If You Were God…

Last week I began by asking a couple of questions: How much would you pay to be a disciple of Jesus; what membership dues would you be willing to pay to join the company of disciples, if it actually worked that way? Or the related question: How much would you pay for a guaranteed, reserved seat at the eternal heavenly banquet? If you thought those were cosmic questions, I have an even bigger one for you today: What would you do if you were God?

I imagine a number of cosmic issues come immediately to mind. Like stopping war or curing cancer or eliminating poverty or wiping away all bigotry and injustice. What would you do if you were God? Maybe your thoughts are more personal. The Bible is full of people asking God to address their very personal concerns… from making sure their own crops grow or their interests flourish to rendering their personal enemies impotent. What would you do if you were God? It’s like the childhood question: what would you do if you could have three wishes granted, except if you’re God you don’t have just three wishes. There would be no end to the wishes that could be fulfilled. It’s really impossible to imagine, isn’t it? What it would be like really being God.

The impossibility of imagining what it would really be like to be God is one reason, I think, why I found this week’s Scripture readings difficult. Not difficult in the sense of hard to swallow or hard to accept as some passages in Scripture are. Nor are these passages particularly hard to understand or interpret. I found this week’s readings difficult to maintain an interest in, difficult to invest myself in. They are all about what it is like to be God. Not really a career path that is open to any of us. And being God is so far beyond my own experience or imagination, that it hardly seems fruitful for me to even approach the issue. At least on first reading, I don’t identify with anyone in these stories, especially the Gospel. I don’t feel like I’m in these stories. Nevertheless, they do, of course have something to say to me and, I hope, to you.

What would you do if you were God? At least according to today’s epistle and Gospel if you were God you would do just two things. First, you would search for the lost. And second, from time to time, when you found what was lost, you would call a celebration and rejoice. That’s what God does. God searches for the lost, one by one, for all eternity. And leads the heavenly party when they are found.

The first letter to Timothy was almost certainly not written by Paul, although it claims to be. The words in it are not really autobiographical statements by Paul. They are by a later author and are written to set a context for theological assertions. The writer is talking about God, seeking to convey truth about God. "This is a true saying and worthy of all men to be received" as the old translation ran, "that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." The wording is formulaic; a red flag identifying an important theological statement. Or as this morning’s version reads, "The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." That is what God does, saves those who are lost to sin. It is God’s vocation to search for the lost, one by one by one by one so that they may be saved.

When the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled and questioned Jesus’ activities, he told them several parables… parables about what he, God, was doing. He said: God is like a shepherd who focuses all of his time, all of his energy, all of his hope on finding the one sheep among a hundred who is lost. That is the activity that demands God’s time and attention: searching for the one who is lost. It is also probably worth noting that by Jesus’ day (in contrast to Old Testament times), shepherds had become marginalized members of society; they were looked down upon and excluded from positions of legal authority. So it is possible that Jesus is making another point as well with the Pharisees. Not only is he describing God’s active interest in finding the lost; he is also suggesting that the very nature of God might in part be described by a type of person, a shepherd, whom the Pharisees would have marginalized and shunned. A lesson to all of us who presume to know God’s nature.

What would you do if you were God? You might be a social outcast, spending all your time looking for one lost, dirty sheep.

And Jesus offers another parable. Who is God and what does God do? God is like a woman. The very nature of God may in part be described as a woman, Jesus says. A poor woman, evidently, with only ten silver coins to her name. But when one is lost, she does all in her power to find it. She works to find the one that is lost.

In these parables Jesus invites us to see the world as God sees it, to imagine, even though only very partially, the mission and activity of God’s life, to walk a day in God’s shoes, searching… searching… searching one by one for every single person lost in sin. I don’t know if the parable of the lost sheep or the lost coin have quite the same potency today as they might have had in Jesus’ day. Even as I try, following Jesus' invitation, to imagine God’s perspective, I find it hard to imagine investing so much time and attention looking for just a single dime. And I cannot imagine a shepherd today who would leave 99 sheep in the wilderness to look for one that was lost.

But I’m reminded of a story, a true story, that would be a potent, effective parable if Jesus were to tell it to me today. A parable that would convey to me the message I think Jesus is trying to convey in these parables. It’s the story of a couple who were out driving one day. They were about twenty miles from home in a rural, lightly populated area when they were involved in a relatively minor traffic accident. The airbags went off and they were shaken up, but unhurt. Amid all the confusion and anxiety, their dog, who was riding with them, ran off. As far as they knew, she was unhurt, but she was undoubtedly frightened and confused and she ran away. And they couldn’t find her. She was not only lost. She was lost to them. That’s what all of these parables are about. She was lost to them. And every day, day after day, they went back to look, to search, to ask, to call out, to knock on doors, to check the side of the highway. I don’t remember now how many days it was, but they found her, a bit thinner, but alive and well. And what rejoicing there was in heaven and on earth that day. They found her, and they took her home and they called all their friends and said, "Rejoice with us, for we have found what had been lost to us."

Jesus taught with parables to bring his message right into the daily lives of his followers, to use settings and activities that were familiar and immediate to them, so that they would see God the next time they saw a sheep or a silver coin, and remember that God was searching for them. The lost coin and the lost sheep don’t have that sort of immediacy or relevant for me today as they would have had for the people who heard Jesus speak on the day described in today’s Gospel. So the Holy Spirit has reminded me of a story that Jesus might tell to me today to get the same point across. Perhaps you have your own stories. Stories that are real and powerful and immediate and tangible in your lives. Stories about seeking something of great personal value that has been lost. Seeking, seeking, seeking… not ceasing until it is found. That’s what God does. That’s what it’s like to be God. Literally, that is what we would do if we were God.

But we are not God. And we don’t get to be God. In Jesus’ parables we are the lost coin or the lost sheep. Not much human interest there, at least not in these stories as they appear in Luke. The parables tell us nothing about how the coin or the sheep got lost. Was it their own fault? What exactly did the coin or the sheep do that got them lost? Were they the victims of cruel fate, bad genes, foul play, a tragic mistake? Think of the questions Geraldo would ask to bring "human interest" into these stories. After all, these are the human stories; these are our stories; the experiences of the lost coin and the lost sheep are the stories we should identify with.

But in the end, I’m not sure it matters much how we get lost. We all do. We all become lost to God, separated by our sin from God. To be separated from God is to be lost. The parables don’t talk at all about how it feels to be lost, but then maybe we know. Not how the coin feels being lost, or how the sheep feels being lost. Not how someone else feels being lost from God. I know how it feels when I am lost to God.  Maybe you do, too.

What would you do if you were God? These parables tell us what the real God does all the time… search for each and every one of us when we are lost. I wouldn't want to be God; I wouldn’t want to spend all my time looking for what is lost. But I’m glad God does.

And remember, all of Jesus’ parables about the lost...  all of Jesus' parables about the lost end with rejoicing. Amen.