WHOSE
IDEA?
INTRODUCTION
The
readings we had this evening are both very familiar. Old friends, you might say.
I think, though, that they were well chosen for this first Sunday
evening in Lent, as they remind us that this whole business was God's idea, not
ours.
LOSING THINGS
Our Gospel
reading was the first two stories about losing things from Luke 15. The lost coin and the lost sheep. I imagine you probably lose things as often
as we do. With me, it's usually my reading-glasses, or my ordinary ones if I
happen to be wearing my reading ones.
Contact lenses are a blessing in that respect, as then my
reading-glasses are either round my neck, perched on the end of my nose, or in
my handbag!
And I won't
be so unkind as to mention how often Robert loses things! But we all do, and probably more often as we
get older. And the woman in Jesus'
story had lost her coin.
I gather
that the thing about the coin was that it formed part of a woman's dowry. It was kept, with its fellows, in a band she
wore round her head, so it would be immediately obvious if one fell off. What might not be so immediately obvious,
however, is where it would have landed.
It might even have dropped off in the street, when the chances of her
finding it again would be minute. But she doesn't despair; she searches very
thoroughly in all the nooks and crannies of her house, and I do wonder what
else she found while she was looking! Eventually
her search pays off and, much to her relief, she finds the coin. And she really celebrates, rushing
round to all her neighbours and yelling that she has found it, she's found it!
And, of
course, the story of the lost sheep, so familiar from a thousand pictures of
the Good Shepherd carrying it home round his neck, which my brother, who is a
shepherd, tells me is about the only practical way of carrying a sheep. Only the pictures don't show what the sheep
is apt to do all down one's front. I
assume the Good Shepherd doesn't use the sort of language my brother does when
it happens, either!
Anyway,
sheep always think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, and if
they can escape, they will. And the
shepherd has to go out and get them back into safety, especially if they are in
danger of going on to the main road.
Then, of course, they have to be counted, to make sure everyone's home
safely. And if someone isn't, then the
shepherd must go out and search for it.
PASSIVE
VOICE
The point
is, of course, that it is passive. Neither the coin nor the sheep has to do anything. They are looked for, they don't have to do
the looking. I think Jesus was trying
to tell us that we can relax and let him do the fussing about our relationship!
I know that
when Emily was attracted to the Baha'ai faith after she had made such close
friends with those students in Switzerland – she'll kill me if she decides to
read this on my website – I had a very reassuring vision of the Good Shepherd
pulling on Barbour and wellies and going off after her! And sure enough, He
found her again. You end up not
worrying just so much when that sort of thing happens.
We so often
feel that our relationship with God is down to us. Or worse, that our loved ones’ relationship is down to them, so
if they seem to be wandering off what we consider to be the right track we
start panicking and trying to tell them what to do.
And
likewise, when we get into one of those stages of life where we feel we have
grown “cold in the service of God” – and it happens to us all – we start to
panic, and think that God will abandon us just as we feel we have abandoned
him. But that isn’t true. It may feel as though we’ve abandoned God,
but whether or not we have – and the chances are it’s just one of those times
of darkness that seem to happen to all of us, not our fault, or anything we can
do about it, but even if we have abandoned God, God has not abandoned us, but
goes searching for us.
Part of the
problem, of course, is the language we use.
We speak of being “saved by faith”, and while we need faith to believe
in what is happening to us, it is not, of course, our faith which saves
us! It is what Jesus did on the cross
that saves us; our faith merely enables us to make that true for us. But salvation was God’s idea, and is
something God does for us, not something we do. Rather like Jesus reminding us that we cannot, by our own
efforts, add one centimeter to our height – such a pity that isn’t true about
one’s girth – well, we cannot, of our own efforts, save ourselves.
I rather
appreciate being reminded of this on this first Sunday in Lent. We are about to spend the next six weeks
preparing ourselves for Easter, and some years this is more difficult than
others. I rather suspect that this
year, for us-as-a-church, will be more difficult than some, given that we are
in an interregnum, and that our future is uncertain. So it is reassuring to remember that all this is God’s idea, not
ours!
And, of
course, God has given us some tools to help us. In our first reading, we are reminded of one way:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.
Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart.
Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.
Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead,
and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”
Religious Jews do exactly that, in what are called phylacteries, which are leather pouches containing scrolls with passages of scripture. Jews refer to them as tefillin. The Greek term "phylacteries" literally means "amulets" and is offensive to some, apparently. They attach the little pouches to their persons when they go to pray.
And many Jewish people who are not otherwise observant
attach mezuzah to their doorposts.
These are little boxes. The
words of the Shema – the “Hear oh Israel” exhortation – are written on a tiny scroll of parchment,
along with the words of a companion passage, Deuteronomy 11:13-21, which says
almost the same thing. On the back of
the scroll, a name of God is written. The scroll is then rolled up placed in
the case, so that the first letter of the Name (the letter Shin) is visible
(or, more commonly, the letter Shin is written on the outside of the
case). And then whenever you go in and
out of your house, you touch the mezuzah, to remind yourself of God’s presence with
you. I haven’t heard of any Christian
homes doing this, but it’s a lovely idea.
Maybe we should! It would be a
good way of, as it were, “touching base” with God whenever one went in or out.
Of course,
that passage also evolved into the services of Scripture that we know today,
via the synagogue services that Jesus would have been familiar with, through
the “Hourly prayer” of the Benedictines, and the Anglican services of Matins
and Evensong, down to the Methodist Preaching services such as this one! And there are plenty of other what Wesley
called “Means of Grace”: the Scriptures themselves, Holy Communion, Fellowship
with others, prayer and so on. The
whole point isn’t to place a burden of obligation on to us, but to provide us
with helps as and when we need them. Only,
all too often, we are apt to treat them as burdens, as Things We Have To Do if
we are to be Saved, whatever we may mean by that.
But, as I
said before, salvation was God’s idea, not ours. And that, I think, is where we came in. The point is, then, not
to be overburdened down by Lent. To
remember that God means it as a help, not as a burden. Like Jesus said about the Sabbath being made
for man, not man for the Sabbath – same sort of thing. We are God’s children, we are loved, and God
intends for us to enjoy, not endure, being His Children. Amen.