by CCW | 10 July 2011 14:01
Jesus tells two parables, the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin. They are interrelated parables and they actually serve as the introduction to a third parable, the parable of the prodigal son. They are all about the divine mercy which reaches out to gather us into God’s love.
Such is the occasion for rejoicing. In what do we rejoice? We rejoice in the redemption of the lost sheep and the lost coin. We rejoice in the redemption of the lost son. Through these parables we rejoice in the redemption of our humanity.
The parables are lessons in the divine mercy which redeems our humanity. What does that mean? It means that there is more to our lives than the everyday and the mundane. It means there is more to who we are than just what belongs to the immediacy of our experiences. The mercy here which is the occasion of great rejoicing is that we are found in God’s love for us without which we are lost in ourselves and in the vagaries of our circumstances.
Trinity Season abounds in the lessons of love, the divine love which sets our human loves in order. We are meant to see ourselves in these parables as the one lost sheep or the one lost coin whom the shepherd and the woman of the house “seek diligently,” meaning lovingly, until we are found. God is the shepherd and God is the woman who rejoice in our being found. Even more, we are meant to find ourselves in the figure of the prodigal son who returns in repentance, having squandered all that he had, and finds that he is embraced in his father’s love. God is the father. But Christ is the son who has gone into the far-away land of our sinfulness and wastefulness. In coming to ourselves, we remember who we are in the sight of God. That remembrance marks a turning point. It is a movement of divine grace in us that impels our return to the one whose love seeks our return.
There is the further point. There is “joy in heaven” in the return of the lost. Somehow, the whole of heaven rejoices in our redemption. Why? Because what God truly wants for our humanity is for us to be in communion with him and through him with one another. What stands in the way? Our wayward hearts and ignorant minds, our thoughtless and careless indifference – these are all the things that make us lost, lost to ourselves and lost to God. The great good news is that God seeks us out to bring us home. We return home in penitential adoration. We return to find great rejoicing not only for ourselves but for the whole community of which we are a part. The marvel here is that the individual matters because he or she is an integral part of the whole.
The parables stress the manner in which the shepherd and the woman seek what is lost. There is the sense of perseverance and providential care. The man “leaves the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go[es] after that which is lost until he find[s] it.” The woman “seek[s] diligently,” lighting a candle and sweeping the house. The phrase is richly suggestive of a kind of loving carefulness. Diligence is a form of love; one of the words for love in Latin, actually. The whole wonderful point is that each of us matters in the eye of God.
It is cause for rejoicing, but rejoicing in what exactly? Are we rejoicing in ourselves? ‘Look at me, look at me’? No. We are rejoicing in God’s love having found us. That should signal something in our hearts and souls. It is the very thing that the Epistle teaches us. “Be clothed with humility.” “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God.” The mighty hand of God reaches forth to gather us into his love. Humility is about our openness to the divine mercy without which there can be no return and no rejoicing.
We have heard these two parables this morning. But we have also had them acted out, as it were, in the baptism of Taylor Gayle Benedict, at St. George’s, Falmouth. In her baptism we are all being reminded of who we are in the sight of God. We are being reminded of the divine mercy that seeks us out and finds us and brings us home rejoicing. We are found in the Father’s love.
Something of the deeper meaning of the mercy of redemption signaled in the parables is made explicit in the rite of baptism. There is death and resurrection. Baptism is about our identity with God through God’s identifying himself with us in the humanity of Jesus Christ. His death and resurrection are the real meaning of our redemption. You see, we are lost in our sinfulness. Our sinfulness is simply about our denial of God’s truth and love in one way or another. Jesus, like the prodigal son in the parable which follows the two we heard this morning, has gone into the far-off land of our sinfulness and death to bring us home to himself. We only have life in him.
And so, this morning, Taylor has been born again, born into the divine mercy of the heavenly things which have been revealed to us. Her baptism is about the pattern of a new life, a vocation to God, “dying to sin and living unto righteousness”. It is what parents and godparents and the whole Christian community surely want for one another, namely, what is best for each of us. That in truth has to be about wanting what God wants for each of us. In a way the parables have given us a picture of that and Taylor’s baptism allows us to enter into that picture and find our life, a life with Christ through the sacrament of baptism. Without God we are incomplete – that is an aspect of our sinfulness. Baptism confers “that which by nature [we] cannot have” for it is given by grace, the grace of God made visible in Jesus Christ who redeems our world and our humanity. Such is the love that makes all things new, the love that renews and perfects our loves.
Such is the cause of our rejoicing. We are found in God’s loving mercy.
Fr. David Curry
Christ Church & St. George’s
Trinity III, July 10th, 2011
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2011/07/10/sermon-for-the-third-sunday-after-trinity/
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