Lk 15:8-10 Another picture: A woman has but ten coins, ten days’ wages, and she loses one. What to do? Of course, she will light up her house and clean it thoroughly until she succeeds in finding that lost coin! And, you know as well as I that having found it, she will immediately call all her friends to celebrate with her over this disaster averted. So it is in heaven. When a sinner repents, God rejoices before His angels.
Thematic Relevance:
|
Again, we are hearing of the diligent care of God for His children. Luke’s particular perspective is perhaps on display here, as he allows the example of the woman to be a lesson to the men. |
Doctrinal Relevance:
|
God doesn’t give up on what is His. The search goes on until the lost is found. God rejoices. |
Moral Relevance:
|
As this reinforces the preceding parable, the point is much the same for me: If God is this concerned about the lost, then surely I, being a child of His household, must be equally concerned. |
Questions Raised : |
God already knows that the sinner is not lost to Him. So, why the rejoicing? |
I am just a little curious as to how this particular parable was received. That its object, its conclusion is intended to be obvious to all is a given. That is the nature of parable. Everybody listening to Jesus can picture just such a woman in their mind’s eye, and they know it is as He says. She will be frantic and relentless in hunting down that coin, and of course she will immediately go about to all her friends to share the news of its recovery.
Still, this parable is being told to a strongly patriarchal society. Women are little more than property in the eyes of men. They are not valued as equals, certainly, and probably not appreciated that much as object lessons either. I wonder, then, how many who heard this parable were too offended by the use of a woman to teach the men to receive the lesson.
I wonder, too, how often we are in a similar condition today. It may not be the use of a woman to teach us that offends, although in some corners I know that’s still an issue even within the Church. Maybe it’s a skin color or an accent. Maybe it’s nothing so obvious as all that. But, something about the way God has chosen to deliver His lesson to us so offends our sensibilities that we reject the lesson. You think it doesn’t happen? What about when your spouse speaks a particularly pointed truth to you, and one you’ve been busily avoiding? What about when it’s your child’s expression of Truth that is forcing you to come to terms with your own character flaw? My, how the flesh rises up! My how we are concerned to assert our authority and headship in those moments!
But, will we stop and hear the Truth in spite of the messenger? Will we glean what God is saying even if the formatting of His message is displeasing to us? We must! If God chooses to speak through an NPR newscast, who am I to reject it? If God chooses to surround a nugget of His Truth with a cloud of suspect theological noise, shall I reject what is clearly True because of that noise? Oh, I may well choose to go find a different venue, where there’s less noise to suffer through, but no! The Truth remains True even though it be pronounced by Satan’s own, even though it be spoken through the mouth of an ass.
When the message is True, the messenger delivering it does not change it. When the message is True, it matters not whether it comes in block letters or script, in writing or on the air, by a dearly loved pastor, or a reviled televangelist, or even a militant antitheist. It doesn’t matter whether it comes from Obama or Osama or your mamma. Truth remains truth. That we allow our civil sensibilities to determine the acceptability of the messenger before we even deign to consider the message (and that message better be appropriately phrased, too!) says more about our problems than about the message of Truth.
The Gospel, Paul noted, is foolishness to the Greek and scandal to the Jew. Is the Gospel at fault, then? No way! It is the cultural sensibilities of the hearer that need a bit of correction. So it has ever been, and so it remains with us. We either let the Gospel cut through our social filtering system, or we perish with our culture.
It is quite clear where Jesus has been focusing, given what has led up to this parable. In particular, the parable of the one lost sheep makes His own concerns and priorities perfectly clear. He, and in Him God, will not rest while one of His sheep remains lost to Him. They are too precious in His sight to allow their loss. The human shepherd of that parable might eventually have to give up when the sheep he has been seeking is found to be dead and beyond rescue. But, for God, even that limit is cast aside.
This parable, then, reinforces the message: God will not stop until He has found that lost one. There is that undercurrent of taking issue with the Pharisees and scribes still. It is something of a slap in the face to them. “You may not think these taxmen and sinners are worth anything, but to God their worth is immeasurable.” I might be inclined to add, “were you numbered amongst His sheep, you would be just as valuable in His sight, but…”. However, as often as we hear these classes rebuked, we are not given the privilege of discovering whether that rebuke led to repentance at some point or not. We know that some few, even of the Pharisees, came to true faith in the end, so let us make no unwarranted assumptions.
So, if the message is already delivered, why is Jesus at it again? It’s not like Him, is it, to go on and on with a point that’s already been made? Well, there is certainly a reassertion of the major point, the point of the sinner’s worth in God’s eyes (when that sinner is not an irrecoverable reprobate). But, as the NET notices, there is a second theme, the theme of God’s own joy over the repentant sinner. We saw this idea introduced with the shepherd of the previous parable, at least as Luke delivers the account. The shepherd wants all those he knows to celebrate with him because he has had that one sheep restored to him. He has been successful!
Here, the image is changed to that of a village woman, but the reaction is much the same. Her day has started with the loss of a day’s wages. Put it in perspective. You get paid every two weeks. You’re not getting rich on that paycheck. You’re just making enough to keep going. So, you deposit your check in the bank and come back to discover that some error on their part has deducted 10% of your deposit. Maybe it’s identity theft. Maybe it’s just a glitch in the computer. Frankly, to you it doesn’t matter all that much why it’s gone. It’s the fact that you were depending on that 10% to see you through to the next paycheck. The loss of that money maybe means you have to skip a few meals in the coming weeks to make ends meet. Maybe it’s so critical that you may have trouble even getting back and forth to work.
The point is, the loss of that coin is not a minor irritation. It’s not like you dropped a penny and it rolled under the counter. That, you could ignore, and probably would. A penny doesn’t mean much. This is far more serious, particularly to that woman. Now, the scribes listening to this are maybe pretty well off. To them, that lost drachma might not mean so much. But, they understand the picture anyway. Face it, even the rich, while they may not find themselves endangered by such a loss, did not get rich by ignoring even so small a loss of coin. Those tax-collectors in the audience know that right well! A coin lost to them is a coin coming right out of their take. The boss sure isn’t going to eat the loss!
With this new theme, though, the other very recognizable piece of this picture, maybe even more so than the last, is the joy this woman feels when disaster has been averted. The coin is found! Phew! Maybe she’s a married woman, and she was really worried how her husband would react to her having lost that money. Maybe she’s a widow. It doesn’t matter. The loss has been recovered, and the relief she feels at this news is so great she will not, cannot keep it to herself. She’ll run door to door, popping in at every house to tell her story, beaming with the joy of her relief.
Most amazingly, Jesus turns to His audience and says in as many words, “That’s how God is when a sinner repents.” Now, being a good and devout Jew in the presence of particularly careful and pious (if only in their own minds) Jews, there’s a bit of a circumlocution here. There is the cultural squeamishness about actually speaking God’s name, at least in reference to Himself. So, God is not spoken of directly, but rather, our attention is turned to those angels ‘of God’, who, we were recently reminded, are forever before His presence awaiting their next assignment from on high (Mt 18:10).
Now, in concluding the previous parable, Jesus had noted how there was so much joy ‘in heaven’ over the repentant sinner, with the somewhat sarcastic comparison to those ninety nine righteous folks. As if! There is none righteous, no not one! It was the great, foolish conceit of these Pharisees to suppose that they were numbered with the ninety-nine. Well, perhaps in that there would be no cause for joy in heaven on their account. But, such a joy, being cast merely in heaven at large, might be attributed to just about anybody. Maybe it’s the angels rejoicing. Maybe it’s the sainted deceased relatives of this repentant sinner. Who can know? But, with this parable, in spite of the evasive wording, the message is made clear: The source of this rejoicing is not the angels themselves, it is ‘in the presence of’ the angels. More clearly, as the ESV translates it, “there is joy before the angels.” In other words, it is God Himself who is rejoicing, God Himself who is feeling such great joy.
Indeed, here is the ultimate Shepherd in search of that one lost sheep. Here is the ultimate woman seeking after that one lost coin. We, being modeled after His image, express our similar, if lesser emotions in similar, if less important, circumstances. It ought not to surprise us then, this discovery that God’s reactions are much like our own. Were it our loss, and our recovery, we should be just as excited, just as thrilled! And our losses are such meaningless and petty things in comparison. But, Oh! “Joy doth come before the messengers of God over one sinner reforming!” This really is one of those occasions where the almost dreadfully literal and archaic YLT expresses the sentiment most beautifully.
Joy comes before the messengers of God. This is, after all, what the angels are. They are not, as we like to pretend, the servants of man. They are God’s own messengers, who function solely at His command. We, too, are called to be God’s messengers, angels, if you will, of lesser light. Well, now, if the Boss is joyful, shall we not rejoice? If our Commander in Chief is so thrilled to see a sinner repent, shall it not thrill us as well?
One of my first reactions, truth be told, to this idea that God is rejoicing over the event is, why? I don’t ask that in the sense of why He should care, or why He should like His children to be secure in Him. I ask it in the sense of that rejoicing being, as we see it in these parables, an expression of relief. What reason does He have to be relieved? He knew that sinner wasn’t truly lost to Him, not on any permanent basis. How could he be? This is the Shepherd who never loses even one! This is the Hand from which no possession can be snatched. So, then, what is it that prompts Him to rejoice? And, is it the case that we should find the answer to this question in the parable at hand, or is that trying to take more from the picture than the Painter sought to impart?
I find myself trying to think of some human experience that would properly parallel God’s reaction to the salvation of the sinner He knew was not truly lost to Him. I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that the parable I am looking at is the one thing that comes to mind. Think about it for just a minute. This woman must have been quite certain that ‘lost’ coin was in her house still. It may have been dropped, but if so, she knows it was at some point since she was home. Let me suppose her a married woman, and the likelihood is that these coins came from her husband’s hand. She counted them as he left them in her charge, and she hadn’t left the house since. The coin, therefore, could not well have left the house either.
It is that certainty that the coin can be, indeed must surely be found imparts a certain extra effort to her searching. He who searches knowing the reward is there to be found will search more diligently until it is found. The one who is seeking after mere suppositions is more likely to give up should the effort become too great. So, in this regard, the woman does indeed parallel God’s own case quite nicely. Being Omni-Everything, it is not as though He has actually misplaced this sinner or lost track of him. Neither has there ever been the vaguest inkling of a doubt in His mind that this sinner would be found, drawn to repentance and restored to the family. Indeed, the very moment and circumstance of that finding had been laid out with painstaking detail before ever the sinner was born into the world.
God is not surprise by our salvation. How could He be when it comes at His command? And yet, much like the days of creation, as He sees the fruition of His plans coming to pass, He is pleased to pronounce His blessing on His work. “It is good.” Surprise or no surprise, whether seen from His perspective as the culmination of long years of planning or the accomplishment of a moment, that salvation represents one thing at least: a victory over the rebellious enemy of His kingdom.
Oh! But let me change my perspective, and suddenly something comes clearer. The one God saves is adopted into the family, made His own child by His own decision. But, relate that to natural birth for a moment. An earthly father knows that child is coming long before it arrives. Chances are he’s had at least six months, probably longer, to anticipate this moment. There’s really no surprise in store for him, especially these days. It’s long since been determined that the baby is healthy, it’s likely been revealed for some time whether it is to be a son or a daughter. Nothing’s been left to chance. But, it doesn’t matter. When that baby is delivered into the world, when Dad holds that baby for the first time, even if it’s not his first baby, something happens. Dad rejoices! Time was, Dad would hand out cigars to anybody he could find. Well, cigars are out these days, but pictures must be sent, text messages fired to one and all.
Come and see this child that has entered my life! Don’t you see? This is what your Father in heaven is sharing with all His acquaintances. Look! Another child is come to My kingdom! Another room shall be added to My house, a new mansion commissioned to be prepared for this child’s inheritance! Come! Rejoice with Me! You thought this one lost beyond recovery, but, ha ha! I have known he would return. I have vanquished once again the machinations of that foolish enemy of Mine who would have kept him enslaved for all eternity. No more! No, this one is Mine in full. He has seen that he has options (a thing My enemy kept from him lo, these many years), and seeing a choice, he has chosen. His love is for Me as My love has ever been for him, and having come to Me freely, He is now under the guardianship of My covenant. You all are My witnesses (as if I had need of such!) that I’ve never yet lost anyone of whom I have guardianship, nor ever shall! So, rejoice! The kingdom is expanded once more!
This is something I can see God sharing with me, indeed excelling my own experience and expression as of course He must. After all, if we are created in His image, then the imagery of marriage and of family are the least distorted portion of that image left to us. The fall has done great, almost irreparable damage to the creation we were. Indeed, if not for God’s continued concern for what He has begun, it would be irreparable. But, in Him – by Him – we are renewed, remade, re-formed into that image we held at the start! In a particularly poor analogy, we might look upon ourselves as a favorite coffee cup which has been dropped and broken. Yet, the pieces have been picked up and, rather than throwing them out, they have been carefully reconstructed, glued back together in such fashion as to make the fracture lines invisible. So has God worked upon our fallen condition. So He continues to work, the Master Craftsman, giving painstaking attention to every detail of our restoration. The joy of seeing the completed work, for the owner of that coffee cup is certain. The joy of our beloved Father God upon seeing the completion of one of His masterpieces must be something indeed to behold!
From such lofty heights it is something of a let down to turn my attention to other aspects of this message, and yet, they deserve note as well. After all, Jesus is doing more here than trying to give us a taste of the Father’s ways. He is training His disciples, training us. He is training even those Pharisees in the crowd, if they will but receive it. See, one thing we know with certainty is that misery loves company. Can there be anybody on the face of this planet who has not heard that said, and nodded at its truth? But, here, in this woman, we see another thing equally certain, and yet never honored with such an aphorism. The truth is, the one who has seen disaster averted is just as anxious to share the news with one and all.
While I think the sense of the father delivered of a child is more immediately fitting an analogy for God’s cause of rejoicing, the joy of bad news avoided is a most universal experience. Sure, and if this woman had done all she could and still not found that coin, she would surround herself with mournful company. The reason misery so loves company is that nothing relieves misery more quickly than to discover another who is worse off than we. When we hear of even bigger trials and woes afflicting another, the smallness of our own complaint becomes evident, and our misery is overcome by compassion.
I dare say that no person enjoys and pursues misery, except there is some terrible disease of mind afflicting them. So, when we see misery approaching, an impending doom, however small the scale, dread comes upon us. Our thoughts seem inevitably to turn towards the worst of all possible outcomes. We labor and sweat the more, hoping beyond hope to avert that outcome, even while convincing ourselves more certainly that it’s truly hopeless. So, when our efforts produce fruit after all, and that disaster is now clearly not coming our way, such relief sweeps over us that we must laugh aloud. You know, though we probably should, we generally don’t even feel foolish in that moment. We don’t even think to consider how misguided all those dark thoughts preceding the joy were. Truly, now: Were we to review the record of our days, how many times have we ever seen our darkest, direst predictions come to pass? How many times have we entered into such anxiousness and loss of hope and found, at the end of the day, that we were exactly right in our suspicions? I dare say it has been near to none. Certainly, were we to compare that count to the number of times we have been proven wrong, and our fears baseless, that number would be seen to be microscopic. Yet, dread we will, until all possibility of being right in our dread have been stripped away by reality.
But, that relief, that joy at finding dread eliminated, it’s overwhelming. As I said, our first response is likely to be an unabashed laughing for joy. If anyone is near enough to hear us, we will gladly tell them our story, whether they ask us or not. Indeed, if we lived in an age where we still knew our neighbors we’d be off to the fence to let them know of our great good luck. For the ladies, there will likely be that urge to hop on the phone and call all our companions and laugh and rejoice with them over the story. For the guys, maybe it’ll hold for the next time we get together, or maybe we’ll share it as we share a ride with somebody. Anyway, we will find an excuse to tell our tale, and laugh and rejoice in it again.
These folks listening to Jesus are surely no different in this regard. The urge to share misery relieved is every bit as strong and universal as that urge to seek out others in misery when ours is as yet unrelieved. That is the power of parable. The experiences shared in these simple stories are so universally applicable, so universally understood, that you can’t help but catch the Teacher’s drift. You can’t help but reach His conclusion. And then, with your own thoughts fully confirming His example, He can lift your eyes to heaven and say, “Don’t you see? It’s the same with Him.” If you know yourself created in His image, why should this surprise you?
Well, then, bearing in mind the group Jesus is addressing, what is the unspoken message here? I am thinking, in particular of those who have already declared themselves members of God’s house. This number would include both the true children, His disciples, and those who mistakenly thought themselves securely within that number but were, in truth only of His house in their own imaginations. These Pharisees, these scribes, these professional and expert holy men thought they had it all under control. They lived right. They lived clean. They lived with careful observance (at least outwardly) of every least aspect of their day, making certain not to transgress the Law, indeed, doing their best to not even come close to such transgression. That they had lost sight of the Law in all their concerns was, not surprisingly, lost on them. Indeed, they had by and large lost any real interest in what God wanted. It might not even occur to them to wonder if God had some purpose for them.
How else could they have come to care so little for those they reviled as sinners? How else could they have reached the conclusion that sinners were by nature beyond redemption, and therefore to be avoided at all cost, lest their uncleanness sully one by association? Really! How small was their god, that his power to preserve them could be overcome by the merest close proximity of a sinner?
The simple fact of the matter is that their concern was wholly self-centered. They were of that same class as the present-day believer who’s focus is made evident by the proclamation, “Thank God I’m saved.” They’re right there with the attitude that saw the penitent sinner and said, “Thank God I’m not like that one!” Where would we be if God looked down on humanity and His only thought was, “Thanks be to Me that I’m not one of them! Phew!” But, instead, looking at the mess that is man, God determined to be one of them, to take on all of man’s weakness and by doing so, end the hopelessness of man! He looked upon is in our blindness, saw (as He had always known) that having fallen, we could in no wise get up, and rather than laugh at us, rather than destroy us as a failed experiment, He felt an unlimited concern for us, an eternal concern. He knew it to be beyond us to find Him and so He came and found us.
God looks at the lost today with that same infinity of concern. He looks at the child determined to rebel against what they know is right, and – though He is already certain of the outcome in Himself – His heart breaks (were such a thing possible). He compassion is stirred. He looks upon that sinner and He knows that the sin comes not so much from the sinner’s free will as from his lack of awareness that there is any other way to be. God, I feel certain, though He must in His justice punish the sinner’s sin, places the greater blame upon that devil which has blinded man. For every sin that He must punish in His children, I dare say there is a sevenfold punishment awaiting that one who caused His children to stumble.
The point I am trying to draw up to, though I seem to evade it, is this: If God is so concerned about the lost, then I, as His child, should be just as concerned. They are, after all, my own brothers and sisters, if not in the flesh then in the spirit. I am not, in my limited capacity, given to know with certainty whether one who is lost is as this lost coin, just waiting to be found again, or truly reprobate, truly given over to destruction. In my eyes, I must see with love. Love assumes the best. Love assumes that, given that I have been saved, there is nobody who is beyond the possibility of salvation. If God could choose to make me His child, surely He could choose to make you His child as well. How, then, can I give up on you? How, then, can I fail to point out your Father to you? How can I leave you to suffer, knowing that He may be calling you even now, that He may very well have set you before me as one of those missions He has appointed me to complete, that I might have the joy of serving to help Him rescue you? Indeed, even were it not for that joy of helping my Daddy out, doesn’t this nature He has been restoring in me practically demand sharing?
Whoa! Come full circle here. Isn’t the fact that He has been restoring me to my right nature the very ‘disaster averted’ that this lost coin represents? That I have been saved, and that by His gracious intervention and interference in my life, is the greatest case of disaster averted I shall ever know! And haven’t we just agreed how much it is part of human nature to laugh aloud at the relief of that averted disaster? Haven’t we just agreed that it is just built into us to go share that good news with anybody we can find to listen? What else do you suppose evangelism is? It is that same response. And yet, it seems so hard to me. And yet, somehow, I must struggle within myself to even consider shouting that news to anybody who hasn’t already got that news in themselves. What is up with that?
And there is that verse before my mind’s eye: “I will confess those before My Father in heaven who confess Me before men” (Lk 12:8). Yes, and the corollary of that strikes a certain degree of fear in me, for when have I been so bold as to confess before the lost this Father who found Me, Who is looking for them? And will my Brother, whom I profess to love, be as ashamed of me in my Father’s presence when at last we meet? Well, then, my dear self, what shall we do about this? How shall I then live? Will I ever learn to be ashamed of my fearfulness, rather than being so fearful about being shamed in the eyes of these others? What, after all, are their opinions of me when compared to my Brother’s opinion, my Father’s opinion?
[02/22/09] As I read this parable again this morning, (the HCSB was today’s translation to read,) it struck me how marvelously well the story illustrates God’s own actions towards His creation. This woman first lights a lamp. God sends His Son, Who is the Light of the World. Through His Son, He brings the Light of His Love to dispel the darkness of the Gentiles. Having lit the house, the woman sweeps the house. Jesus, coming to the Temple, swept it clear of the money-changers, and those others who practiced religion for profit. In confronting the scribes, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, He swept clean the halls of religious education, that His own might learn Truth. In His teaching, He swept clean the Ancient Faith of Israel, clearing away the dusty accretions of tradition and lowered expectations to restore the full luster of the message God had once for all delivered to His children. And all this, that the lost coins of Israel, and eventually the lost coins of every nation in every age, might be restored to the coffers of the Kingdom of God!
Thank You, my God, for refusing to suffer the loss of even one such as me. Thank You that You never gave up looking for me ,never decided I wasn’t worth the effort. How I long to find that same attitude of heart in myself, Father. Though in truth it scares me somewhat to consider the implications, yet, knowing it is the attitude that pleases You, I would that it were more strongly found in me. How can it be, Lord, that encountering those who have just that heart in themselves so disturbs me, so annoys me? Why should I find their attitude to be over the top, when it is simply that much closer to Your own? Oh, God! Correct in me whatever it is that is so broken as to give me such trouble with enjoying my brethren more fully. Open my eyes and my heart to see more nearly as You see, to feel more nearly what You feel. Ignite this heart and mind that You have blessed me with to burn with the desire to serve, more than with any other passion.
While I wait to see how my God will answer me, I shall pursue this one last thought. In thinking about how this parable was received by those there to hear its first delivery, I was put in mind of the potentially shocking use of a woman’s example to teach the men of this very patriarchal society. Yes, I know this is reflective of Luke’s personal interest as he presents the history. Yet, if Jesus had not offered so rich a mine of such instances of His welcoming and using women in ministry, Luke would have had nothing to present.
The thing is that this particular aspect of Jesus may well have been more offensive to many amongst His listeners than even the claims to being Son of God. Jesus, we must recognize, has not merely surrounded Himself with the less influential among men. He has repeatedly, almost systematically surrounded Himself with the most thoroughly despised, those whose witness were held to be worthless. Think about it! The first announcement of His birth is made to shepherds. These men were not even fit to give evidence in court, so far as society was concerned. He opts to be born in most ignominious circumstances, a bastard child by all appearance, born into the most abject poverty. Why, His parents could not even afford more than the least possible offering allowed to mark His birth. Now, looking at the circle of His disciples, they are Galileans to a man. In the sight of Jerusalem, they were just one slim step above the Samaritans. They were too cozy by half with the Gentiles of their region, and they were, by the cosmopolitan standards of the capitol, most thoroughly uneducated. Why, who had heard of any Galilean rabbi of any note? Then, throw Matthew Levi into the mix. A tax-collector!
Go back to the complaint of the Pharisees that marked the previous parable. “He not only allows these forsaken tax-collecting miscreants to be in His presence. He has sunk so low that He even eats with them” (Lk 15:2)! That He had sunk even lower, making one of this most despised class of men His disciple, His student! Had the man no conscience at all? Would He make the whole rabbinical order a laughingstock by His cavalier attitudes?
This parable, then, just continues the trend. Women, after all, while not so low in the public esteem as taxmen, were not any much more valuable than shepherds when it came to testimony and the establishing of truth. No self-respecting rabbi would consider taking one on as a student, and yet, here was Jesus with this cadre of women (and some of them of most notorious background) following Him, studying alongside His other students, and He made nothing of it! Now, He presents what I suspect was a somewhat offensive parable – offensive in that it made the woman’s example a lesson for the apparently less sensible men listening to him.
The point I take from this is that while our own foibles and prejudices may differ rather radically from those of such a time, we are still entirely too willing to discount the message because there is something about the messenger that seems wrong to us. Truth be told, when we play such games, we are as bad as the atheist seeking some reason, any reason, to reject that Truth. Whatever it is we have found to be offended with in the delivery, it is just our political cover. Had it not been that, we would have manufactured some other reason to reject what we had heard. It strikes too close. We recognize the Truth that has been delivered, but we don’t want to face it. So, we manufacture. So, we dissemble in our own thinking, until we have come up with a satisfactory excuse to ignore that hurtful message.
It may take any amount of effort. We may have to dredge up the worst errors and excesses of Christianity’s past and make this our excuse for ignoring its present. As if that made any sense! By such a basis, we should have to reject every shred of humanity, for it all comes with a past, and every past has its own excesses and errors of at least equal magnitude. To suppose that Christianity has not matured over the last few thousand years while all the rest of mankind has is to deny the evidence and insist on a most ludicrous misrepresentation of the state of the world.
It’s not just the atheists, or the agnostics, or the adherents of false religions who suffer this malady. It’s in the Church, too. It is a disease of human nature that causes us to first decide the acceptability of the messenger and only then consider the message. Indeed, it is in our nature to be more concerned with the format and delivery of the message than its content. Just look at the last election cycle! What won the election? An impressive resume? No. A proven ability of any sort? Only in oratory, and even that suspect. No, it was a flowery delivery of empty promises that won the day because we were so impressed with the messenger, especially compared to his competitor. His competitor was dull of delivery, pedestrian of speech. Never mind that he might have actually been speaking on matters of substance where this other just offered what the happily deceived ears of the audience wanted to hear.
And we play the same game in the pews. The pastor with the charismatic delivery, the occasional flash of humor to keep us attuned to whatever he may be presenting wins the day. The one who simply lays the truth before us with no embellishments, no frippery, will find his flock diminishing. Yet, it is this latter sort that will be found to have shepherded the Remnant that God desires.
What I see happening more and more in the Church is that we are turning to the business world to tell us how to succeed. We are becoming numbers-conscious, and in a fashion far exceeding the demands of good stewardship. This has nothing to do with stewardship anymore. It’s self-preservation at best, and prideful competition at worst. What are we thinking!? It is not the purpose of the Church to fashion itself after the world. It is now, and has always been the purpose of the Church to so impact the society in which it finds itself as to fashion that society after itself. The Church, my friends, is to be fashioned on God’s economy and governance, not democracy, not socialism, not any other format. We are the people of the Way. In so much as we turn to any external system to explain to us how to proceed along the Way we are, in fact, departing from the Way and straying from our Lord and Shepherd.
Hear, in closing, just how deadly a deception this is for us. The lessons of history make it clear that what I shall say has been proven true repeatedly amongst the people of God, and what I say is simply this:
We either let the Gospel cut through our social filtering system, or we perish with our culture.
I know, the modern theory says I should close this message, if message it be, on a positive note, but this, I think, is the point we really need to dwell on. This is the ruler by which we need measure our situation. Who is impacting whom? Which is influencing which? And, if that equation points in the wrong direction, what can I do about it?
Lord God, Father, Shepherd of my soul, You make clear to me that my soul, even in Your hands, can be deceptive. You don’t even need to prove to me how easily I can lie to myself, especially as I check myself against Your standards. So, though I dread to hear the results, I offer up that prayer that David prayed, “reveal my heart to me.” Reveal these filters to me, Lord, that leave me trying to fit Your ways into the world’s ways, rather than shaping the world’s to Yours. I know this trait, this capacity is in me, and I know it is displeasing to You. So, I ask that You help me to not only recognize these backwards habits, but to turn them around, and begin functioning as You intend, to begin impacting my environs as You intend. May You reap greatly from Your efforts on my behalf.
