Wednesday, August 30, 2023

“Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it? And when she finds it you can be sure she’ll call her friends and neighbors: ‘Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!’ Count on it—that’s the kind of party God’s angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God.” (Luke 14: 10 12, The Message Bible)

                Has anyone seen my cheque book? I was looking for it yesterday.

                We have begun the overdue decluttering, sorting, cleaning, tidying up of our home. By “we,” I meant that we have hired someone to come in and do much of it for us. But when someone else does the work of sorting and sifting, it means that, occasionally, something actually gets put away - I know not where, when I go looking for it. Thus the “missing” cheque book.

                My desk may look like a messy muddle of papers, envelopes with notes on them, scraps of paper, books and so on, but for the most part, I usually know where things are despite the apparent disorder.  My secretary in Ottawa - a very orderly person, everything in its place and a place for everything (after all, she was a Presbyterian!) – would always sort out my office desk when I was on vacation. I couldn’t find a blessed thing when I returned.

                Anyway, I had to dig through bags, boxes and the like before I finally found my cheque book.

                This parable of the woman who swept and scoured her home in order to find just one lost coin came to mind. I keep finding loose change as things get tidied up. But this is different. It is obvious, that although she still had nine coins left, that the tenth coin was valuable to her. In today’s market, it might have been what she needed to pay her rent or mortgage, or pay off an overdue bill or  buy enough food for her family. Or perhaps, it was for medicine. This tenth coin was valuable, maybe a necessity for whatever purposes she had or whatever she needed.

                So she goes on an intensive search, sweeping, dusting, cleaning, sorting, peeking under the bed, checking the cupboards, going through the garbage, “looking in every nook and cranny.” All-out effort!

                Recently, our seven-year-old grandson lost a small part of a new toy in the car. Trust my daughter Katie, the next day, she takes a flashlight and  turns the back seat of the car seat inside out  until she found the tiny piece.

                You get the picture of this woman who is relentless in her search for the lost coin. No stopping until she finds it. Hurray!

                Jesus uses this parable to illustrate God’s loving and gracious pursuit of each and human being. God wants everyone to experience his Love and Grace. “No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.” (2 Peter 3:9 New Living Translation) No one is too small, too insignificant, too unimportant, so lost, that God does not want to find and celebrate their new found life through redemption and salvation.

                But the parable also acts as a reminder that we also need to clear out the clutter and disarray in our lives. We need to sort through the debris and trash that may be filling our minds, hearts and spirit. We need to throw out the garbage of resentments, grudges, anger, hatred, prejudice or anything that prevents us from finding the true and sometimes hidden value that makes life rich.

                “It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on. This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.” (Galatians 5: 19 21, TMB)

                It can be a lot of hard work to clean up our lives in order to find that relationship with God who, apparently, has been looking for us along.

 But once that life is found, once we have been found, there will be rejoicing in heaven itself! Hallelujah! There is going to be one wang-dang doodle of a party.

Dale