, Christ is the GOOD SHEPHERD!  Christ’s hands aren’t tied until the lost sheep come back to the fold; NO, CHRIST VENTURES OUT INTO THE TERRIBLE DESERT ITSELF TO FIND US!  That’s the meaning of the wonderful PARABLE that Jesus gives us in our lesson:  the story of the shepherd who LEAVES the 99 sheep safely in the wilderness fold and GOES FORTH -- SEARCHING AND SEARCHING UNTIL, AT LAST, HE HEARS A FAINT CRY AND DISCOVERS HIS HAPLESS LAMB.  And lovingly, the Shepherd picks the animal up, and cries with JOY as he takes it back to the fold and safety: “I’VE FOUND MY SHEEP THAT WAS LOST!”

    This brings me to our FINAL MAJOR QUESTION TODAY:  WHERE ARE YOU AND I IN ALL THIS?  That’s EASY!  God wants you and me, like the Good Shepherd, to search for the lost sheep, and bring them back to the fold.  If we REALLY want to make God happy, we’ll do this --constantly!  You see, you and I not only are the lost sheep who’ve been found, but we’re also shepherds ourselves, commanded to go into the desert to find other lost ones. If we don’t do this, we perish.

    Richard Hoefler tells the true story of some American G.I.s in France during the terrible winter of 1944-45.  In a snowstorm their group got separated from their company.  Stumbling through the blizzard, they finally reached a bombed-out farmhouse that gave them partial shelter.  But one G.I. grew so worried about the rest of the company who might be lost in the storm, that he left his buddies huddled together in the ruins and went back out into the blizzard.  All night he circled the woods calling out, hoping that stragglers would hear and join him.

    The storm ended next morning.  As the sun rose, the G.I. saw his company stumbling down the road.  He rushed back to the farmhouse to tell his buddies the good news -- but to his horror, he discovered them, their in the farmhouse, still huddled together, but frozen to death!  You see, the very concern of this G.I. that drove him out to search for others was what KEPT HIM ALIVE!  And the same is true of YOU AND ME, in Christ’s Church!

    “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”

    WHAT, THEN MAKES GOD HAPPY? -- NOT our PIETY!  NOT all our church activity.  No, God is HAPPIEST when, in our midst, LOST SHEEP REPENT -- that is, ARE TRANSFORMED -- AND FIND JOYFUL REFUGE IN GOD’S AND OUR FELLOWSHIP!

PRAYERS:
Living God, we praise you for the miracle of repentance--and for your Spirit, who brings us from death to life, from darkness to light.  Make us hear and obey your call to go out into the desert all around us and bring others to repentance through Christ, who died for all, loves all, and who rose triumphant.
We thank you, too, O God, for the gift of life, for homes and food and health; and for all your other blessings.
Hear our prayers for those with whom we share life:  our families, those we work or study with. Bless, O God, America’s leaders, especially Congress and the President in this time of challenge and of national election. Indeed, uphold and guide those who govern every nation on this globe; that peace and plenty may prevail.
Merciful Lord, hear our prayers for everyone who, this day, needs you in a special way-- particularly  those in this place of worship who may be hurting.  Comfort those who mourn.  Heal the sick.
Finally, God of the living, accept our thanks for all who, trusting you, have gone before us in the faith, and now rest in heaven.  Grant us strength to follow their example and their path, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Amen.