“Which of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of
them,
does
not leave the 99 in the wilderness
and
go after the one that is lost until he finds it?”
The thing about the Gospel of Luke, I have discovered,
is
that each parable and story seems to have one point in it
that
makes no good sense,
that
isn’t what you would expect.
Having seen the Judean wilderness,
how
rocky and rugged it is,
how
hilly the terrain is,
how
full of wadis or steep gulches it is,
it really wouldn’t be a very good idea
to
leave 99 sheep out there alone while going to look for one.
But the point is what it is that makes God rejoice.
It’s not how good one might be,
but
whether one can repent.
That’s what makes God rejoice.
Repentance here means changing one’s mind.
It is the willingness to change courses,
to
be open to change.
This is more delectable to God, it would seem,
than
us managing on our own to keep on the straight and narrow!
God savors the lost,
and
those who know they’re lost,
the
ones who can’t find themselves,
and
thus know their need for God.
Over such as these there is great rejoicing in heaven.
So spiritually, we could say, it is much better for us
to
have really screwed up,
and
realized it in
order to repent
than
to somehow manage on one’s own not to get into trouble,
to
have done a fine job!
Are you scratching your heads over that?
Well then, let’s talk personally about repentance
and
how that may be an appropriate topic for consideration
here
in this parish family.
For some folks here, members of this church family,
the
last few months have been difficult and painful.
For others it has been bewildering,
wondering
what happened that a seemingly well like priest left.
Her
departure was a surprise.
Who’s to blame for what happened?
That
is the question that often come up first.
But who’s to blame is a moving target
depending
on who is asking the question.
Rather – in situations like these,
since
blame is not a productive approach,
I want to suggest to you that we all look at what happened
as
a systemic breakdown in the way
the
members of this family live with each other.
Oh, a failure.
Our
parish failed to deal with this situation
in
a way that everything could be fixed.
No, not that kind of failure,
because
that assumes that the average congregation can achieve
or
sustain a successful blending of diverse personalities
peacefully
and without conflict
through all the vicissitudes of ordinary daily life.
I’ve never encountered a congregation, or a family for
that matter, like that.
I have yet to meet a church family,
extended
family, nuclear family, or married couple
that
hasn’t had their share of clashes, miscommunications,
misunderstandings,
rash words spoken without thinking,
jumping
to conclusions and making assumptions
conscious
and unconscious.
Rather
let’s
give up the expectation that because we are a church family
we
should innately act better than we do.
We’re all a bunch of sinners here, myself very much
included.
Some
of us understand that this is the real reason why we are here.
Instead let us consider our personal and corporate
failures
as
though they were a gift. Yes,
a gift.
Can we let our own failures
whether
here or in our private lives
be opportunities for helping us dare to look into the
mirror
reflecting
back to us our own realities that we would rather not see.
Amazingly this daring to look at ourselves open to seeing
our
short comings, foibles, misunderstandings,
deliberate
sins and unintentional sins – daring to look at that –
is to receive the gift of repentance that God offers us.
Spiritually it is always good when we come to the
recognition
that
we have screwed up in one of our relationships.
Being able to see, or even just begin to see,
the
damage we may have inflicted on another
is to encounter not only what we wish we didn’t have to
look at in ourselves
but
also, at the same time, in that moment of truth
to
experience an unequivocal divine acceptance and expression
of grace, forgiveness and love
offered
without fanfare,
straight
forward with a certainty you can depend upon.
That is repentance, the being turned around.
As I said to you the very first Sunday I was with you,
(which was August 25)
repentance
is what God does in us.
The
repentance, the turning, is an act of empowerment by God,
as
it states in Acts 11:18. [God gives repentance into life.]
And
it is God’s kindness that leads to repentance,
as
it says in Romans 2:4. [God’s kindness leads you into repentance.]
The
sheep that was lost probably didn’t intend to get lost.
Most likely it was head strong, following the
devices and desires of its own heart,
rather
than staying with flock or heeding the shepherd.
The sheep did not repent.
It
was repented.
It
was turned about by
the shepherd when
it was found.
And even more outrageous, the coin that was lost
could
not possibly know how it had sinned,
let
alone how to repent.
But it would stay lost until the woman with the broom
found
where it had rolled away.
You can depend on God, the Divine woman with the broom,
coming after us.
Isn’t
that a great image?!
We are each too important to God
to
be left on our own to find our own way back.
So please, may each one of us
do
some prayerful reflection on how you yourself,
without
looking at anyone else,
have
failed in the life of this community, recently or long in the past,
failed
through inattention or assumptions,
a
hastily spoken word or a judgmental thought,
and
find in that grace-filled response of our Lord
something
to enable the restoration of broken relationships
or
grace to reach out to one another
with
expressions of regret and sorrow,
forgiveness
and restoration
that
can help the whole Body of Christ here in this place
to
function so much better.
The much larger issue here is how we all respect one
another
and
how we become more aware of
how
our words and actions impact the whole community of faith,
how
we respect and honor one another
or
how we disregard each other
as
we doggedly pursue our own agendas,
and our own personal beliefs about how things ought to be done
around here.
And, of course, this isn’t restricted to just here.
We encounter the same issues in our families and in the
workplace,
often,
I would say, blundering unaware in actions and decisions
that
affect others in ways we had not intended.
And – here’s a thought –
whatever bothers you
in another is likely a disowned part within yourself.
There are different ways of handling all this:
-
ignoring the situation, hoping it will go away,
-
defending one’s position,
-
giving a long list of rationales for why you were
right all along,
-
or just admitting the mess up and taking some
lumps.
Whatever response we may have
according to our habitual response pattern,
we
are still exhibiting our “lost-ness.”
And so we continue to run into the same kind of screw ups
over and over.
And, you may have noticed, that until you or I get the
lesson,
we
will continue to be pursued by God, the Woman with the Broom, searching
us out
in
order to have that joy of bringing home the lost.
So if you want to make God really happy,
‘fess
up,
face
the music about your own habitual screw ups.
And you too will know the greater joys of heaven,
the
joy in the presence of the angels of God.
Thanks
be to God.
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