Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Today’s text

Luke 15:1-6

The tax collectors and sinners, however, were all crowding round to listen to him, and the Pharisees and scribes complained saying, 'This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.' So he told them this parable: 'Which one of you with a hundred sheep, if he lost one, would fail to leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the missing one till he found it? And when he found it, would he not joyfully take it on his shoulders and then, when he got home, call together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, "Rejoice with me, I have found my sheep that was lost." 

Reflection

Who are you, Holy One? Old images from early childhood linger in the mind and offend the senses in bad religious art. Certainly, you not a person, an object sitting off in space, on a throne closely watching us.

After all these years I am at a loss to answer any would ask, “Just what is it that you believe? Who is this God in whom you say you believe?”

I can have no adequate images or comparisons to answer the question. Plus, the commandment tells me to make no images of you, for everything I imagine is too small, too primitive and misses the mark of your mystery

Yet, Jesus compares you to the most common things, as if you are as close as my breath, as tangible as the unbuttoned shirt sleeves hanging loose on my arms in the morning cool.

You are that close, he says, close as my desire to save, protect and care for what is mine.

You speak: Feel the desire within you. Feel the longing to take your beloved into your arms and hold them near. Feel the joy that fills you when you enfold tender children and feel their breath against your cheek. Feel the desire to love and protect, to touch and be touched, to comfort a soul in fear and assure them that all will be well because love never fails.

Feel the desire of Love in your heart, and know: This is the Presence of the Holy One, giving you knowledge no book can, personal knowing of the One whom you can never image or imagine.

Just feel it. The Holy One is that desire, that uncreated Love itself in your love, pulsing in your desire for union with those dearest to your heart.

That’s who God is--this hunger for the union, this joy in loving, close as your breath, warm as your heart.

Pr. David L. Miller