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!