Posts Tagged ‘9-15-2019’

Be A Stand In For God 9-15-2019

Sunday, September 15th, 2019

If an alien was to walk in to our church today and say, “Ok you
Church people, describe God to me.”
I wonder what our answer would be. I believe one of the most
powerful descriptions of God is contained in the 2 stories we just
heard in Luke’s Gospel.
A. These images of God, too many people, don’t make any sense.
When the sinner is found. Mercy, love and forgiveness are
freely offered. No charge; no strings attached; no, “I told you
so;” no finger pointing. Just, “Welcome Home.”
B. No matter how far we wander or stray from God, and we all do
it at times, no matter how terrible our sins might be, God’s arms
are always open to us. Jesus never approves of the sin, but he
always embraces the sinner.
C. I could just hear a few of the people, when Jesus was telling his
stories, making a few side comments like:
i. These stories are crazy!
ii. This God is ridiculous!
iii. Leave 99 good sheep to go after one stupid stray?
iv. That’s not very good business sense.
v. If I were the father I would stick it to that son.
vi. I would make him crawl back.
vii. This God doesn’t make any sense.
These people were right; our God doesn’t make any sense when it
comes to loving us.
D. A final point, very important, comes from a quote by the
director of Covenant House, a shelter for runaway kids in many
large cities in the U.S. She says, “The kids we work with have a
lot of questions…
‘Can I have something to eat? I haven’t had a good thing
to eat in days,’ a 17-year-old boy asked me last night. ‘Can I
sleep here? Where can I sleep?’ another kid asked an hour later.
I think she may have been twelve. These questions come easy
to them. They are the questions that a street kid asks every day,
minute to minute. But what gets to me is the question they
don’t ask. The one that hides deep in the eyes they turn away
from you, the one that shows in nervous fingers. This is the
question that comes from living a lifetime of days when you
can’t seem to do anything right. It is, ‘Does God still love me?
– Will God forgive me?’ The kids would never say that out
loud. Very few of them ever talk about God. They don’t know
enough yet, and their minds and mouths are too preoccupied
with the other questions: ‘Is it safe here?’ ‘Can I have
something to eat?’ ‘Where can I sleep?’ But their hearts have
only one question: ‘Does God still love me? – Will God forgive
me?’ And their hearts look to me and to other adults at
Covenant House for the answer to that question. I don’t think
the kids think much about the theological idea that God lives in
every one of us. With them it’s more instinctive. All I know is
that when they look at me and I see that question, I feel the
incredible burden of standing in for our Lord. And I know our
Lord is counting on me to say, ‘Yes! Heavens, yes! I love
you!’ to those scraggly, hungry, angry children of the streets.”
I Close:
God is counting on all of us to be “Stand In’s” for the Lord, with
each other. To make real Isaiah 55:7, “Turn to the Lord for mercy; to
our God, who is generous in forgiving.”