THE GOD EVER SEEKING
Author:
September 15, 2019
So I lost my
checkbook about four months ago. This was fairly alarming, because there’s a
lot of damage that could be done by a criminal who has access to my name, address,
and bank account number. I looked in all of the usual places and found nothing.
After a few
days I just started using a new checkbook, but I never closed the old account
because that would have involved a fair amount of work and inconvenience. At
about the same time I’d been reading through a file folder of papers relating
to the early days of Pax Christi parish. I put that folder on one of the stair
steps in my home, intending to delve in to it more when I got around to it. That
folder stayed on that step for weeks. I walked past it every morning when I
awakened from sleep, and again every evening on my way to bed.
So finally
about 10 day ago I picked it up again, thinking I had to do something with it.
And when I did, there was the old checkbook underneath it. It had been right
there all the time, but I hadn’t bothered to look. Why would my checkbook be on
a stair beneath a file from work?
I still
don’t have the answer to that question, but it did cause me to ask myself, “How
much did you care about finding it?” Or if I knew I wasn’t going to be able to
find it, how much did I care about the next smartest thing and changing out my
account at the bank? Sadly, the answer to both of those questions was that I
didn’t care very much at all. That’s not a tribute to my disinterest in money.
It’s a disclosure about my laziness.
I could have
had my identity stolen, my accounts wiped out, my credit ruined—and I didn’t do
anything to prevent that from happening. That’s all on me. As Jesus would say,
do not follow this man’s example. In this advice, I echo my Lord!
Today’s
gospel parables of Jesus are posing essentially the same question: i.e. how
hard are you willing to work, how deep are you willing to search for the
things—or that one thing—that you profess to be of supreme value in your
life? The first two of these parables
seem to be kind of caricature. What shepherd is going to leave the 99 sheep in
the wilderness to go off in search of one stupid one who wandered away? What
one sheep is worth that kind of risk and effort? The intuitive answer would be
that there is no such single sheep, that this guy ought to cut his loss and
move on. And what women who, having lost a coin in her home, would throw a
festive party for all her friends and neighbors after having found it again? It
would be the equivalent of my hosting a dinner for my buddies because my lost
checkbook had turned up underneath the file folder on the stairs. Who would come—other than I, of course? Who
would come to that party?
Well, God would.
God would care, and God would come. And that’s really the point. And it’s that
third parable of Jesus that drives that home. God doesn’t care only for one
lost sheep or one misplaced coin—although he does that too. God cares for
losses that are far more important and tragic, like a lost child or a shattered
relationship or a broken dream or a family in crisis. God cares about people
who make terrible decisions that separate themselves from people who love them.
And he cares about those people who love them. God cares for those who simmer
through life with resentment and anger. God cares for those who are awakening
to their own poor choices or weaknesses and who are newly aware of their own
vulnerabilities and fears and alienation and guilt.
God cares
about all of that, and all of those. He always did. He always will. And isn’t
that the best news of all? God cares about the small stuff, like sheep and
coins. And God cares about the big stuff, like parents and children and
friendships and heartache and reconciliation and big, big sins and boundless
forgiveness. God cares about all of that. He took time out in today’s gospel to
tell us so.
If I had
only been willing to look harder, I would have found my lost checkbook almost
immediately. God looks harder—in fact God is obsessed with searching, finding,
and welcoming home.
God is that
shepherd—recklessly leaving the 99 in the wilderness because finding that lone lost
sheep is just that important. God is that women, scouring the house to recover
a measly coin. And God is that father, yearning for the return of his foolish
son and never taking his eyes off the horizon until he appears. The one who won’t wait for his other son to
cool down and come to the party, but instead seeks him out to plead with him,
to endure his petty anger, and to beg him back to the house.
Our mission,
in turn, is to be on the watch with the very same passion as that of God. Who
or what is lost? Who belongs among us but has gone missing? Who is stuck in anger
and refuses to be welcomed? Who is out there chasing after false dreams and
empty claims to happiness? And what am I, what are we, willing to put at risk
to go out and find them? Our pride? Our wealth? Our possessions? Our time? Our
love? Our comfort? God would. God does.
We are all
here now because we aspire to live as much like God as we can. So who’s out
there in need of finding, reconciling, and welcoming home?
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