Proper C19 - September 16th 2007
Readings Exodus 32:7-14 1 Timothy 1:12-17 Luke 15:1-10 Kalas' "Parables From the Back Side," : it was a coin, he said, that women saved to put on some sort of headband during their marriage ceremony. Once they collected 10, they could be married "properly," and they saved and collected these coins because their very identity in ancient-time society (being married) was involved in having them. The subjects of the parables are a woman, searching for a coin, and a shepherd, searching for a lost sheep. Both shepherds and women were outcasts - cast out of society. In telling the parables in the way he did Jesus is "fiinding" the lost - among them, the shepherds and the women - dropped from the pages of respectability by the leaders of society. |
The joy of recovering the lost is the theme of the Gospel reading of this Sunday witht he parables of the Lost Coin and the Lost Sheep. These parables go by the need of the finder to find, not about the need of the lost to be found. Robert Farr The JOY OF FINDING is what is captured. At one level Jesus is asking his hearers to step into the shoes of the woman and the shepherd in finding what they have lost and inspiring his hearers to share the joy of finding. The three parables of Luke 15 describe the joy of finding and the people who can be found/recovered - the outcast and those who put themselves out of bounds, like the one we call "Prodigal". | Talking about finding the lost this is worth a look
from "A Place at the Table" - art created by the Homeless Artists and Volunteers of Trinity cathedral's heARTspace Outreach Programme in Cleveland, Ohio An old man who used to meditate each day be the Ganges River in India. One morning he saw a scorpion floating on the water. When the scorpion drifted near the old man he reached to rescue it but was stung by the scorpion. A bit later he tried again and was stung again, the bite swelling his hand painfully and giving him much pain. Another man passing by saw what was happening and yelled at the mediator, "Hey, stupid old man, what's wrong with you? Only a fool would risk his life for sake of an ugly, evil creature. Don't you know you could kill yourself trying to save that ungrateful scorpion?" The old man calmly replied, "My friend, just because it is in the scorpion's nature to sting, does not change my nature to save." It is in God's nature to save . Henri NouwenSEARCH PARTY is suggested by ome as a sermon titl for this Sunday. |
