17 Pentecost C/Lectionary 24 September 15, 2013
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie Guengerich Hutson
Exodus 32: 7-14 + Psalm 51: 1-10 + 1 Timothy 1: 12-17 +
Luke 15: 1-10
God of wisdom, by your Spirit speak this day a word of life, and plant in us the power of your righteous love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Today we’re going to do some visualizations together…..I’d like for you to imagine with me, in your mind’s eye, some folks who have been important in your life. So, if it helps to close your eyes, go ahead and do so.
Imagine first, the face of your mother or someone who is like a mother to you. Remember how her eyes looked….how did she smile?…what does her hair look like when you imagine her?
Now, do the same for your father or someone who is like a father to you. What details do you see of him? As you imagine him does he look happy or sad? Stern or loving?
Now, let’s see if we can make this a bit harder….imagine what your first love looked like. Maybe you were very young or maybe it was last week. And if you’ve not yet met this person, imagine them anyway….
Ok, last one….Now I want you to imagine God. What does God look like in your imaginings?
Alright, open your eyes.
So often God is depicted as an old white guy with a long flowing beard, sitting on the clouds, ready to smite God’s people whenever they misbehave. When I did a Google image search for God that was pretty much exactly what I got…..old white guy, long flowing beard, hands raised, ready for some smiting. Oh, and one image of Morgan Freeman from the movie Bruce Almighty.
Our Gospel reading today offers us two different images of God, God as a shepherd and God as a housewife.
Now, this shepherd image is not unfamiliar to us; we often think of Jesus as the Good Shepherd of the sheep. But what we must also remember is that in the days when these texts were written, shepherds were powerless tradespeople. The rabbis considered shepherding a profession that no law abiding Jew would teach his son. So, while it is possible to understand Jesus as a shepherd, it becomes a bit more difficult to imagine God as a shepherd.
The second image of God in our Gospel reading today is as a housewife who has lost a coin. She begins sweeping her home in a diligent search for what she has lost. Again, a woman would be a powerless person in the times of these texts. She would have no social standing, no chance of being self sufficient, and most often considered property to be bought and sold. God as a housewife, then, is likely not the image that came to mind when I asked you to imagine God.
So let’s think some more about what is happening in these two stories Jesus tells to the Pharisees and religious scholars in our Gospel reading from Luke today.
When Jesus gets to the end of each of these parables, he describes the intense rejoicing over the sheep that is found, the repentant sinner, and the silver coin when it is found. Great rejoicing! On heaven and on earth….great rejoicing! But there is a difference between a sinner who repents and a sheep or a coin. Neither a sheep or a coin are capable of any repentance. Unlike my dog who can look very repentant when he has done something he isn’t supposed to do, sheep are known for being, well, very simple animals. So it’s impossible for us to make a correlation between a repentant sinner and a lost sheep and a lost coin.
This doesn’t mean, however, that we are not lost. It doesn’t mean that as people and as a Church and as society we don’t lose our way….that we don’t become completely and utterly lost. Because we do.
The reading from Exodus today describes a time when the Israelites, God’s chosen people, had lost their way. Although they knew better, they had made an idol and had begun to worship it, saying that the idol was what had saved them and delivered them from Egypt. God was not happy about any of that and was determined to destroy the unfaithful people, but Moses interceded and changed God’s mind. Ah, ha! Here is the vengeful old white guy God waiting to smite the people! But the thing is, God doesn’t do it. God hears what Moses says and God’s mind is changed. The people are spared, despite their unfaithfulness.
What Moses reminds God of is of the covenant God made with the people – that they would be led to the land promised to their ancestors and that their descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. Moses reminds God that if all the people are struck down for their unfaithfulness, God is not upholding God’s part of the covenant.
I wonder sometimes just how much like those ancient Israelites we are. Certainly we have created idols for ourselves – false gods – and we have claimed that they have saved us. Certainly we have placed other gods ahead of the one true God. Sports, entertainment, material possessions, to name a few. We know, each one of us, what idol we have constructed, what is our molten calf…our very own sacred cow. That thing that we worship instead of God.
You know, when sheep get lost in the wilderness, they are, for all intents and purposes, goners. Between the elements and the wolves, they will not survive for long. And when a coin is lost, it has no way to save itself. It cannot just reappear. The sheep and the coin depend on the shepherd and the housewife to come and search for them. They cannot earn their way to being found. They cannot do enough good deeds that the shepherd and the housewife will deem them worthy of saving.
The value of the coin and the value of the sheep lie in who they belong to. They belong to the housewife and the shepherd and when they are lost, the housewife and the shepherd will go and search for them until they are found. This is the covenant of belonging. That the lost are found. That even when we blatantly and repeatedly lose our way, God remembers the covenant, the promise made to us…and for us that covenant is in the person of Jesus Christ. It is a new covenant, for us and for all people, present in the holy meal and the holy bath. In Holy Communion and in Holy Baptism, outward signs of what is true….that God’s love for us is such that even when we are at our most lost….even when we have built idols and broken promises, God comes and searches for us and rejoices when we are found.
Sisters and brothers, we belong to God, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. At this table today, all of the lost and the found are called to joyous celebration and we will get a taste of the feast that is yet to come. Here we will drink wine and taste bread and splash ourselves with water as reminders that whenever we are lost, whenever we are gripped by fear and feel that we have wandered too far from the flock; whenever we are unable to act in ways that are pleasing to God and in service to one another…..God, the humble shepherd….God the housewife with a broom….God the maker of and keeper of promises is determined to find us and does not stop until we are found and once again, every day, are brought from death to life. Thanks be to God. Amen.