Reflection/ Poem for XIV Pentecost C Proper 19 St. Andrew's Episcopal, Nags Head, NC
September 15, 2019 Thomas E Wilson, Supply Clergy
Lost Things
We had a hurricane come through here and we were advised by the authorities to be careful. This year I followed that advice and stayed hunkered down. When I was much younger, almost a half century ago, living in Wrightsville Beach, I went out on to a pier in the middle of a storm as I was trying to make sense of my life. I screamed out a speech that Shakespeare's King Lear gives on the heath in Act Three which begins: “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!”
You know, it just is not all that bright to do that. What was I thinking?
The Gospel lesson for today has two parables. Jesus is back at it again and telling stories that get him into trouble with the Scribes and Pharisees who are grumbling up a storm about why Jesus continues to hang around with tax collectors and sinners. After all it is just common sense to stay away bad folk because everybody knows you will be judged by the company you keep. The scribes and Pharisees would have cherry picked from the lessons from Jeremiah and the Psalm for today pointing out sinners deserve punishment and removal of love. Jesus goes out on a metaphorical pier in a storm and tells stories, which Luke calls “Parables”; parables are made up stories that lie in order to reveal a deeper truth. The first thing we must know about Parables is that they don’t make sense to the casual human way of thinking.
David Foster Wallace, writer and English professor, who died about 13 years ago, in a commencement address at Kenyon College, Ohio gave an example of a parable:
“There
are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish
swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, 'Morning, boys, how's the
water?' And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of
them looks over at the other and goes, 'What the hell is water?' . . .
(Parables are) about simple awareness--awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: 'This is water, this is water.'”
(Parables are) about simple awareness--awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: 'This is water, this is water.'”
This week this Chapter in Luke is divided to tell a series of three made up stories to give us an awareness of what is real and essential using lost things Today we are looking at the stories of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. In Lent earlier this year you would have heard the third part of this collection of the “Lost Parables” with the story of the Prodigal Son.
Lets go through these two stories for this week. The first one is about Sheep in first century Palestine. Here are some of the points where the audience would would have had a hard time keeping from laughing.
Number of shepherds: In this case is only one. There are limits of how many sheep can be led to pasture by one shepherd. Maybe he had a couple of herding dogs that Jesus didn’t get around to mentioning. A Shepherd taking a herd of sheep out by him or herself is just asking for trouble. To go out alone he or she would have to take only about 25 at the most. Usually shepherds had a family to go with him or her. There must be someone else to share the load if he or she are going to have some rest or eat or sleep.
Number of sheep: In this story there are a hundred sheep. This is one dumb shepherd. There is no way he or she can look after this many. He or she must expect to lose more than a couple each day. Right now I want you to imagine St. Andrew’s Preschool having one teacher and a hundred children. State law would not allow it and common-sense rebels considering.
Place of pasture: In this story it is the Wilderness. If any of you have ever been to the Holy Land you will know that its biggest crop in the wilderness is rocks. Very little grows out there. Here we are; one shepherd, a hundred sheep and very little to feed them; it is a waste of time and energy. If this is the way he or she runs their business, they will be broke in less than a year.
Action of shepherd: This shepherd misses one sheep. Big surprise! He or she deserves to lose a whole lot more for their poor planning. He or she leaves them in the wilderness, and he leaves the ninety and nine in the wilderness, where there are wolves running around, where there is no one else to help. This is not new math; one does not equal 99. Then when he finds the sheep and returns home, he calls his or her friends and holds a party to celebrate finding the one no-good sheep. If the shepherd is a Metaphor for God would you hire this God as the head of your religion for your nation or family?
Action of sheep: The sheep did not ask for help and deserved to be lost since he or she did not follow the rules. Surely one has to be responsible for their actions that put everybody at risk and the reward of a party just encourages further bad behavior. On top of that, this sheep was not in the slightest repentant. He should have at least said he was sorry.
Next we go to Lost Coin. Let’s see what is wrong with this story. The coin is one of 10 drachmas. A drachma is the equivalent of a half a shekel, or half a day’s wage. She spends the entire day looking and then lights her lamp, burning up at least that amount of oil to look for it. As far as we can tell the coin is not in the slightest repentant, but she holds a party any way because love is more important than being right.
These stories do not make a lick of sense if we look at them from a point of view of economics, political policy or moral rules of society. Jesus was not nailed to a cross because he told stories about being nice to one another, the authorities preferred the people to stay on script of how the world worked instead of being awakened to a deeper reality. Jesus told disturbing stories about God and they did not want to hear about that God, they had their own.
It reminds me of what one of the bright young boys in the Pentagon said during one of the wars we were in at the time. He said, “Well, it is not the army we wanted, but it is the army we got.” Jesus is saying to the Scribes, Pharisees, Religious and political leaders of his time and place; “Well. This might not be the God your egos wanted but it is the God we got." And they crucified him because he told the truth in his stories and life, and death.
For Jesus the water of life is love, the kind of love that goes beyond self interest itself. The parables remind us that the center of the universe is not about control or approval or fear or advantage but about love.
We began with Act 3, scene 2 of King Lear, basically the whole play is an extended parable; let us go backward to Act 1, Scene1 where old Lear is trying to control his three daughters into taking care of him, to get them to do something to earn a reward. For Lear love is conditional. His third daughter Cordelia refuses to play that game and sell her love when it is already freely given without hope of a reward or punishment. The King of France sees what she is doing and remarks: “Love is not love/ When it is mingled with regards that stand/ Aloof from the entire point”
Lost Things
During the storm the foolish Lear screamed
for cataracts and hurricanoes to really spout
providing backdrop of what this life's about
that love's not chasing after desires dreamed.
Jesus on lonely hill was killed and crucified
because he just wouldn't listen to good sense
that point of life is caring for dollars or cents
while setting of a world's mores as our guide.
Yet, tis fine madness to go to heath or hill
to pose questions how to live another way
not centering on how we'd in comfort stay
by ignoring lost others and eat our full fill.
What if love's about hands being held
allowing outward differences to meld.
allowing outward differences to meld.
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