The Extravagance of God's Love

“Tell me, suppose a man had a hundred sheep
and one of them went astray…” –Matthew 18:12

 

 Matthew 18 contains that brief and strange parable about the shepherd who walks away from his 99 sheep in search of a single stray.  I have heard preachers preach about this parable in multiple ways.  Often trying to tie it to actual shepherding practices. But it has never made sense to me (at least not an economic or mathematical sense).  Why would a shepherd abandon (and leave vulnerable) an entire flock, in order to go search for a single lost sheep. How would you explain it to the owner if something happened to the others? What if a wolf came along while you were gone and ate the rest of them?  But, of course, Jesus isn’t probably intending to teach a lesson about shepherding here. Looking at the context, the totality of chapter 18 --a chapter filled with images of extravagance-- it is pretty obvious that the ridiculousness of the shepherd leaving the 99 to go in search of the one is supposed to show us something. Probably something about the extravagance of God's love. And recently, I had an experience that  opened my eyes to the lesson of this parable in a way I hadn't expected. 

 During the recent flooding rains our backyard became a swamp.  Water standing ankle deep in places; even in the path were we have the concrete pavers, as I stood on the steps water covered my shoes. But, when I went out in the early morning to cover part of the turtle’s pen with a tarp, I didn’t pay any attention to the standing water inside their pen.  I assured myself that they were used to this kind of thing—heck, their turtles!  And—if I am honest-- I didn’t want to be bothered with trying to collect them in boxes or finding the dog kennel and setting it up as a turtle sanctuary.  I guess you could say, I wasn’t really committed to their care. I was willing to make a little effort—to go to just enough discomfort so that I wouldn’t feel badly. I could justify myself by saying: I tried.  At least I got out the tarp!  But, clearly there was no extravagance in my efforts.  At best, it was somewhat reserved. 

 But when Lucia awoke and saw the yard filling with water, everything changed.  Immediately, sans umbrella or shoes, she was out in the rain and the ankle-deep water with a Sterlite container, reaching into the mud and leaves, turning over bricks and bits of nature, gathering her beloved turtles.  Of course –out of guilt—I quickly got my wet shoes back on and rushed out to help her (and Lynne—who was already out there).  The three of us becoming a turtle transport, carrying plastic bins of curious creatures into the garage where the kennel was already set up to receive them.

What seemed remarkable to me was that Lucia knew each of them by name, and after a couple of trips, knew that one was missing. It was one who often gets into trouble, gets into awkward situations: trapped under a rock, or flipped on its back in the middle of the water dish and unable to right itself.  She was aware of its habits and rightly worried for its safety. Because she knew it. And she loved it—with a love that seems beyond reason to me. An extravagant love.

Immediately, she was back out there, and we were back with her; she was turning over rocks and lifting up anything a turtle might hide under until finally she found it.  The joy in her voice, the excitement, reminded me of someone-- a shepherd who lost a sheep…a single sheep.

On top of finding her one lost sheep, she also found three or four new babies. They are now living with the other babies in what used to be our “office.” I had dreams of writing several novels and crafting my Nobel Prize refusal speech from that room.  But instead it is a turtle nursery (or neo-natal unit) and I am writing from the dinner table (or the front porch). 

 As I write this morning –windows open, sunlight streaming in-- the rains have subsided, the yard is drying out and Houston has been graced with a week or so of lovely weather (according to channel 13).  The grown-up turtles are back in their pen, happily wandering about, hiding under rocks and flipping themselves over. 

This may sound frivolous, but I am sitting here contemplating the love of God, the weirdly, wonderfully extravagant love of God, and I am thinking –yes!  I get it now.  It is like the love of a young woman for her turtles—especially for that one awkward turtle who tends to get lost. Like a wandering sheep.   

 And I am glad for that. 

 And I hope the next time it rains, I will have a little bit of that extravagance, too. 

        God open my eyes, that I may read Your Word,
       Open my ears, that I may hear Your message in it,
        And open my heart that I will always be filled
            with the Love that is found there.

 

Anyone who has—Some thoughts on Matthew 13

 “Anyone who has will be given more

and will have more than enough; but

anyone who has not will be deprived

of even what he has.”  --Matthew 13:12

 

Huh?

What on earth is Jesus talking about? And why would He say something that sounds so unfair?  The Gospel message is supposed to be a message of sharing and compassion. If someone is in need, we are supposed to go to them and share what we have with them.  I thought!

 

But here is Mr. Nice-guy-Turn-the-other-cheek-Do-unto-others, saying something that sounds a lot like: Tough luck!

 

This verse is a stumbling block for me. It is something that has always troubled me.  I am one of those Christians who desperately want everything to be “fair” and gentle; I want a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light!  And this doesn’t fit into that vision of Jesus the love-child and erstwhile hippy/peacenik, sandal wearing vegetarian, commune living carpenter.  My childhood vision of Jesus was probably as much shaped by Super-friends and The Archies as it was by church, scripture & random episodes of Davey and Goliath; more Godspell  than Gospel, if you know what I mean.  I come from a spiritual school of simplicity and the obvious.  Guitar masses, tambourines and agape feasts with broken baguettes passed from person to person at the end of a teen-life retreat. Lots of Cat Stevens music intermingled with our hymns.

 

And so, the idea of Jesus ever saying anything that sounds unfair just feels wrong; un-Christian, even.  And yet, there it is, right there in the Gospel. And not just in Matthew but also Mark (4:25) & Luke (8:18).  So, what on earth is Jesus telling us?

 

One of the first things I think we need to do when a teaching makes us uncomfortable is look to our discomfort.  Why does this teaching trouble us? Where is it challenging us? What is it asking of us that we are hesitant to give?  What are we holding back?

 

For me, this teaching stings particularly when it talks of taking away even “what little they have.”  Too often I can find myself thinking like this; pondering what little I have left. What little time left –I’m 60 now—what little energy, years left to me: to finish my novel, deliver an address to the UN, win the Pulitzer prize and/or a MacArthur Grant… Or even to finish streaming Midsomer Murders! (How many darned seasons are there?)  Sometimes, when I feel this way, disheartened and self-pitying, I find myself growing resentful, my heart hardening as I ponder all I have sacrificed or given up or never experienced. The many dishes I have washed, and floors I have swept, the diapers I changed, the date nights when I got the kids to bed, the house quieted, lit a candle, poured some wine and prepared a little plate of brie and crackers, only to find my wife asleep on the couch.  In my disappointment, I see not her exhaustion, the work she has done, the burden she has borne and the rest she so desperately needs, only my own wants and needs not being met, the resentful embittering sense of what little I have growing inside me.

And I want to scream out—like a little child—Not fair! I want to cry out to God: This isn’t fair! You can’t do this.

 

And I think that is the problem, my problem with this reading, this teaching. I am looking for the wrong thing.  I am looking for fairness.  And God is offering me abundance. 

 

Pondering this reading for a few days now, it occurs to me that it may actually be a teaching about attitude. How do you look at the world? How do you see life? And a phrase occurred to me: imaginative abundance.  Do you have an imagination of abundance or of meagerness? Do you look at the world, at your life, and see the abundance of gifts you have received? Or do you look at the world see only what you lack, where you have been slighted or ignored, what little you have received?  This ability (or willingness) to see all that you have been given: life, family, friends, sunshine, rain, abilities or talents, laughter and tears, as gift, as grace it brings comfort and it consoles us.  It is itself a sense of abundance. Of more… and in some way it multiplies everything we have. It gives us more. 

And the other way of looking at the world, the lens of meagerness, of not enough, leaves us always feeling like we have not received what we needed, what we wanted, what we deserve.  It leaves us always watching what the other one has, what the other person has received and measuring our share against theirs. We stand there like a small child who has been given half of a popsicle; and instead of enjoying it, we look at ours and compare it to the other half and we cry out: Her half is bigger! That’s not fair! She got more than me!  

 

And aren’t we all that child at times?  I know I am.  This is the attitude that says there is never really enough.  That when you get more, by default I get less and that’s not fair.

 

And yet…  fairness isn’t what Jesus came for.  He came to give Himself, and to give Himself completely. He came for grace and grace overflows. It is at the heart of abundance.  A heart that isn’t constantly measuring and checking its pockets to see how much it has, and comparing that to what others seem to have.  That kind of heart, that kind of thinking, that kind of imagination of lack, of meagerness, blinds us to the truth of grace and God’s abundance, God’s mercy, God’s love.

 

Open your eyes to the abundance around you? An abundance that overflows. Let your imagination open to it, to the grace of it, the gift of it, and feel it washing over you, the joy of it washing over you like that first cleansing wave as you walk out into the surf on the beach. Think about the last time you went to Galveston. You take off your shoes and begin walking toward the waves. Feel it. It can be a little scary at first. You don’t know what to expect. Seaweed and crabs and fish and shells and the foam clinging to your ankles… it’s all a bit overwhelming at first… but then you realize. Yes. This is why I came. For all of this; for the strange enveloping wonder of it. For the amazing abundance of it. I was made for this.

 

And speaking of abundance, there’s more. When it comes to scripture, there is always more. In the very next chapter we catch a glimpse of this abundance in action. There is a wonderful little story about a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. And a few thousand hungry people.

 

Open your eyes. The abundance isn’t imaginary. It is so real it can feed thousands… and still overflow with plenty for more.

 

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 [HS1]