Obil.

1 Chronicles 23-27 details the jobs that David assigned to various people as part of the Temple-building project near the end of his life. There were men in charge of music and sacrifices, military divisions and the city gates. The Twelve Tribes were reorganized and leaders were assigned. David is transitioning his kingdom from a wartime footing to a peacetime footing in preparation to hand it all over to his son, Solomon.

Obil was in charge of camels. Not the divisions or the musicians or the treasury - just camels. That's what God called him to. Camels.

The thing is, somebody had to watch the camels so that they'd be where they were supposed to be when they were needed. I mean, you couldn't have camels wandering all over Israel could you? In that part of the world, Camels were (and still are to some degree) an important piece of the economy. They provided milk, and meat. They were pack animals, able to endure conditions that would have killed another animal. Camels were the means by which Israel transported goods to market, so they were probably the most important animal in terms of Israel's economy.

But...man. Camels are boring. Not only that, but they're cranky and they STINK. Predictably, there was little status associated with watching camels, or any other herd animal. It was a job for the lower class. Obil would never cross class boundaries to become a leader of the tribe. Watching camels was his lot.

The fact that the passage spends exactly zero time articulating Obil's opinion of his station is telling. Clearly, the Bible doesn't seem overly concerned with how Obil felt about his lot. It simply assumes that some people are called to watch camels, and that there's nothing wrong with that.

I mean, why would any of us assume that we're *not* Obil? Are we so presumptuous as to reject what God calls us to in favor of something that comes with a more promenent status? Why would we think that God would never call us to give up something we love to watch camels?

I think scripture teaches precisely the opposite. It's better to herd camels, if that's what God calls you to, and never aspire to anything else than to spend your life trying to achieve something "better." If you do, then you'll be miserable if you don't attain it, and even more miserable if you do. Doing the ordinary thing that God has called you to, the thing that's right in front of you today, is better than anything else you could be doing at this moment.

Obil watched camels, and I think he was happy.

The Argument for "professional" Pastors...

This may come across as self-serving, but can I make a case for full-time, professional Pastors? By "professional" I mean that he or she gets paid to do it and doesn't do anything else. Let me just say that my wife and I happen to pastor an amazing church full of people who really want to take care of us, so I'm not really writing this for our benefit specifically. It's just a general discussion. Good. Here we go.


First, to answer the question "what do you do all day anyway?" Let's just say that anytime you try to get a large group of adults and about as many kids to all move in the same direction at roughly the same time, you'll have some practical details to work out. By "some" I really mean LOTS. Believe it or not, the work of God actually has a very pragmatic side that your Pastors never expose you to.


Second, people's crisis don't follow bankers' hours. Your Pastors don't shut off their phones at 6pm. If you call me at 2am with a broken heart, I'll answer. I do it all the time. Oh yeah, and we work on Sundays. And Saturdays. And Christmas. No complaints, either. It's the best job in the universe.


Then there's the spiritual point, which actually inspired me to write this. I'm reading 1 Chronicles during my morning devotional time right now, and in chapter 24, after David has made plans to build the Temple, he assigns divisions of Levites to serve in it. Context, as always, is important.


David is not inventing something new; he's going back to the way it used to be, when the Ark resided in the Tabernacle in the wilderness. It was God who'd set aside the Levites for the work of the Temple, to serve him and to minister to Israel, and Israel had drifted away from that over time. God had been decentralized. After a time, Israel became unwilling to devote much in the way of resources. They no longer defined themselves as a people who had been rescued from bondage by God, and then taken through the wilderness. They were a kingdom now, a regional power, and a force to be reckoned with. What did they need God for? They were doing great on their own.


I mean, they'd left the Ark of the Covenant to languish in pagan hands for years. That symbolic gesture says everything. Earlier in 1 Chronicles we see that the first thing that David does when he ascends to the throne is to recapture the Ark and move it back into Jerusalem. The lesson on priorities is critical. It's the same lesson that the book of Ezra teaches. When Israel comes back from Exile, the first thing they do is rebuilt the altar so that they can resume worship. Remember that they were surrounded by enemies; it was a significant risk to put off building the walls. First things first. David applies the same thinking in reestablishing the centrality of the Ark.


So, to the point: setting aside people, like the Levites, is one of the ways that we give first priority to God. In so doing, we put our money where our mouths are in more ways than one. There's the giving issue, since that's how our Pastors are paid, but there's also the idea that we're taking these men and women, the vast majority of whom are intelligent, educated people, out of the market economy. We're devoting people who could be doing something more "productive" to something that seems more nebulous. In David's time, that person would have been taken out of an agrarian culture, where every pair of hands mattered in terms of sowing crops, harvesting, caring for animals, and so on. Devoting 38,000 people to service in the Temple was a significant economic risk. We do the same thing with Pastors today. They could be bankers, or lawyers, accountants or college professors. Most of them have that level of education. Instead, we free them for a life of vocational ministry.


Ultimately, it's a slap in the face of consumerist idolatry and quasi-religious capitalist ideology. By setting people aside for ministry, we are tithing people whom God will use for his purposes. We don't get to be in control of their time. We don't get to impose standards of productivity, or evaluate their job performance using spread sheets and pie graphs. Profitability is not the goal. We get to let go of all of that, and trust God to use these people as he sees fit. It's just another example of the way we keep God at the center, by letting go of the need to control and evaluate.

So...that's my argument. Thoughts?

The List

After telling Timothy to avoid the pursuit of wealth for its own sake and warning him of its corrupting influence in the process, Paul goes on to tell Timothy what he should be pursuing instead. It's easy to read over the list without really paying much attention to what's on it. Of all the things Paul could have told Timothy to concentrate on, what did he emphasize?

Righteousness: this has to do with covenant membership, NOT BEHAVIOR. The Greek word dikaiosune isn't about doing the right things or being a good person; it's about being the right sort of person. It's about being turned toward God, about choosing to be a part of his covenant with mankind in Christ. This is of utmost importance to ensure that the things that one does come from the right place. After all, one can be a perfectly good, ethical atheist.

Godliness: this is more behavior oriented, but it first requires letting God have access to our inner selves so that he can fix what he needs to fix. Only then does behavior change, and that's why it's senseless to focus solely on behavior. When God has done his work, or while he's doing it, then we can turn away from the lives we've settled for and toward the lives he intends for us.

Love: this one is so easy to gloss over isn't it? Paul uses the Greek word agape here. This is other-centered, choice-based love given at cost to oneself if necessary. Notice its position on the list...#4. The whole list pivots on this point. It's the fulcrum. Nothing happens without this love.

Endurance: there is an element of discipline to this stuff. If we are not willing to make up our minds to keep our commitments despite notable inconvenience and difficulty, then we make it hard for God to give us his best. Our capricious natures will lead us back to the same paths we've always traveled. To put it another way, if you do what you've always done, you're going to get what you've always got.

Gentleness: neither the words on this list nor their order are random. "righteousness" was first for a reason. "Love" was in the middle for a reason. Paul has a purpose behind putting "gentleness" last on the list. Pursuing the five other things on this list can make us hard...on ourselves and on other people. We might develop inflexible concepts of "right" and "wrong", then hold everyone else accountable based on them. We might decide that we are the final arbiters of truth and turn our churches into austere courtrooms where the guilty are tried in abstentia, summarily convicted and sentenced. It's easy to do that. Paul urges gentleness. Fight the urge to become rigid and judgmental.

Choose to stay soft. Be kinder than necessary. Risk being taken advantage of. Love irrationally. Always default toward inclusiveness and acceptance. Don't let your circle shrink. If your circle isn't expanding to include more and more people, something is wrong...because God's does. He's a God who loves and reconciles. We see it over and over in the bible.

After all, God usually responds to the question, "well, when do we just call sin sin" with, "Always. Let's start with yours."

This is the season of Lent, where we focus on repentance and change. There is a hymn that we've been singing at RHVC over the last few weeks. It's called "Here is Love". It was written during the Welsh Revival in the middle part of the 19th century. Here's first verse.

Here is love, vast as the ocean, Lovingkindness as the flood, When the Prince of Life, our Ransom, Shed for us His precious blood. Who His love will not remember? Who can cease to sing His praise? He can never be forgotten, Throughout Heav’n’s eternal days.

There are so many competing visions of our Savior. If your vision tells you that God sent Jesus so he could take out all of his violent rage on him, and that he might do the same to you if you're not careful, then read this second verse of the same hymn.

On the mount of crucifixion, Fountains opened deep and wide; Through the floodgates of God’s mercy Flowed a vast and gracious tide. Grace and love, like mighty rivers, Poured incessant from above, And Heav’n’s peace and perfect justice Kissed a guilty world in love.

God sent our Savior not because he hates sin, but because he loves people and cannot bear to let us go.

There are so many competing visions about what our response to the cross should be. If your vision tells you that God tolerates you as long as you don't screw up, that you have to be really careful not to break the rules and make him angry, and that your response to him should be obedience out of sheer terror, then read this third verse.

Let me all Thy love accepting, Love Thee, ever all my days; Let me seek Thy kingdom only And my life be to Thy praise; Thou alone shalt be my glory, Nothing in the world I see. Thou hast cleansed and sanctified me, Thou Thyself hast set me free.

God accepts you completely, every single part, exactly as you are at this moment. When you are mired in the most revolting sin you can think of, that's when his love blazes with the most intensity.

Repent of your misconceptions of Him. Repent of the pain you bear because you think that you have to. Turn away from the life you've settled for and accept his best for you. That is the message of this hymn. That is the message of Lent.

Ignorance and Unbelief

The season of Lent begins today. We pass from Epiphany, where the focus is the mission of the Church in response to the gospel, to a season of Christ-centered repentance in preparation for the transformational season of Easter. The first day of the season of Lent is Ash Wednesday, a day where many Christians observe an imposition of ashes as a way of turning us back to the proper perspective: ashes to ashes, dust to dust. "From ashes thou hast come, to ashes thou must return."

τὸ πρότερον ὄντα βλάσφημον καὶ διώκτην καὶ ὑβριστήν: ἀλλὰ ἠλεήθην, ὅτι ἀγνοῶν

ἐποίησα ἐν ἀπιστίᾳ

"Though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor and a man of extremes; but I received mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief." - 1 Timothy 1.13

None of us are without stain. We err not just through ignorance, but because of unbelief. We don't believe the things that our Lord says about us, that we are accepted (Eph 1.3-8), secure (Rom 8.1-2) and significant (Eph 2.10); the result is deep woundedness, which we act out to the detriment of others and ourselves. We don't believe that he loves us, and so we accept tragically less than his best for us. We may not believe in the miraculous rescue of the cross at all, in which case we sin in ignorance; it's hard to blame someone who accepts stale water from a cistern when he or she simply doesn't know where to find clean water.

πιστὸς ὁλόγος καὶ πάσης ἀποδοχῆς ἄξιος, ὅτι Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς ἦλθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον

ἁμαρτωλοὺς σῶσαι: ὧν πρῶτόςεἰμι ἐγώ

"This saying is reliable and deserves full acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners: of which I am foremost." - 1 Timothy 1.15

The emphasis on "sinners" indicated by the italics is provided by the Greek. Greek is not a word-order language like English; in other words, one can put the words of a sentence in any order, and one determines the subject and object through the use of case endings. Since there is so much freedom, the word order a writer chooses becomes very important with respect to what he wants to stress. In this case, Paul puts amartolous (sinners), before sosai (to save); Paul is saying that Jesus came into the world to save sinners specifically, so the fact that one finds oneself before the cross in a state of fallenness is no cause for self hatred. It's to be expected. That is, in fact, why the cross exists. Paul is not literally foremost among sinners; we all are. In the same way the pain each person suffers is all the pain there is in the world, the sin each one of us indulges is all the sin there is. No one is better than another. We all stand before the cross equally fallen and are saved on exactly the same basis: faith.

Tonight many (if not most) churches worldwide will observe Ash Wednesday. It is not a goal unto itself though; it's the start of a season. Ash Wednesday is the "start here" sign on the path that is the season of lent, a path that leads not to condemnation but to glorious resurrection life. The last words of the season of lent are "it is finished." After that a new season begins with the words "Christ is risen."

The Goal of Faith...According to Paul

In Christianity we make our own priorities, and much of the time they say more about our culture than they do our faith. It's an odd coincidence that the people the Church rejects most concertedly and vocally are minority groups culturally as well. The bible, on the other hand, shows us a God who rejected the socially dominant groups in the first century: the religious elite, the fabulously wealthy, those at the top of the power and status ladders. The principle is a simple one: all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3.23). We are all saved on an equal basis; by faith and faithfulness.

After a critique of endless genealogies that promote speculations compared to divine training that is known by faith (or "faithfulness", depending on your translational philosophy...1 Tim 1.4), Paul drops a bomb in 1 Tim 1.5:

But the aim of such instruction is love from a pure heart, a good conscience and sincere faith (again the Greek word 'pistis' can go either way, "faith" or "faithfulness")

Lest that fly by us without impact, consider what Paul is not saying: the goal is not perfect behavior; the goal is not astute learnedness; the goal is not status in the Christian community (the Religious Elite had that); the goal is not this set of political beliefs or that set; the goal is, as it always is with Paul, love. He does the same thing in 1 Corinthians 13, right in the middle of a dense discussion on spiritual gifts (1 Cor 12-15). This is not a regular ol' love, the best that we can produce from our most concerted efforts; no, this is love from a katharas kardias...love from a purified heart, implying an outside agent that has accomplished the purification. We can't drum this up. It will never be a product of our emotional efforts. We'll never get it aside from an act of revelation from God.

Paul doesn't stop there though. He knows that there's more to it. We also must have a suneideseus agathes...a good conscience. Notice again what Paul does not say: he does not say a "clean" conscience. Don't you think he would have said that if that's what he'd meant? It's not like Greek doesn't have terms available to say that very thing. Paul means that we must have a conscience that is in good working order, one that points us toward what God desires and away from the things he doesn't. It's like having working smoke alarms in your house.

Paul rounds everything off with pisteus anhypokritou...a genuine faith. This is the product of the first two elements; it grows organically and can't be faked or forced. We can't broker somebody else's faith; We have to own our version through purification and the application of a working conscience, both of which are established as a work of God, then walked out by us.

In the end, Paul sticks to his usual guns. Love is the endgame, a goal unto itself from which everything else flows naturally. We can't make it up though. All we can do is seek the presence of God, then be open and available. We are plants and God is sunlight. We can't avoid being changed when we place ourselves in his presence.

He's Standing Right in Front of Us

John 7 tells the story of Jesus at the Festival of Booths with the rest of the Jews. The Festival of Booths recounts the time that Israel wandered in the desert, living in tents and trusting in YHWH for everything. The whole point was to remember their faith, to recall the way YHWH came through for them, and to look ahead to the day when he would provide the permanent solution to their wanderings in the person of the Messiah. If you get this, then you get the irony of the passage: the Messiah is standing right there in front of them, and all they can do is doubt based on a misunderstanding of his birthplace (Jesus grew up in Galilee, but he was born in Bethlehem...see the first few chapters of Matthew and Luke).

I'd like to feel self-righteous about this, except that I do the same thing all the time. Jesus stands right in front of me all the time, his works plain to see, and all I can think to do is ask questions based on the data I *don't* have. He wants to guide and bless me, while I want to "know" him by the proper application of the scientific method. He can't be known that way - no one can. He can only be known through relationship, and that starts by taking him at his word and experiencing his being.

We must love our Lord as he presents himself to us and not by building constructs, boxes into which we place his various attributes, filing them away into neat, distinct compartments. We cannot know our Savior by the study and correct application of doctrine; we must take him as he reveals himself to us, first in scripture, then by practice.

Relationship is the goal. If Jesus has become a bug, ready to be pinned to a board, STOP. Something is wrong.

Drawn by God

"For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father." - John 6.65

This verse speaks a very simple truth: God must change our hearts; we will never this thing on our own. As a matter of fact, one of the things that I teach often about the gospel is this: if you can wrap yourself around it without a work of the Holy Spirit, then it's something less than the true gospel. It's not that it's necessarily "bad news". It's simply not good enough news. It may be partially true, but it's not the whole truth.

We need the Holy Spirit to draw us to the right relationship with God, but we needn't make it about predestination. We are drawn by God into lives of faith and repentance, and it's his kindness and love that do that. Predestining one group of people for eternity in hell is one of the least loving (or just) things I can think of.

Many of Jesus' disciples left him because they were trying to think their way through this rather than letting God change their hearts (Jn 6.60,66). Peter's declaration in 6.69 stands out by contrast; that's what gives it tremendous meaning and significance. Peter isn't intellectualizing this. He has received the gift that the Holy Spirit holds out for all of us: the desire and ability to let go and be drawn into the Mystery that transforms.

Investigation

"It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard it ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world." - John 4.42

This is the verse that ends the well-known story of the woman at the well in the fourth chapter of John's gospel. The Samaritan woman who encounters Jesus there goes back to her village to tell them about him (in something of a hurry apparently; she left her water jar at the well). It's interesting to me that we typically make this story about what happened to her, while the passage actually goes on to tell a story about the rest of her village. We actually don't know what happened with her, though we do know what happened with her village. The others in her village actually respond to her report. They have a process of investigation - we see it in verses 39-41 - they didn't just fall prostrate at the feet of Jesus without further ado. They want to see who this Jesus character is for themselves. The word of one of their own got them that far, but more was required. They needed to experience Jesus, not just believe someone else's story about him. They wanted to have their own stories. They didn't want to live vicariously.

At the end of verse 42 the Samaritans respond, "...we know that this is truly the Savior of the world." John is choosing his words carefully. There are several words that can mean "to know" in Greek, and they're all nuanced differently. The word used in this passage is oidamen, which is the first person plural of the verb eidon, which has to do with knowledge gained by personal perception. You're not relying on someone else's testimony, though that might be the impetus for your investigation; you've seen it with your own eyes, you've verified it, and now you know something. You own it.

The Samaritans understood something that we forget: we can't live someone else's relationship with the Lord. We have to build our own, one brick at a time. We have to investigate it and critique it. We have to confront the things we think we know, find out that they were borrowed from someone else, then give them back and start over. The word of someone we trust might be important; maybe very important, but sooner or later we have to form our own, unique connection with our Savior.

When faith is acquired by way of our own experiences, it takes the shape of our souls; it becomes who we are and not just what we believe. You can't broker belief that someone else bought; you have to pay for your own.

The Wedding and the Wine

It's funny what happens when you come back to a story that you haven't read in a while. This morning I read the story of the wedding at Cana, the site of Jesus' first act of power, in John 2. I have a very different viewpoint on this story, and the bible in general, than I had years ago.

A brief synopsis: Jesus and his disciples are at a wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. When the wine runs out, Jesus' mother brings the issue to his attention, drawing what seems to be an irritated response from Jesus. In an interesting little exchange, Jesus' mother, ignoring his vexation, turns to the servants and instructs them to do whatever Jesus tells them to do. Doesn't that sound like something a mother would do? He has the servants fill six stone jugs, which were intended to be used for the Jewish purification rites, with water. Jesus then has the Chief Steward, the person in charge of making this wedding go off properly (kind of a 1st century wedding planner), sample the wine. The Chief Steward, unaware of the source of the wine, remarks to the bridegroom (whose honor was on the line if the wedding feast didn't meet expectations) that the best wine had been saved till last.

What's fascinating to me is the way Jesus re-purposes vessels intended for use in the Jewish purification rituals, filling them up with new wine that was better than the guests had received until that point. Even the bit about the way the inferior wine was usually served last adds to the meaning. The implication is that the Chief Steward *had* been serving the best that was available; what Jesus created was even better than that. Judaism was the best that was available until Jesus came; he created new wine, a new opportunity, something better and more like what God had intended since Abraham. There would be no use for purification rituals; Jesus would be, himself, the purifying act, who would fill empty stone vessels. One could even connect this image to Ezekiel 36, in which God promises to remove from us our hearts of stone and replace them with hearts of flesh.

The wedding feast was in danger of failing, of not being what it was supposed to be. Jesus rescues it with an act of creative power. Wedding imagery is a crucial lens through which the bible views our relationship with God, for bad (e.g., the wife of Hosea in the book that bears his name) or for good (e.g., Isaiah 62 or Matthew 22.1-14). It's so very appropriate that Jesus performs this miracle at this time in this place. The wedding God has always planned, where he would take us to be his bride forever, was on the brink of failure. Things were not as God had intended them, but Jesus changed everything with one act of creative power. What we have now is better than the best that was available then.

Of course, this all may be the merest coincidence. John may not have meant to convey all of the things I'm writing about. There's really no solid evidence that he did. I might be making all of this up, casting back into the story the things I believe to be true in retrospect. Maybe God does mean for us to know all of these things though, and it may be that he doesn't much care where they come from so long as they come.

It may just be me though. I'm prone to these kind of thoughts, here in this dark room early in the morning.

The Great Exchange...

I had a "eureka" moment this morning while reading Luke 23. Typical of "eureka" moments, I wonder now how I could have read this passage hundreds of times and missed this. It's that obvious.

The story goes that Jesus is brought before Pilate under charges of leading the Jewish people astray and (basically) fomenting rebellion against the empire. As Pilate examines Jesus, he quickly comes to the conclusion that he won't be able to make any of the charges stick under Roman law, and offers to release Jesus three times (compare to Peter's thrice denial of Jesus). Enter to laos, the "nameless mob" (see Joel Green's commentary on Luke), who up to this point have been Jesus' ardent supporters, but now show a nasty, fickle side: they turn against Jesus now, demanding the sentence of death for Jesus and the release of a notorious rebel and murderer, Barabbas. Pilate, in a show of weakness that typified his reign as governor, relents and does as they ask.

Aside from the rather obvious literary irony, I think Christianity has often made this passage about the injustice of the trade; the innocent dies and the guilty goes free. We've read the passage as a mere reinforcement of the fact that Jesus' death was unjust and undeserved. Yes, that's true. Here's the obvious thing though, the thing that made me laugh out loud at 6:15am:

We are all Barabbas.

We are all guilty, released in trade for the death of the Messiah.

We are all Barabbas.

We are not just people guilty of bad behavior; we are lestai, rebels and brigands just like Barabbas, convicted of insurrection against our just and rightful Lord, for which only one penalty has ever been appropriate.

We are all Barabbas.

We are the beneficiaries of our Lord's unfair, irrational love, of a verdict that seems unjust: "You are guilty; you may go." Because Jesus walked the road to Golgotha, we walk the road home.

This is the blessed exchange, wherein Jesus received the sentence we deserved and we received the sentence he deserved. It is the fulfillment of Isaiah 53.5:

"But he was wounded for our transgressions,

crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the punishment that made us whole,

and by his bruises we are healed."

The Mercy of The Judge...

I heard a sermon a few days ago from a well-known pastor at a big conference. The gist of it was the question of who is at the bottom of your faith, you or God? Do we live to glorify God or do we love him because he loves us so much? Those are good questions...certainly worth thinking about. However, then he trotted out Matthew 25 - the Sheep and the Goats - making the age-old claim that some (presumably those who love God because he loves them so much) would not inherit the Kingdom of God even though they themselves were sure that they would. I'm not saying that this won't be a reality; it will. I hate it, but it will.

Here's the thing: I found myself, over the next day or so, pondering my behavior as a Christian. My anxiety rose as a tried to determine whether I was in category one or category two. Was my response to God correct? Was it adequate? Was it the specific response that he was looking for or would I find myself standing before Jesus on Judgement Day condemned, realizing that I'd been utterly deluded the whole time, that I'd walked through the green door when true justification was actually behind the blue door?

This morning I read Luke 18.9-14...the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. As the story goes, the Pharisee is absolutely sure that he's "in". He holds all the right values, does all the right things and has the identity badge of Torah - his get-out-of-jail-free card - to rely on. His prayer reveals as much. After all, who else would God be glorified through other than his covenant people? On the other hand you have the Tax Collector, hated by his people and excluded from the promises of God by his betrayal of the deepest Jewish values. He knows his condition and throws himself on the mercy of God. That is his only hope. Jesus points out that he goes home justified while the Pharisee does not.

The bottom line is this: after responding to the saving work of Christ in repentance and faith comes only one thing: continued response in repentance and faith. Loving God is about total reliance on what he's accomplished, not about searching for the "correct" or "adequate" behavior, the activity that makes me feel the most justified. In the end we will all throw ourselves on the mercy of the perfectly just judge, who will know perfectly that he himself has done everything necessary to secure our salvation not because we loved him but because he loved us (John 4.9-10).

In this and this alone is God glorified: our total reliance on the fact that he has done what only he could do. Lord, make me like this Tax Collector...

They're all there.

I can't believe I never noticed it before, but all three of the most hated groups in Jesus' day (sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes) are represented in Luke 15, and not in hard-to-discern, allegorical ways either. Look:

• Sinners: they were the ones who rejected the Father, asking for something that isn't there's to ask for (Lk 14.11-12). Torah, and thus vindication on the last day, belonged to God's covenant people Israel. If you read the verses carefully, you'll see that it's not about money at all really; it's about love and family. The rejection of that necessarily includes the lost of the inheritance.
• Tax Collectors: the issue with tax collectors was not really about money either. They were gathering Israel's resources (including people and land occasionally), sometimes dishonestly, and sending them off into the hands of pagan oppressors (Rome specifically). This was the betrayal that they were hated for: they squandered the inheritance God promised to Israel in foreign lands (Lk 15.13).
• Prostitutes: they come up twice in the narrative. The Greek word used for "dissolute living" (asotoce) carries the implication of sexual immorality, if somewhat vaguely. It's more explicit in 15.13b. The Greek word used there is pornwn, which can only mean one thing given the context. The idea Luke wants us to get is this (in 20th century American imagery): John-Boy asked Pa for his share of the farm, which he then sold in order to move to L.A. so he could live like a rock star and blow it all on heroin and porn stars.

Of course, all of this makes perfect sense given the fact that Jesus is accused of identifying with (and building his movement around) marginalized, excluded people more in Luke than anywhere else.

Why would that be?

Because Luke was writing to an audience who felt excluded from the gospel: Romans and other Gentiles primarily, but by extension all the others who didn't make the cut for whatever reason, inside or outside of Judaism. Luke 15 says the same thing that Matthew 5.25-34 says. If a sheep or a coin are worth so much to the one who has lost them, how much more valuable is a lost person to the Father who loves him/her?

All have value. None are excluded now that Jesus is Lord.