September 16, 2007
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The Norwegian
Lutheran Memorial Church Luke 15 is a beautiful chapter about God’s searching love. Three parables paint the picture of a searching God. The 3rd of them was our sermon text exactly half a year ago (March 16th), while the 2 first parables in the chapter are the text for today — two parallel stories where men’s and women’s daily life are being placed side by side. First it is the man searching for the sheep that has gone astray. God is like that, Jesus claims. He is a running shepherd, bowing into thorn bushes, leaning out on mountain ranges because he wants to find the animal bearing his stamp! In the same way God resembles a woman lighting a lamp in the house, and restlessly sweeps and moves things aside because she wants to find something. She doesn’t give up, as long as it is missing! Her dearest piece of jewelry is damaged. Yes, as that is the most probable interpretation of these ten silver coins, they make up her wedding jewelry piece. A diadem that she proudly wears on her forehead as she goes out meeting people. Each of these silver coins by themselves don’t deserve the uproar she creates. But her jewelry is not jewelry any more when there is a gaping empty space in the middle of the chain of ten medallions! The completeness is disrupted. She can not show up among the women at the well. Therefore this impetuous searching action. And an even more impetuous joy when the lost is found again! God is like this. When any of those he calls his gets lost, the fellowship is not complete. Jesus’ bride on earth, the Christian church is the church of the erring and fallen persons. The fellowship of forgiven sinners. If someone is missing, it is as if the bride is missing a part of her piece of jewelry. In a few minutes I will stand with the chalice in my hands, and a group will kneel around the altar railing. Then I will think, these people are Jesus’ diadem! Now there is joy in heaven… As sinners meet at God’s table. In the communion song of praise we mingle our voices with the voices of those who praise God at the heavenly communion. Heaven and earth, God and humans embrace each other in a holy meal. The sacraments have been named God’s caresses. The Almighty himself touches us through the communion bread and wine. The same happens with the child that is being baptized. The baptismal water is God’s caress to the child that he welcomes and makes his own child. “God with all his billions of people takes on the feeling of responsibility towards each and every soul”, the Danish bishop Georg Geil has stated. God has got no one to lose. You are, regardless of who you are, meant to be a coin in Jesus’ bridal jewelry. If you feel written off because of your sins, you are on the contrary written in among those whom Jesus intercedes for. So there is one place where you are not evaluated according to what you do. Only who you are counts. One place where what counts is not what humans made you to be, but what God made you into the day the mark of the cross was sketched over your life: God’s property. Towards God you are not a social security number in a register. But a valuable child. A mother who had 12 children was once asked whom she loved the most. After thinking for a little while, she replied: “ The child that is ill until it is healthy again. The child that is away until it is back again. The child that is in trouble, until it is safe again.” Here, love creates a new range of values: The lost has priority. Love takes sides with the lost, until it is re-found. We would so much like to know about God and our life’s path, whether he has decided on everything beforehand. That he has decided our steps even before we got feet. Or if he only has seen the way we are taking. And what about our time of death? Has he decided the exact moment in time, or how much has he left over to human hands? In our thoughts we tumble with so many mysteries. And the Old Book doesn’t give an answer to everything we want clarified. But it gives an answer that goes deeper. As there are things that lie deeper than we can ask or can consider. The old gospel says: God is warm hearted, even when his creatures are heartless. He has a heart for them. He has a heart for you. We are like the child. It doesn’t understand everything. But it needs not understand, either. What the child needs, is to know that you love it. The picture I want to remain, that I want you to keep after this Sunday service, is the picture of the searching God. And how happy he is when he again finds, and brings into safety what is his. Christian faith is not about people seeking and searching for God. At least not in the first term. Well, that too, but the initiative comes from above. I have been taught in my Lutheran theology that above all, God searches for people. More than people search for God. But we should not narrow down the Biblical language. As both are true. The Bible describes a movement going both ways. Even in the beginning of our text today we can see it: All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And in vv 7 and 10 Jesus talks about a sinner repenting. So here the sinner is the subject, and God is the tacit object. The Bible takes a varied language into use to say something about this fantastic thing: That God and humans embrace each other. The most beautiful picture of this is the homecoming of the prodigal son. So, the initiative is from God. Above all, the parables of today are about a God searching for the creature that belongs to him. That one day was baptized, but went astray from the flock that the good shepherd gathers around himself. So to come to God, is to come home. And as this happens, it triggers off a heavenly feast of joy. Then He sets the banquet table and says: Rejoice with me, for I have found the one that was lost. Rejoice, bride of Christ, when one of the coins in your jewelry that was lost, has come back again! Are we missing anybody? The 99 sheep, the worst about them was that they couldn’t count. Sheep are not able to do that. So they do not notice if someone is missing. It doesn’t bother them that the flock is not full in number. Are we like that, is our own salvation sufficient for us? In a quite provoking advertisement in a Norwegian newspaper a deacon institution put the following: “God loves hooligans”. Then there was a picture of a young man that was on the slide. He didn't’ look lovable, the young guy. But God finds all people lovable, no matter what. So let not our own salvation be sufficient, we who are in church. The owner and the shepherd of the flock will not let the joy flow until the others are saved, too. He doesn’t spare himself until he has brought in the prodigal one. He didn’t even spare his own Son. But sent him out searching, even if it cost him his life. So all thanks and glory be to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, who was, is and shall ever be one true God from eternity and to eternity. |
The Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church · 924 E. 21st St, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2952 · (612)874-0716 |