Luke 15:1-10
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Exodus 32:7-14
There’s a story told about the boss of a big company who needed to call one of his employees about an urgent problem with one of the main computers. He dialled the employee's home phone number and was greeted with a child's whispered, "Hello?" Feeling put out at the inconvenience of having to talk to a youngster, the boss asked, "Is your Daddy home?"
"Yes", whispered the small voice.
"May I talk with him?" the man asked.
To the surprise of the boss, the small voice whispered, "No."
Wanting to talk with an adult, the boss asked, "Is your Mummy there?"
"Yes," came the answer.
"May I talk with her?"
Again the small voice whispered, "No."
Knowing that it was not likely that a young child would be left home alone, the boss decided he would just leave a message with the person who should be there babysitting.
"Is there any one there besides you?" the boss asked the child.
"Yes" whispered the child, "a policeman."
Wondering what a policeman would be doing at his employee's home, the boss asked, "May I speak with the policeman?"
"No, he's busy," whispered the child.
"Busy doing what?" asked the boss.
"Talking to Daddy and Mummy and the Fireman", came the whispered answer.
Growing concerned and even worried as he heard what sounded like a helicopter through the ear piece on the phone the boss asked, "What is that noise?"
"A hello-copper" answered the whispering voice.
"What’s going on there?" asked the boss, now alarmed.
In an awed whispering voice the child answered, "The search team just landed the hello-copper."
Alarmed, concerned, and more than just a little frustrated, the boss asked, "What are they searching for?"
Still whispering, the young voice replied along with a muffled giggle, "Me".
So, as we think again that those well known gospel stories of the lost sheep and the lost coin, small stories with big points, and we remember that just as we are lost from God, be that deliberately or otherwise, God will always seek us out, however long and difficult a task that might be.
Luke tells us that it was a woman searching for her coin. I suppose if it had been a man he’d have just shouted to his wife, “have you seen my coin anywhere?” and the story would have fallen rather flat.
I once talked to a couple about transferring their membership to a church. I didn’t know the husband very well, and I asked what church he was transferring from. After a short hesitation, he replied, "I’m transferring from the Golf Club."
It’s easy enough to keep saying that however lost we be, whether through or our own choice or not, wherever we have lost ourselves, God will come looking for us, whatever the cost.
The story is told of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. As an ordained priest in the Church of England, he had gone to Georgia, then one of the American colonies, to preach the Gospel. This was 1734-35, before dramatic events changed the course of his life and ministry. After a year of hard work, he had failed to make any progress at all, and he boarded a ship back to England, but a heavy storm ensued and the ship nearly capsized. In his deathly fright, he realized that, though he had been preaching the Gospel of faith in Christ, he didn’t really believe his own message and feared death in the tumultuous sea. Then his eye fell on a group of Moravians, then a small German sect, who were quietly gathered in prayer, calm amidst the tempest, and unwavering in their trust in Christ. "I wanted this kind of faith," he later wrote in his journal, "and I knew that I did not trust Christ with my whole life." Three years later, on May 24 1738, John Wesley attended a little Moravian church on Aldersgate Street in London, and during the reading of Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans he felt his "heart strangely warmed" and he came to know what it meant to have been lost and then be found by the shepherd Christ.
It’s easy to keep saying that God rescues when we are lost, but we know that God is so awesome, so vast, so much beyond our understanding, how we can be reconciled to God?
I want to answer that question from another angle. Bear with me, and we’ll get to the answer. This week, the pope comes to visit Great Britain. He’s a unique individual - in more ways than one - as both head of the Roman Catholic Church and a head of state, the sate being the Vatican, which, legally, is it’s own very small county. Why don’t we all just join the Roman Catholic Church? Why does the United Reformed Church exist? Or to make it slightly easier, why do we bother with all the trouble and expense of running our own church, when we could so easily merge the whole of the United Reformed Church into the Church of England? Why does our own chapel keep going? Why don’t we just close up and all join St. James?
The reason of course, is that we don’t believe the same things! You can relax - I’m not suggesting that the United Reformed Church shuts up shop - either locally or nationally - for one moment. We have something very different from the Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions. We don’t need a human mediator between us and God.
Incidentally, I believe we should still welcome the Pope’s visit as a Head of State visiting this country, without supporting his or his churches views on many topics with which we disagree.
Anglicans and Roman Catholics call their clergy priests, and priests are people who mediate between God and humans. Priests are pretty essential to Anglicans and Roman Catholics. Without them, their whole church simply can’t function. In our Reformed tradition Ministers may be useful, helpful, a good thing. They may help to show God to people and point people to God. But we Reformed Ministers are not Priests, and we are not essential. Useful and good and helpful as we may be, we are not essential, and our church still functions without us. So, our church has a very important reason to exist: we do not need a human mediator between us and God.
What do our Bible readings say about this?
In Exodus we have another passage where Moses has a jolly good go at mediating between the people and God, but, the story of his life, we’re left with the feeling God’s rather fed up with Moses, and the people certainly are. The conclusion is quite clear: it would all be very much simpler if the people listened to God without a human mediator.
Our reading from 1 Timothy is quite clear there is a mediator between people and God: Jesus Christ - no ordinary human being.
What our Reformed tradition teaches us - based upon scripture - is that there is no human mediator necessary between us and God, but there is, of course, a mediator in the form of Jesus. God, in Jesus, was seeking out and saving the lost. He does that still today, through our reading the Bible, through silence and meditation, through prayer, through the sacraments, and through talking about and exploring our faith with fellow Christians. However we might feel lost from God, he seeks out, through the only necessary mediator, Jesus Christ.
I read that throughout the summer, there are lifeguards on Wells beach in North Norfolk, because the tide is so treacherous. There are plenty of large notices warning about the tide, and the lifeguards issue loudspeaker warnings at regular intervals. But there are still thoughtless and silly people who get trapped by the tide, putting themselves and their companions in great danger. When this happens, the lifeguards go out at risk to their own lives, and rescue those in danger of drowning.
Despite being rescued once, some people go on and on ignoring the warnings, and may need to be rescued several times. And astonishingly, some people receive their rescue not with thanks, but with verbal abuse.
You could argue that the presence of lifeguards gives those people permission to be stupid, and in a way, it does. But when those people are caught yet again by the tide, the lifeguards don't go out and read them a list of the safety regulations, and tell them how wicked they are and how they need to be punished. The lifeguards simply rescue them, because that's why the lifeguards are there. The lifeguards may not like what stupid people do, but they certainly rejoice every time they effect a rescue.
God is like a lifeguard. His job is rescue, not condemnation. As like sheep we wander from the path, nibbling a patch of grass here and clump of heather there, so we can only wait to be found by the shepherd, and carried back home on his shoulders. And every time that happens, God doesn't condemn or punish, but rejoices. So, as we face a new week, and a new chapter in the life of this church, let us look forwards with hope and confidence, firmly focussed upon God, who comes to us in Christ Jesus, and who continually seeks us out.
