Why do you suppose The Runaway Bunny is one of the most popular books for toddlers ever written? Because it reassures the child that whatever happens, she can’t get lost for good. Even if he gets mad and runs away, he still can’t get lost - because the mother bunny will always come after her child. And there is no place the child can go, no hiding place, no disguise, nothing at all that can defeat the love of the mother rabbit. Wow. Sounds a bit like God, doesn’t it? Listen to this:
"Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,' even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you." [Ps 139:7-12]
That’s Psalm 139, in the Old Testament. David and the prophets all knew they couldn’t run away from God. David found it comforting, Jonah less so. Remember how Jonah tried to get out of preaching to the Ninevites? He took a ship west across the Mediterranean rather than trekking cross-country northeast to preach to Israel’s ancient and mortal enemies. Jonah wanted ‘em dead, not saved! Jonah got mad at God and ran away from home, but God found him - out in the middle of the ocean and down at the bottom of the sea.
Why do you suppose Jesus needed to preach this parable? Could it be that people had forgotten they couldn’t run away from God? I don’t think so. What I think is that people thought God was going to come after them for all the wrong reasons. Of course God would keep tabs on the king, he was important to God’s plans. And of course God would make sure Jonah carried out his orders and completed the mission. Jonah was important. If God was going to chase down anybody, it would be the important people, the religious people, right? The ones who went to temple regularly and never so much as spoke to a Gentile, never mind eating with one! Surely he wouldn’t waste his time on drug dealers and bag ladies. It was obvious that Jesus was a fraud and a phony, the Pharisees thought, because he couldn’t even see who was important and who wasn’t.
It’s not that criminals didn’t get pursued. That wasn’t the point. The powers that be were absolutely delighted when Paul took it upon himself to drag those pesky Christians back for heresy trials and the accompanying floggings and even stonings. That was okay. In fact, it made sense to the Pharisees that God would want to chase down the bad guys. Society needed to be cleaned up, no question about it. People broke the Sabbath right and left if they weren’t constantly reminded how important it was, and the young people nowadays! Aping decadent Greek habits and coming home with who knew what shocking ideas picked up in the marketplace from one of those wandering philosophers.
But Jesus didn’t yell at the sinners, Jesus yelled at the good, decent, religious folk. What was going on here? Their world was turned upside down.
That is why Jesus told this parable. They had forgotten - if they had ever really grasped it at all - that God was a God of love. They were afraid of God. Back in Moses’ day, when God spoke from the mountain, the people “were afraid and trembled; and they stood afar off, and said to Moses, ‘You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.’” [Ex 20:18-19] And of course they were right to be afraid, because God himself had told Moses: “Go down and warn the people not to break through to the LORD to look; otherwise many of them will perish. Even the priests who approach the LORD must consecrate themselves or the LORD will break out against them.” [Ex 19:21-22]
By the time the New Testament was written, everything had changed. The veil in the temple had been torn apart, and the people who claimed Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior were permitted to come into God’s presence just as if they were Moses himself, just as if no-one had ever gotten toasted for approaching the divine presence without the proper safeguards.
The tone of the New Testament passage that tells us the same message as the Psalm I just read is very different. It’s one of my favorites, and probably one of yours, as well.
"Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ... I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." [Ro 8:35-39]
Now, I know that there are still a lot of people who are afraid of God. Guilt and fear and shame are often used to keep the faithful in line, and so the idea of not being able to hide from God no matter what isn’t really what they want to hear. But that’s not the prevailing view in contemporary Christianity. Contemporary Christianity seems to have lost all its fear of God and has watered down the love of God into a sort of sugary sentimentality.
So maybe this parable isn’t as meaningful nowadays as it was 2,000 years ago. Maybe we’re so conditioned to expect God to come after us, cleaning up our messes and making sure our bad decisions have no consequences that we don’t think this parable is meant for us at all.
But I think it is meant for us. But not in the way you might think.
All the sermons I looked at when I was researching this passage used it to encourage evangelism, seeking and saving the lost. And, indeed, that is the main theme. Jesus had to explain to people why he was wasting his time with the ne’er-do-wells and sleaze merchants who drifted around the edges of society instead of concentrating on the people who really deserved God’s favor. And most of the illustrations I came across had to do with chastising the faithful for huddling together in their comfortable little group of virtuous people who don’t want to go out and take risks by reaching out to somebody REALLY DIFFERENT.
Now, I have to admit that evangelism is not the Presbyterians' strong suit. As a matter of fact, whenever we take a survey, evangelism always gets the lowest score of all the key variables that are measured.
But that’s not why I think this parable is meant for us. Because we can read the parable from several different points of view. First, we can listen to what Jesus is trying to tell us about God, that is, that God loves his people and wants to rescue the lost ones, rather than punish them. Second, we can listen to what Jesus is trying to tell us about the role of the church - that is to say, our role - as under-shepherds with similar responsibilities to reach out, to extend ourselves to seek out and restore the stray lambs.
But there’s a third perspective, and that is what Jesus is saying about the sheep. And that is, that left to their own devices, sheep will stray. Left to our own devices, we will stray. We may not intend to stray very far. But when things are calm and safe, isn’t it easy to forget how dangerous the world we live in really is? When there isn’t a looming crisis of some kind, isn’t it easy to stop listening for the master’s voice, and to go wandering off after a particularly enticing patch of grass just around the hill? What is it that tempts you to wander away from the flock? We never seem to take into account the possibility that, if we’re not careful, the day may come, when we lift our heads and look around, that we can no longer see the other sheep, no longer hear the shepherd’s voice, no longer remember how to get back to the green pastures and quiet waters.
And then of course there are those who stray on purpose, who think to themselves, “Why is the shepherd leading us up this steep hill, where the grass is sparse and the path is narrow and full of rocks? Why doesn’t he take us down to that smooth green expanse I see off in the distance?” We forget, sometimes, that God really does know best, and if the grass looks greener down the other path it just might be due to the pesticides.
This summer we are reeling from new terrorist attacks around the world, and are reminded in stark and horrible terms how precious life is and how easily the life we expected to have can be wrenched away from us. After that first terrible wake-up call on 9/11, you may remember that there was a sudden surge of interest in spiritual things, people went to church, read their Bibles, many changed their lives to reflect a renewed understanding of what in life is really important. But all too soon things went back to normal. Bibles went back on the shelf, church attendance dropped back to Christmas and Easter, old habits took over, and nowadays people are more inclined to blame God than to seek him.
It seems that not even threats are enough to keep us faithful. Is it better to fear God and behave well, or to have lost all fear and forget that it is God alone who can keep us safe from the far greater dangers that await us just out of sight? Love is a better motivator than fear - but love has to be nourished to stay alive.
What is it that you need to be reminded of this morning? Do you need to be reminded that God loves you? Do you need to be reminded that God wants you to follow his lead in taking care of the other sheep? Or do you need to remember that the only safe place in this wicked world is under the shadow of his wing?
