IS THERE ROOM IN HIS KINGDOM FOR YOU?

       In what was often "refined" Greek, Luke wrote the gospel that bears his name and the book of Acts ... to set the record straight, as he told Theophilus (which means friend of God). He didn't pretend to be the first to write about Jesus, but he wanted to organize the stories that were circulating, and he wanted to tell us... that Jesus has 1) a big heart, 2) a wide circle of grace, and 3) a bias toward the poor, the disadvantaged, the disenfranchised, and the lost. A central theme in Luke’s gospel is that Jesus came to seek and save the lost, which is good news for us because we’re all lost at times. We get lost- some of us from time to time, some of us most of the time, but we get lost! We get lost in our pride, in our addictions, and in our sins. We forget who we are, whose we are, and we lose sight of our north star. One of Jesus’ central missions was to seek and save the lost, and it fills my heart with joy to know that heaven stands and applauds when a single sinner staggers home.

     Luke wants those of us who are lost to know that Jesus is knocking at our door, but he also wants us to know how much Jesus valued women in a patriarchal world. Luke traces Jesus’ lineage through Mary’s family, and in Luke, Mary sings her Magnificant, in which she praises her son and prophesies that he will tear the powerful off of their thrones and bless the poor. Luke alone tells us about Mary and Martha, and how Mary was not only allowed to sit at Christ’s feet, but praised for doing it! If you’re lost, left out, forgotten, oppressed, or undervalued, Luke wants you to know that Jesus is on your side.

      Mark is about discipleship. Matthew about righteousness. But Luke is about justice and social ministry... to those who are alone, silenced, imprisoned, or oppressed in a hundred different ways. Luke wrote a book about compassion and justice, and he believed that Christ has a bias for those who are the poor, broken, and vulnerable, and he showed us what he meant in three stories that he alone told us. Here's the first. Jesus was walking by the village of Nain, when he encountered a funeral procession... for a widow who had lost her only son. It was a walk of sadness- a walk of emptiness-a walk that I've taken over a hundred times- for my dad, mom, two brothers, and a hundred friends.  It's a walk that many of you have taken too, and this one was worse because the woman had lost her only son- who was her ONLY source of support. I've never lost a child, but there may be no deeper pain on this earth. We all experience pain and die any number of little death, but Jesus comes to us in the midst of our pain. 
      When Jesus saw the widow of Nain, Luke tells us that "his heart went out to her," and he said, "don't cry." “Don’t cry. Don’t cry.” Friends, we have a God whose heart breaks when our hearts break, and who walks with us when we walk from the hearse to the grave! Luke is also the only one to tell us about the Loving Father whose prodigal son wasted his inheritance on wine, women and song. It's bad enough that he took his father's money and ran, but to make matters worse, his father threw a party for him when he finally stumbled home. Yes, he threw a party, and when his oldest son, who had stayed home and carried the load, found out about the party, he refused to enter the house. It didn't seem fair to him, even when his father said that grace demanded a party. 
      Friends, our God is a God of radical grace, and for me, this is very good news. You may want God to give you what you deserve, but as one who has been prodigal myself, I'm glad that grace abounds and that you don't have to be good to be loved by God. Finally, I cite the parable of the Good Samaritan because it is also a story that only Luke tells. To illustrate the essence of goodness, Jesus told about a man who was lying along the road, badly beaten or dead, and as he lies there, three men of the church walk by- without doing anything to help! They're afraid, disinterested, who knows- but they were neither neighbor nor Christ to the man… but a hated, no account Samaritan was! O friends, for people who embraced boundaries of status, gender, race, education, wealth, age, and ethnicity, Jesus story was radical indeed. It's another story of radical grace- another story of Christ's huge circle of love-another story that challenges the self-righteous and tickles the sinners, and that’s why Luke included it. 
      Luke believed that God’s circle of grace is big enough to include women, shepherds, misfits, malcontents, ne'er do wells, Samaritans, and sinners like me. If you believe that our God has a huge heart and endless compassion, Luke is for you! If you believe that women, minorities, and disabled people have great status in God's eyes... and that the lost, the broken, the vulnerable, and the forgotten may even have a little more, Luke is for you. If you believe that God forgives people that we won't and that his grace is so great that it doesn't seem fair, Luke is for you! Amen!