Proper 19, Year C | Luke 15:1-10
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
September 14, 2025
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
To watch the full service, please visit this page (available for three weeks after the date of streaming).
“This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” – Luke 15:2[1]
Today we need to talk about sin—about sinners, really, but sin is where we need to start.
When we hear the word “sin,” we normally think of breaking a law or intentionally harming another person. Sin is a “bad” or “evil” action—disobedience, stealing, murder, lying, and the like. We know that it isn’t just those things, that it’s possible to sin against someone in a variety of ways, but it’s the bigger stuff that first comes to mind. Modern American Evangelicalism has made an effort to broaden our definition, telling people sin is “falling short”[2] or, more formally, describing it as “anything that separates a person from God.” Personally, with all the layers of subjectivity involved, I’ve never really found that second one very helpful. And while it’s a well-meaning attempt at defining sin, it doesn’t actually come close to reflecting the fulness of what the Bible is talking about when it uses the term.
To understand “sin” the way Jesus or Paul was talking about it, we need to expand our scope quite a bit beyond what we’ve been taught to think.
Rather than just bad deeds, “sin” itself is similar to our concept of “failure.” But it isn’t just failure; it’s like a failure intertwined with decay. Decay isn’t necessarily something with any intention to it; often, it’s simply a state of being—what naturally happens when there isn’t enough energy for an object to maintain its integrity. Frequently, however, the rot from an object that’s decaying will spread to other things near it, making the source of the spoilage “bad” in our minds. That doesn’t mean there’s a moral component involved, though there may be. We find the thing disgusting because of what’s happening to it and what we fear might spread from it.
“Sin” is like what happens to a derelict house. Sure, someone might come by and vandalize it, speeding its downfall, but the primary issue is that nobody’s taking care of the property in the first place. Without anyone to tend to problems as they arise or make an effort at restoring damage, the whole structure eventually fails, leaving only an echo of what once was in the trace of a ruin, if even that.
That failure combined with decay almost makes sin sticky or infectious. A person can purposefully sin, in the sense of doing bad things, but sin itself far greater and more pervasive than any particular individual’s choices or behavior. It coats itself not only upon the person acting but also onto the things (or people) being acted upon—a sort of negative residue or association that clings not only to its source but slowly damages whatever it might touch.
And that broader concept is what we need to consider when we think about the word “sinner.” In the Bible, a sinner isn’t simply “a person who sins,”[3] as the dictionary defines the term. “Sinners” often included people who had been sinned against—victims of harm, whether intentional or circumstantial. Uncontrollable experiences—stuff life just throws at you—could cast you into the category of being a sinner. A tree falls on your house and you can’t afford to repair the damage: that inability marks you as a sinner. You flee war and have trouble adapting to a new land with a different language and unfamiliar customs: again, a sinner—you must not be trying hard enough. Something happens that leaves you with a disability: bad things happen to bad people, so there’s a good chance you’re a sinner—if not you, then most likely one of your parents or other recent ancestors, but we’ll add you to the mix in just in case. You make an honest mistake on your taxes so the government swoops in and begins garnishing wages: definitely a sinner, this time due to incompetence.
When it comes to “sinners,” the problem is often more about reputation or association than anything else. Instead of being strictly about a person’s actions or character, a “sinner” is defined by how people view or think about that person.
So the group Jesus is having dinner with is likely much more inclusive than just people who have knowingly done “bad” things. Yes, it would have included those people, but it was more like anyone an upstanding citizen might look down upon or regard with distrust: screw-ups, the down-and-out, people not living up to their potential: someone marginalized for any reason, really. Basically, if “proper” society turned its back on you, you were a sinner.
Sadly, not a lot has changed over the past 2,000 years, even—maybe especially—in the Church. Despite Jesus’ plain example, we still treat people as “sinners,” whether or not we actively think of them that way. Someone does or says something that leads us to connect them with a group we view negatively, so we choose to avoid or exclude them. We see how someone is dressed and make assumptions—and comments—about their character. Something bad happens to a fellow parishioner, so we start telling ourselves stories about why it happened and then spread rumors about what the person must have done to deserve it.
When it comes down to it, when I think of others as sinners or treat them as if they’re sinful, it reveals far more about my character than theirs. Who, in that moment, is the actual sinner—who is failing in their responsibility to love their neighbor as themself? Is it the one being looked down upon, or is it the one doing the looking? Is it the person who may or may not have “earned” a damaging reputation, or is it the one holding that presumed identity, affront, or affiliation against them?
In Luke’s story, everyone Jesus was hanging out with was a sinner—it was just that some were so busy obsessing about others’ foibles that they had blinded themselves to the creeping decay of their own failure.
The question for us is, whose example will I follow? Should I treat or talk about others as lesser simply because they don’t meet my expectations: they don’t look or think or behave the same way that I want them to? Or might I learn to approach those around me like Jesus did, looking past any supposed notoriety or stereotyped associations to embrace the child of God hidden beneath any real or imagined failure? Am I open to repentance—to seeking change in my own life? Will I make the effort to set aside my own sin of propriety and presumption and pride? Can I work to recognize and honor the Image of God in the other person? Am I able to risk my own reputation in order to treat as equal someone my heart longs to reject? And will I continue to do so even when I hear others grumbling,
“This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them”?
[1] All Bible quotations are from the NRSVue unless otherwise noted.
[2] A pretty solid definition, really.