“It’s Not Fair” – “Connecting with Jesus, One Another, and Others in the Unconditional Love of Our God (Together, in a Variety of Ways) – Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

The gospel, the good news of liberation and freedom in Jesus, confronts our misunderstanding of Scripture, Christ, grace, and faith. If Christians more fully demonstrated the good news of the gospel that Scripture illumines, Christ exposes, grace captures, and faith embraces, might we know in mind, soul, and spirit God’s unconditional love and thus experience personal liberation and freedom in Jesus?

By placing one’s faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, one knows they are loved by our God of unconditional love. God begins to make you a brand-new person, from the inside out. Listen to the words of Robert Farrar Capon,

You’re worried about permissiveness–about the way the preaching of grace seems to say it’s okay to do all kinds of terrible things as long as you just walk in afterward and take the free gift of God’s forgiveness. …

While you and I may be worried about seeming to give permission, Jesus apparently wasn’t. He wasn’t afraid of giving the prodigal son a kiss instead of a lecture, a party instead of probation; and he proved that by bringing in the elder brother at the end of the story and having him raise pretty much the same objections you do. He’s angry about the party. He complains that his father is lowering standards and ignoring virtue–that music, dancing, and a fattened calf are, in effect, just so many permissions to break the law. And to that, Jesus has the father say only one thing: “Cut that out! We’re not playing good boys and bad boys any more. Your brother was dead and he’s alive again. The name of the game from now on is resurrection, not bookkeeping.”[1]

Our misunderstanding of Scripture, Christ, grace, and faith is functionally demonstrated by saying “it’s not fair” and “it’s always and ever about her”.  We need to lean into God’s unconditional love which is about equality not the circumstance. Hope is the anticipation of the future as the fulfillment of God’s purposes.[2] The future is not yet, but hope requires that we believe it to be. The gospel confronts the absence of hope.

Scripture. Scripture tells the story of salvation and what salvation looks like.

Christ. Christians know that their salvation from despair, loneliness, and eternal separation from God is not accomplished through “stuff,” financial security, or merit. Only belief in Jesus Christ, the One who knows us the best and loves us the most, can save us from ourselves and all the false saviors. This is Luke’s message with the prodigal son: the Father’s love for the brokenness of the younger son is scandalous.

Grace. Christians know that they cannot take any credit for their salvation. Because of the scandalous grace of God, we are in God’s grasp and God will not let go. The gospel confronts our merit-based thinking. Belonging to God, our salvation, is based on the unmerited favor we receive from the One who created us, redeems us, and sustains us. Only belief in Jesus Christ, the One who knows us the best and loves us the most, can save us from ourselves and all the false saviors. We cannot take any credit for our salvation.

Faith. Christians know that there is never enough evidence to prove that Scripture tells the story of salvation; that only belief in Jesus Christ, the One who knows us the best and loves us the most, can save us from ourselves and all the false saviors. Our calling to God is not just one more thing on our “to do list.” You were created to become like Jesus and made to participate in God’s mission.^[3]  The gospel confronts our disbelief. And we cannot take any credit for our salvation. Each of us must recognize the full sufficiency of faith.

The gospel confronts our misunderstanding of scripture, Christ, grace, and faith. Our conscience tells us these things. Peter J. Gomes former Plummer Professor of Christian Morality at Harvard Divinity School writes, “Conscience is that little bit of God implanted in us, that part of ourselves made in the image of God that tells us what we know to be true and good, to which, in our better moments, we aspire.”[4] In Christian terms, conscience is the conviction of the Holy Spirit.[5]

Let the gospel confront your brokenness, merit-based thinking, disbelief, and self-centeredness. Begin to experience the fullness of God’s love for you and your reconciliation with God in whom your identity is rooted. Be overtaken by prodigal loving.[6] Amen.

This sermon was preached on the Fourth Sunday in Lent, 30 March 2025 by

the Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh in the Great Room and Sanctuary at

Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas

Copyright © 2025

Steven M. Marsh

All Rights Reserved.

[1]Robert Farrar Capon, Between Noon and Three, Christianity Today, Vol. 30, No. 7.

[2]Donald K. McKim, Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), 133.

[3]Adapted from Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2002), 320-322.

[4]Peter J. Gomes, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus (New York City, New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 134.

[5]In the six paragraphs above, I was challenged by the thinking of Patricia K. Tull, David A. Davis, Leigh Campbell-Taylor, William Greenway, Richard F. Ward, D. Cameron Murchison, and Adam J. Copeland in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby and Carolyn J. Sharp, editors, Connections, Year C, Volume 2 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), 76-78, 78-79, 80-82, 83-85, 85-86, 87-90, and 90-92.

[6]Adam J. Copeland in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby and Carolyn J. Sharp, editors, Connections, Year C, Volume2, 92.

“Americans Love Big“; Isaiah 55:1-9, Luke 13:1-9

“Connecting with Jesus, One Another, and Others in the Unconditional Love of Our God (Together, in a variety of ways)”

Robert Frost writes, “There’s nothing I’m afraid of like scared people.”[1] Will fear of “the other” escalate irrational behavior? The writer of Isaiah asks us to hold …two realities in paradoxical tension: “‘Come, thirsty one,’ and ‘My ways are not your ways, and my thoughts not your thoughts.’”[2] Isaiah 55:6 exhorts people to return to God, listen to and seek the Lord, while God still can be found. Let’s heed Isaiah’s word and address our striving after things that don’t matter and our wasteful use of resources.

Jesus was teaching the crowd on how to read the signs of the times. Pilate had no regard for human life. Jesus states that the Galileans killed by Pilate were no worse than other Galileans. He also notes that when the tower of Siloam fell on eighteen people and killed them, they were no guiltier than those who survived the tower’s crash. Death comes upon anyone at any time and for any reason. It behooves people to get right with God.

Jesus says in Luke 13:3, “…unless you repent, you will all perish…” Fear is often at the core of our deepest thoughts and aches of the human heart.[3] Repenting of our “fear” and trusting God’s promises are in order. The fig tree was a mature tree given the owner’s expectation that it should bear fruit. But for three years the tree regularly disappointed the owner. The vineyard worker is ordered to cut the tree down, but asks for one more year to nurture it. Judgment is held back. In our case, the repentant will survive, the unrepentant will not. Decisions have consequences.[4]

Love, not fear must lead. Martin Luther feared the peasants might rise up and take power from those who had it, because they could read the Bible he translated into German. White Christians in the American south feared the black slaves, because they had constructed a society based on it even though they knew slavery was incompatible with the Bible’s teaching. Those who supported national socialism in Germany lived in fear that they might never again control the destiny of their country if they didn’t persecute “the other.” For more than fifty years, Americans lived in fear of communism, because it appealed to the disaffected in American society and argued for the redistribution of wealth. The current fear gripping Americans is whether we see a new golden age forming or the demise of democracy. This fear is rooted in the notion of truth or untruth being the plumbline. Loving others in words and deeds will expose untruth.[5]

Fear does not generate good policy or good behavior. Love generates good policy and good behavior. I agree with Peter Gomes, former Plummer Professor of Christian Morals at Harvard Divinity School when he writes, “Fear represents the absence of courage and a poverty of imagination.”[6] Receive God’s grace. Reconnect God’s history of loving with both the past and future. Be thankful. Embrace the giving presence of our loving, compassionate, and gracious God. Condemn hateful rhetoric. Participate in the saving work of our powerful God. Repent and bear fruit worthy of repentance. Live Grace’s mission: “…to make fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ.” Perfect love casts out fear and we love Jesus. Let’s love big, friends. Amen.

This sermon was preached on the Third Sunday in Lent, 23 March 2025 by the Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh in the Great Room and Sanctuary at

Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas.

Copyright Ó 2025

Steven M. Marsh

All rights reserved.

[1]From A Hundred Collars by Robert Frost.

[2]Kenyatta R. Gilbert in David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 2, (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 75.

[3]Idea gleaned from Michael B. Curry in in David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, editors, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 2, 93.

[4]In the three paragraphs above, I was challenged by the thinking of Patricia K. Tull, David A. Davis, J. Clinton McCann Jr., William Greenway, Richard F. Ward, Dennis E. Smith, and Adam J. Copeland in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby and Carolyn J. Sharp, editors, Connections, Year C, Volume 2 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), 61-63, 63-65, 66-67, 68-70, 70-71, 72-74, and 74-75.

[5]The cited “fears” gleaned from Peter J. Gomes, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus (New York City, New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 105-106.

[6]Peter J. Gomes, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus,106.