Pentecost 14 – 2022
Luke 15:1-10 (Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28)
Marian Free
In the name of God who searches for the lost and brings them safely home. Amen.
I have often said that I am not sure what lies behind the thinking of the compilers of our lectionary. When read out of context, passages such as those from Jeremiah this morning, make little sense. One wonders about the relevance of the words of a prophet, spoken to a faithless people, apply to us today. Certainly, in view of the current climate crisis, we could argue that the water crisis in many parts of the world is God’s punishment for the world’s turning away from God. The problem with that argument is not only that we are appropriating the prophet’s words for our own purposes, but worse is the implication that follows – that (for example) those forced to flee their homes to refugee camps in northern Syria, and who are now facing water insecurity, brought the situation on themselves.
If one reads: “I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the LORD, before his fierce anger” (Jer 4:26) and other such passages out of context, it is not difficult to understand why there are many Christians who find the Old Testament writings to be both disconcerting and discouraging. They find in its pages a vindicative, demanding and angry God – a God who is vastly different from the one that they experience in the pages of the New Testament – and so they abandon the Old Testament (and the riches it contains).
It is true that the writings of the prophets (as Jeremiah this morning) are often judgemental, bleak, and full of foreboding; but, despite this, many will tell you that the Old Testament is God’s love letter to God’s people.
To understand this concept, we need to understand that (despite the story of Abraham), establishing a faith in the one true God did not happen overnight. The Israelites (the children of Abraham) found themselves in the midst of nations who worshipped a multitude of gods and, it appears that it was sometimes difficult for the Israelites to hold fast to a God whom they could not see when their neighbours worshipped idols whom they could see and touch. (Among other things, this led to the creation of the golden calves when Moses, who was receiving the ten commandments from God, left the Israelites alone in the desert and the building of the ‘high places’ and worship of Baal in Israel.)
If we read the Old Testament in its entirety, instead of picking and choosing passages, we will see that over and over again, the Israelites abandon God and serve the gods of the surrounding nations. Over and over again God (through the prophets) expresses disappointment and warns them of the consequences of deserting the faith of their forbears. Over and over again God urges the people to return to God and promises to make them a new creation. And, over and over again, God reaches out in love to bring God’s people home. For example, were we to read further in Jeremiah we would find the beautiful words of reassurance in chapters 30 and 31: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you” (31:3).
Neglecting the Old Testament means that we never discover the image of God with which the book of Hosea concludes. After several chapters in which God expresses anger and frustration at a people who constantly chase after other gods, God seems to pull godself up, remembering that it was God who taught Ephraim (another word for Israel) to walk, God who lifted Israel to God’s cheek. Then follow these heartrending words of yearning:
“How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.
9 I will not execute my fierce anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and no mortal,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath”.(Hosea 11:8,9)
“My compassion grows warm and tender, and I will not come in wrath.”
A solid knowledge of the Old Testament reveals it to be a revelation of God’s love for God’s people. It is important that when we read the Old Testament, we read it in context, but more than that, we have to remember that it was foundational for Jesus’ image of God, that the God depicted in the Old Testament was the God whom Jesus knew. This means that when Jesus speaks of God, or the kingdom of God, he is informed by his faith, a faith rooted in the Old Testament ideas of God. Jesus knew the story of Israel and of God’s longing that Israel be restored to God. Jesus knew the shepherd/guide of Psalm 23; the God who, in verses omitted in today’s reading from Jeremiah says: “If you return to me and remove your abominations from me .. then the nations shall be blessed by him” (4:1,2); and the God of Isaiah who: “will feed his flock like a shepherd; gather the lambs in his arms, and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep” (40:11). Jesus shares God’s compassion for and love of Israel and, while he too gets frustrated by hypocrisy and waywardness, Jesus shares God’s longing that the lost be found and restored to the people of Israel.
So, when Jesus tells the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin, he is saying no new thing, he is describing the actions of the God of his forbears – the God of Jeremiah, the God of Hosea – a God who never loses hope in God’s people, a God who, no matter how far God’s people stray, never abandons them and a God who continually seeks out the lost and brings them home.
Swallowsrest 