Leavenworth

Leavenworth, Kansas. Anita and I drove past that little mid-western town this fall. Of course, I thought of the infamous United States Penitentiary named for its host town. Wikipedia points out that Leavenworth was “the largest maximum security federal prison in the United States from 1903 until 2005.” That website’s list of “notable inmates” reinforces the image you might have of a place for hardened criminals—Machine Gun Kelly, Bugs Moran. Leavenworth is not a place you might think of as the spiritual birth place of a Hillcrest Church usher. Yet it was for Jimmy Vouras. Years of crime, county jails and state prisons were on the route to Leavenworth for my friend Jimmy. However, God had a plan for Jimmy and it was there in Leavenworth that Jimmy let Jesus forgive his sins and give him a new life! Just before Jimmy went to be with the Lord last week, one of the final things he did was to pray with a man who needed to hear about Jesus’ forgiveness and healing. Up until his death, Jimmy was boldly telling others about his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Yet Jimmy never would have known Jesus had not one person after another shared the gospel with him while he was, by his own account, a “dangerous criminal.”

In our reading for today in Matthew 9:10-13 we find these words: ^“While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. ¹¹ When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” ¹² On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. ¹³ But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’^[a] For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

The challenge I want to offer all of us today, is that we take Jesus at His word and dedicate more of our time and energy this year to reach out to those we know to be “sinners.” Let’s increase our mercy, shift our focus some from “the righteous,” shift our attention from “religious sacrifice,” and find those so sick with sin that they need and want Jesus. We may have to go places like Leavenworth. Or, like Matthew, we may know people but we may just have never successfully invited them to get to know Jesus.

In our reading from the Psalms for today, we have this verse, “You, LORD, hear the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry” (Psalm 10:17). Jesus demonstrated the truth of this with Matthew and the others that day. Those who are caught up in sin are truly afflicted. God hears their cry and wants us to reach out to them. If you yourself are caught up in sin even now, God hears your cry and wants to encourage you by offering you forgiveness and a new life in Christ. As in Jimmy’s case, the depth of the sin is not an obstacle for Christ. Jesus had a word about that in Luke 7:47 when he spoke of a woman who was known to have lived a sinful life. She came to Jesus and he forgave her sins. Jesus then said, “I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” The point Jesus was making was that those of us who have been forgiven much, love Jesus even more! If we want a church filled with people who really love Jesus, we need to do more this year to hear the cry of the afflicted and reach out to sinners.

Perhaps our reading from Genesis 26-27 today is further illustration of the way that God reaches out to sinners. The record of how Jacob, whose very name sounds like the Hebrew word “deceiver,” tricked his brother and father, robbing his brother Esau of both his birthright and his blessing. As we read on in days to come, we will see how God wrestled with the conniving Jacob and gave him the new name, Israel “because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.” (Genesis 32:28) God wants us to be overcomers, no matter how deep the sin, and He wants us to reach out to and see others become overcomers through the forgiveness of sins and new life offered by Jesus.

Pastor Paul