Obsessive Compulsive Order
September 12
18th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C
Luke 15.1-10
When Calvin Miller was a child his older brother Dickie drowned in a farm pond. In his memoir Life at the Edges Miller recounts how a family member offered the grief-stricken mother the clumsy consolation that "you still have seven other children." Through her tears Mrs. Miller spat back, "I want them all!"
Jesus pictures God the Father as an obsessive mother whose greedy love is bad at math. One might question the economics of burning expensive oil to illuminate a single coin. In the strict calculations of P&L, the game might not be worth the candle. But in a society that left women largely powerless a woman’s worth was tightly bound to her stewardship of family finances. She summons her besties to party because the search has saved both her budget and her reputation.
Percentages mean nothing to a God who loves individuals, a God who has staked his own glory to the quest for human redemption. The eternal Housewife spends the blazing bright light of the sinless Son to burn himself out in the search for shadow-swallowed souls who have rolled into the cracks and corners of this sinful world. The fierce tears of the Almighty fall as freely for the final percent as for all who have preceded it. Should some bold, six-winged member of the seraph band around the throne dare to offer comfort by reminding the Maker, "Lord, you have many children left," the great Lover would sob in heartbroken thunder, "I want them all!"
All of which means that none of us who is lost should ever give up on being sought, and none of us who is found should ever give up seeking others.
One Hundred Percent,
Doug
Collect
Heavenly Father, with parables of passion your Son shows you to be our obsessive Lover. Grant that we whom your love has found may be so transformed by that miracle that we never cease joining your search for souls, that your flock may stand complete before your throne in that great day when you bid your friends to rejoice. This we ask in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Benediction
Go now with nothing,
Knowing you give up only what you cannot keep.
Go now with the cross of Christ,
Knowing you take up the only thing worth keeping.
Go now with your great Lord and Leader,
Knowing he will lift you up to eternal life and will keep you safe.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
Amen.
Sermoneutics is a weekly column authored by Doug Jackson. Before coming to SCS, Dr. Jackson pastored local churches for nearly twenty-five years.