LAKE JAMES

NORTH CAROLINA

Proper 19 C + Sept. 16, 2007 + St. Paul’s, Lake James

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The Gospel for today begins with two simple and direct statements: first, that it was the sinners, that is, publicans, tax collectors and other disreputable people who flocked to Jesus, and second, that the good people, the proper people, the religious and civic leaders, were scandalized by Christ’s willingness to associate with such people. To them, Jesus seemed to have no sense of propriety, no awareness of the dangers involved by hobnobbing with “riffraff.” And, make no mistake about it, in a culture in which visibly maintaining ritual purity was a measure of one’s fidelity to God, that was no small concern!

Jesus confronted that culture by telling three parables, two of which were part of the Gospel reading we have just heard. The first was the story of the shepherd who went in search of one missing sheep, found it and happily brought it back to the fold. The second, was about a housewife who, having lost one of her few coins, searched, found it, and then threw a party to celebrate!

How odd, even meaningless such Bible readings can sound to our ears! Few of us here at St. Paul’s are professional shepherds, and while most of us might wish we had more money than we do, finding a single lost coin would probably not cause us to host a big party in celebration. It’s not only some of our Bible readings which can seem a bit alien to our life. So much of our religion, its teachings, ceremonies, and vocabulary can appear to be irrelevant to daily life was we live it, with all its problems and needs, leaving us to wonder where the connection is, if there really is one, between church and “real life.” In an article written for those who preach sermons, an Episcopal nun offered what I think is excellent advice. She wrote: “the preacher needs to ask ‘how does the Bible become addressed to us? What basic situations exist in which people can not only hear, but understand the Word of God to them?’ ”

One of my favorite cartoons comes from England and shows two monks kneeling in prayer. One leans over to the other and confides, “actually, I’m a lapsed atheist!” If there is one reality which most humans have in common, it is that we also lapse! Any honest self-examination will reveal times in which we have been spiritually or emotionally apart from God – perhaps for a very long time, or for a week, a day, or even just an hour. Some people have absented themselves from the ongoing life of the Church as a result of their lapsing, while others, for various reasons, may have been present at Mass physically, but not inwardly.

To be found and loved by the very God from whom we have lapsed is exactly what Paul is writing about in today’s Epistle, part of his first letter to Timothy. Listen again to what he wrote: “I was once a blasphemer, a persecutor, a man filled with arrogance. I have been treated mercifully and the grace of God has been given to me in overflowing measure.”

Isn’t that the experience common to most all of us in various ways? Think of being a disobedient child who has the gift of loving parents who show forgiveness as they reach out in love as well as with correction. Think of estrangements within families or between friends and the great joy which can come with the healing which provides restoration of caring relationships. What is true for human relationships is far more so for our relationship with God. Words we sang this morning say it so well: “I once was lost, but now am found.” God’s love is always there, always ready to welcome us back regardless of whether our estrangement has been for a few moments or for many years. All we have to do is to stop running away and let God take over.

The shepherd and the poor housewife in today’s Gospel are figures of God who always wants to recover what is lost. We are the lost sheep, the lost coin and with infinite patience and intense love, God does not and will not abandon anyone of us – not even you, and not even me.

One of the wonderful ministries entrusted to the priesthood is that of hearing confessions. Over the years, I have had the great privilege of giving absolution to many who were returning to the Church and the practice of their religion, sometimes after long periods of time away from it all. While those returns to the life of the church were not as public or as dramatic as the conversion of Saint Paul, both Paul and the returning penitents shared in the amazing and awe-filled experience of the relentless and unceasing love of God, something perhaps previously known in some sense, but not newly and powerfully rediscovered. Some words of Francis Thompson in his hauntingly beautiful poem The Hound of Heaven come to mind: “I fled Him down the nights and down the days; I fled Him down the arches of the years; I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind, and, in the midst of tears, I hid from Him…”

In one way or another, at one time or another, most all of us hide from God (or try to). But sooner or later, by what may seem to be our own initiative, or by the intervention of others, or even by a sudden confrontation with God, we do come face to face with Him, Jesus the Messiah, crucified, risen and ascended; present in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, present in the words of Holy Scripture, and present in His Church – meaning present in you, and in me, as well as in the millions upon millions of our sisters and brothers in Christ the world over. The message is always the same: “I love you, I want you, and, like the wandering sheep or the lost coin, I will never give up on you.”

Returning once more to Francis Thompson and The Hound of Heaven, listen to God’s invitation to everyone: “Rise, clasp my hand, and come!” Somehow, in one way or another, each of us has to respond, don’t we?

+ In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The Reverend Alfred T. K. Zadig, Sr.

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