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Thursday, September 09, 2010

On being found

How do you find things when they are lost?
Your car keys? Your wallet? Your dog, your child?

The Readings for this Sunday are Proper 19 for Year C, 16th September 2007

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28 and Psalm 14, 1 Timothy 1:12-17,Luke 15:1-10



These two stories, a man losing a sheep
a woman losing some money
are easily understood
This is the point of these stories that Jesus tells us.
they lock into our experience.
We know what it is like to lose things
we know what it is like to be lost!
We also know what it is like
when we find what we have lost
indeed if we have been lost ourselves
we know what a feeling of relief it is
when we see someone who is coming to our rescue.
Both of these things are caught up in these two simple images.

TWO DIRECTIONS
We can easily see that these two engaging stories
work in two directions
The first is we are searching.
Clearly what we are searching for is God.
We might sometimes call this happiness, fulfilment,
or whatever
But St Augustine reminds us
Our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you
If you are like me when I search
I don't always do it well.
Often the distress of loss works against me
When you start behaving erratically
instead of methodically
rushing around madly, instead of carefully;
then things start to go awry.
Perhaps we need to to take note,
stop,
wonder where we have been,
try and think more carefully.
This week , instead of running around madly,
hoping perhaps that God will be impressed
by our busy-ness
can we just take time to be with God
and look at where God has been with us.
And maybe revisit some of the places
and look again
at the highs and lows
the joys and sadnesses.
Where has God been with us?

It also goes in another direction
Where we, are not the seeker, but the lost?
God is looking for us.
We get something of this in the way Paul talks about how he himself was lost.
But God pursued him.
What ever else we might think about what we are looking for,
we can be sure that God is looking for us.
The psalms tell us that we cannot flee
either to the mountain tops
oir the ocean depths
God wants us!
This should be reassuring

Again this week
can we perhaps cooperate with God
and sit still long enough to be found
it may be a quiet time
reading the bible
praying
or just simply doing nothing.

So as you think about these two stories this week,
seek carefully for God
and allow yourself to be sought and found!




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