Can There Be a Happy Ending?

Summertime movies almost always deal with The End of The World.  Either by tidal waves, the nuclear rays of Dr. Evil, or the attack of aliens and/or sharks–things as we know them dissolve into terror.  It must be a universal phobia.  “Wars & rumors of wars” send the populace into a tizzy!  Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?  Or Mighty Mouse, or Captain America??   Some will listen carefully to the weekend scriptures: hoping for a word of Grace; or perversely reveling in God’s peevish response to a yet-imperfect humanity…

Jeremiah doesn’t paint a pretty picture (4:11-12, 22-28).  A devastating desert wind will scorch everything in its path,  repealing the Goodness of Creation.  The Wind of God which once brought forth Life and Order now becomes an agent of Holy Frustration, withering the fruitful land and driving away birdsong and shelter.  As Israel has rejected YHWH’s  generous purpose, so does a divine creative Word pull away from its prosperity.  “Because of this the earth shall mourn, and the heavens above grow black…”

The Timothy Letters present the passage of wise experience from an Elder (Paul?) to his wet-behind-the- ears apprentice.  We Old Guys often measure our worth, at this point of life, by the sagacity we can share with the Whippersnappers, whether they want it or not.  In I, 1:12-13a, “Paul” reminds Timothy of his own checkered past: “a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence”.   BUT (13b-14) “I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”  The Apostle “welcomes us into his heart through its broken places and fervently hopes that we see something of ourselves in desperate need of God’s grace through Christ.”  (Matt Matthews, in FEASTING on the WORD, C 4:67)  We are helped in telling our tale by the shared experience of those who’ve been waylaid by the Gospel and lived to tell about it….

Luke’s  account retells Jesus’ two stories about the finding of a lost sheep and also of a lost coin (15:1-10).  The immediate symbols are of a thorough God who searches high and low for the missing and presumed valuable.  The corollary is that this action restores the set to its original wholeness, and thus proclaims an intended Perfection.  Those who sit in pews or study-chairs are familiar with their quest for Oneness.  They have an inkling that “Sin” is a rip in the Web of Life.  Here is a proactive God trying time and again to mend the Holy Fabric which is Creation!  “Salvation” is a churchy and overused word which is really a Wholeness in and with God.  Thankfully, the Savior isn’t content with “close enough”.

My life falls somewhere between the Hallmark Channel and Sci-Fi’s End of the World.  By and large, I’ve experienced many Happy Endings!  A few church-people exult in saying, “See!  I TOLD you so!” when change and decay seem to be in charge.  And yet the overview of holy-history bears out God’s unwearied Presence, adjusting and searching and chasing these recalcitrant humans…

God Bless Us, Every One                           Horace Brown King

My thoughts about lectionary passages for the upcoming weekend can be found each Tuesday at this spot on Facebook, or at horacebrownking.com.