Finding what was lost
Gospel reading: Luke 15.1-32
A few weeks ago our kitten Stevie got lost. We had only had him for 2 months. I didn't realise I had become so attached, or that I would become so pre-occupied and consumed with the task of finding him – posting on facebook, posting on’ pets on the net', going before church to the school where he was last seen and looking in every classroom, printing flyers for letterboxes, hunting through the bushes, driving the nearby streets.
The search for one little cat, who we had come to love, was intense. And when he came home we baked a cake with candles and’ welcome home Stevie‘ written on the icing and we celebrated.
So when I hear these stories from Luke, I can resonate with the energy of the search, and the delight of the finding.
What I have sometimes found it harder to believe in, is that God (and other people) would relate that way toward me...that my particular life should be the subject of God's intense desire and search, and that my homecoming in God should be the cause for rejoicing.
I have often found it difficult to celebrate the good in my life...I think because I have a deep suspicion of whether something that was good for me was welcome in the eyes of others. I have tended to downplay and minimise occasions for celebration, in fear the attention would somehow be interpreted as vanity, or self-indulgence, or be subject to some undermining criticism. I have a story of not feeling celebrated by others, or relaxing easily into receiving joy. I am the older brother.
These stories from Luke invite me to step into a different hope, a different way of seeing the value of my life, of seeing myself as someone worth rejoicing in. I don't think they're just about a single moment of conversion. I think they're about all the ways in which we don't know that we are at home, or welcome in the eyes of God. Which is a continuing journey of discovery, no matter how long ago we first stepped into our salvation.
Are you worthy of celebration? Do you believe that God rejoices over you with singing and invites you to a feast of homecoming?
When I ponder the reasons we might hang back from the feast, I can think of these:
You do not know that you are lost
You do not feel the ways in which you are lost
You do not believe you are worth finding
You do not believe that God cares specifically about finding you.
You might have other reasons that come to you.
These stories in Luke are Jesus, speaking with the voice of our Creator, to each one of us. There is nobody whom God is not seeking. The love of God is eternally reaching out. And these stories tell us that this love is particula—directed to the individual – the one sheep, the one coin, the beloved son. This is not the macro-level’ for God so loved the world'. And this is not God sitting back, doing nothing, waiting for you to turn up. This is God searching in the wilderness, lighting the lamp, sweeping the house, running out to meet you, and having a party at your return.
Can you receive this welcome, this desire of God for you, here in this moment?
And as we do, can we allow the fact of our homecoming influence the way we see all others...as people whom God is longing for, as people whose deep belonging and homecoming is held in God's heart? How would that change how we spoke and acted and connected with others – especially those we find it hard to love?
Let us take some silence to dwell with these things.