RCL Readings Sunday 12 September 2010
Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
Psalm 14
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10

The reading from Jeremiah (4:11-12, 22-28) describes a bleak and barren land, a wasteland of the people’s own making. It is a picture with little hope. A picture replicated at different levels within our world – consider some of the current news stories from around the world; also communities in Britain where there is a breakdown in community cohesion; and in the lives of some individuals. A potential picture for many places if we continue to misuse the environment as we appear to be doing. Two prayer responses emerge for us. Repentance involving facing the reality, acknowledging our complicity, expressing our remorse, and a change of direction – the latter being sign that validates the reality of the earlier steps. Secondly, intercession – praying for the ‘wasteland’ places and situations and again seeking how we might be involved.

Psalm 14 is headed in my Bible as a “Denunciation of Godlessness”. By considering what God denounces we can glimpse what God requires. God looks for an acknowledgement of God’s presence, a seeking after divine wisdom, and a doing of good. The acid test of whether a people manifest these requirements is how do the poor fair and how do the powerful exercise their power? We need to acknowledge God’s presence and seek to recognise the signs, we need to pray for divine wisdom in the exercising of power and in the way we live, and the doing of good needs to reflect our understanding of God.

The Gospel reading (Luke 15:1-10) is two very well known parables – the lost sheep and the lost coin. These parables are prompted by the grumbling of the religious folk because Jesus “welcomes sinners and eats with them.” I invite you to consider the following in the light of these two parables:

·       Often grumbling comes because either someone doesn’t do things in the way we expect and to our liking or because they ignore the accepted norms and protocols. What are the things you grumble about and what parable/story might Jesus tell?

·       These are parables that show us what God is like. God is like a shepherd (a class of labourers held in very low esteem in the culture of the day) who has lost a sheep. God is like a woman (the least powerful group in their culture) who has lost a coin. This raises an uncomfortable question: Why do we tend to focus on God as shepherd and not on God as woman?

·       God the shepherd we are told “goes after the one that is lost until he finds it” and God the woman “searches carefully until she finds it”. God shepherd like and woman like doesn’t give up on the lost one. The importance of the individual in the economy of God and the persistence at the heart of God – key words are ‘the one’ and ‘until’.

·       God risks and God parties. God risks the 99 to seek the one and God parties to an extent that in human terms is disproportionate to the amount of money that was lost and found. The enormous value that God places on the finding of the lost.

·       A final point to reflect upon. Are not the grumblers lost too!

Allow these parables to reshape your understanding of God and the ways of God and because the third parable in this sequence (Luke 15:11-31) is missed out in the lectionary reading of Luke remember that both the younger and the older son needed to come home for the Father’s celebration and joy to be complete. Pray for the ‘lost’ and pray for/about your own ‘lostness’. But don’t forget to join in heaven’s celebration.