Fifty
years ago, many of us were fascinated by a set of images or words coming from
our media that became part of who we were. Images of the far away moon and
representatives of humanity walking there have become part of who we are.
Eighteen years ago, a set of images became part of our culture. The collective
consciousness of the world expanded to include images of buildings and people
falling, images of planes crashing and exploding, images of exhausted first
responders. Alongside those images are sets of mental pictures, where we were
and who was with us on September 11, 2001.
In
the days of the exodus, a set of images became part of Israelite history. God’s
chosen people amassed images of their escape, of the destruction Yahweh brought
down in plague after plague, of an angry pharaoh chasing after his slave labour
as they fled into the desert. The exodus created images of walls of water
piling up for the weary nation to cross a riverbed; and in the journey to their
freedom, the people of God gathered up images of pharaoh’s great army swallowed
up in an unforgiving sea.
Yet
in Exodus 32, we struggle to understand a people who conspired together to form
a more concrete image of a god, one they could create and touch, one they could
understand and control, one they could move and manipulate. The images of past
deliverance were not sufficient for their faith. They sought more than the
image of a past experience. They pursued an image of God’s presence; but like
many of us searching for certainty, they shaped an image of God’s absence. The
disturbing, living quality of Yahweh, God is that no image can hold God’s full
presence.
And,
while images of our life and world will replay around us, we are challenged to
see God somewhere in all of them— in that first step onto a far celestial body
by humanity, in the first responder’s courage, in the trembling wall of water
on either side, in the idea that sometimes we need to change our minds. But as
we come back to earth and focus on what is important what are we asked to do by
our God.
As
we pick up on the reading from Luke 15, we are given a challenge to our focus
in life. What do I owe the ninety-nine? I wander far, slipping heedlessly over
sliding gravel, jumping doe-like over crevices, relying upon my own grace.
Maybe not so much wandering as running away. Panic obscures my memory and my
motives. I descend through the canyons until I’m immobilised by abysses that
stretch too wide to cross, rock buttresses too narrow to squeeze through. Weakened,
I can’t retrace my steps. Just as I surrender to despair, there you are. You
sought me and found me and carried me home. Our God has been with us and
supported us as we have taken this journey to seek those who are lost.
Here’s
my question and a challenging question for us all. What do I now owe the other
ninety-nine? The ones waiting patiently, staying obediently with the flock? Did
you see their looks of envy and reproach? How do you get to nuzzle against his
shoulder, carried on his sweet back? You don’t deserve it! We were faithful, we
stayed with the flock and look at you carried shoulder high like a triumphant
athlete, laurel leaves for your lies and selfishness!
Like
the prodigal’s older brother, they refuse to come to the angelic party given in
my honour. What do I owe them? I’d drink to their happiness—if I hadn’t given
up drinking. They reject the gift of my gratitude. The ninety-nine banish me to
the solitude I sought in the first place. They turn me into a fool. A fool for
love. And wiser than I was. Our world can gape in awe at events both positive
and challenging in our history, but they pale in the eyes of our God and yet
again the question comes of how we acknowledge our God’s presence.
In these scripture readings
Jesus and the writers tell us that there is a God who comes to save the lost.
God knows us, knows our hiding places and the little nooks and crannies that we
slip into from time to time, and he comes to save us. Salvation always looks
different than we expect it to—sometimes pleasantly different, and sometimes it
looks like rehab, marriage counselling, a job you wouldn’t ordinarily want—but
a job is a job is a job.
We should also never forget
that God has a body, the church, and that sometimes God retrieves us through
this body. Pastor is Latin for “shepherd,” and in a sense, we are all called to
be pastors, shepherds— gatherers of lost people—through our comings and goings,
our liturgies, our various gifts. As Christians we ask that our God may give us
the diligence to search for the lost and the wisdom to know what to do after we
find them.
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