Broken Hearts, Broken Communities
Does God Grieve Losing Us Like We Grieve Losing Loved Ones?
by Nanette Sawyer
Gospel Reading: Luke 15:1-10
For Sunday, September 12, 2010: Year C – Ordinary 24
I’m thinking of moments of deep grief that I have experienced or witnessed. They have included wailing, weeping, rocking, holding other people, running, flailing, going completely silent, and turning one’s back to those present in order to hide the expression of grief. The pain and isolation of that one who turned away was as palpable as the one who wailed and fell to her knees. To lose someone we love is to have some part of us broken. The emotions are raw and powerful, and sometimes what we have lost cannot be regained. And then we do our best to heal. But sometimes, we are surprised by joy.
Joy in Regaining the Lost
Taking an example from film, there’s one movie moment emblazoned in my mind from Sense & Sensibility when the sensible sister of the story (played by Emma Thompson) expresses grief, and relief from it, so profoundly that I can’t forget it. In the story, she has been living her own personal grief, believing that the man she loves has married another woman. She has imagined the long, long life before her, living without the one she loves. She pushes her grief down and pushes through her days, pasting a wan smile on her face as she tries to be kind and generous and not burden others with her pain.
One day, however, she is visited by her lost love. Thinking him married, she struggles to be polite, but you can see the stiffness in her body, the emotional struggle to repress her grief. As they talk it suddenly becomes clear that it was not him but his brother who had married. The man professes his
love for her and we see on her face the crumbling of her grief as a new future blossoms into her consciousness. She lets out a sound like a guttural exhale, a primal sob as grief is released and possibility and hope rush in to fill its place in her soul. Joy rushes in.
God is Like a Woman
To say that God is like a woman who has lost one coin doesn’t really capture for me the grief of lost or broken relationship. Perhaps Jesus had to speak in terms that would capture the imaginations of the rich Pharisees. But I do think that in relation to us, God is like a woman (or a shepherd) who has lost a loved one and lost her wholeness. Without the one that is lost, God’s heart is broken. But God doesn’t just want to get back together with the one. God wants to get the one back with the ninety nine (or with the nine) so that whatever community has been broken can be restored to wholeness.
Salvation as Wholeness
Reconciliation makes wholeness, and as Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:19, in Christ God was reconciling the whole world (kosmos) to God’s self. And in John’s Gospel, Jesus says, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (12:32). God doesn’t only love the majority, or the wholly righteous, but every single one. This is extremely good news for us, given how many times we “miss the mark” and hurt ourselves or our loved ones or the strangers and neighbors all around us. Yet despite our mistakes, our brokenness, or how far we have gone astray, God will not let even one of us stay lost.
And when this wholeness is made complete by regaining that which had been lost, God, like a woman and like a shepherd, “calls together her friends and neighbors saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me’ for I have found” what I had lost. God celebrates in community when brokenness is restored to wholeness.
The Hardest Question
Can you believe that God loves you so much that God will not lose you?
*****
Nanette Sawyer is the founding pastor of Wicker Park Grace (www.wickerparkgrace.net), an emerging faith community that gathers in an art gallery on the west side of Chicago. Ordained in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), she has blogged at The Christian Century’s lectionary blog and has been a featured speaker at various events, including Christianity 21 (http://www.jopaproductions.com/christianity-21-faith-21st-century) and The Big Event of RevGalBlogPals (http://revgalblogpals.blogspot.com/2009/10/nanette-sawyer-and-cruise-big-event.html). She has also taught as adjunct faculty at McCormick Theological Seminary, a Reformed, ecumenical, urban, and cross-cultural seminary on the south side of Chicago. She blogs at http://nanettesawyer.wordpress.com/, is a contributor to An Emergent Manifesto of Hope, and the author of Hospitality: The Sacred Art (http://tinyurl.com/hospitality-sacred-art).
I do believe that God grieves for us and desperately looks for us. Many find the idea that God loves us convincing. My hardest question is:
Are there some people who are so lost they are beyond God’s reach?
September 7th, 2010 at 3:04 pm“Can you believe that God loves you so much that God will not lose you?”
I think that is a good question directed at non-Christians; but I think this parable is aimed at the 99. When we get up to preach this on Sunday I think the congregation will try to find comfort in understanding themselves to be the one lost sheep which God goes to great lengths to save.
But we are preaching to the 99 who need face discomfort, and need to be challenged to eat with the 1, outside of church.
September 7th, 2010 at 3:10 pmHi Joel,
Christians are the ones who have asked me the question, “Aren’t there some people who are beyond God’s love?” Putting it in human terms, “Are there some people who are okay for us to write off?”
As far as the congregation on Sunday, I’m not always sure of our make-up. Are we the 99? Or, are we the 1? Or, are we both? I agree that most of us identify with the 1 who is lost. We don’t think of ourselves as part of the 99. I do know there will be some people who need comfort and others who need to be discomforted.
I’m also aware of the date 9-12-10. The day before we will be remembering the terrorist attacks. Bin Laden thought that some people are beyond God’s love and need to be killed. In response, many think bin Laden is beyond God’s love and needs to be killed. For me, it is the hardest question. And I’m looking for an answer myself.
September 7th, 2010 at 3:35 pmThe question of whether God grieves loss of any kind brooks the fundamental paradox of the metaphysical vs. the anthropomorphic God. Not unlike the wave-particle duality of matter in modern physics, we struggle to make sense of a God that on the one hand cannot possibly experience “loss” in any meaningful sense of the word, much less experience an emotion like grief, vs. a God that is most often described as pure love. I’m not sure that any attempt to reconcile the duality makes sense, because there is no meta-analysis that we embodied mortals can employ to the task.
September 8th, 2010 at 8:41 amTim S-B and Joel,
Your questions–
Who is the 1 and who are the 99? and
Are there some who are so lost that they are beyond God’s reach?
– are great questions. You’re both also asking, in a sense, what is the relationship between the “lost” and the “found,” regardless of who is in which category. If we are/I am found, what is our/my responsibility to the lost? If we are/I am lost, what is my relationship to the community from which I am estranged?
Which categories are meaningful to our communities will very much depend on our contexts. We might be a little of both—lost and found. Does “found” mean privileged? Safe? “Insider”? Loved? Happy? Christian? You can spin this many ways. Can you be Christian and lost? (I think so.)
As I have continued to reflect on this image of broken community and the idea of God desiring wholeness of community, the flock of sheep image has taken on deeper resonance for me. I am part of something bigger than myself. I am imagining all those wooly sheep bodies, and me being part of them, being able to say “us” instead of “me.”
The danger of “us” is that we can then create “them.” This may be what you’re getting at Joel.
I’ve tried to address this in my context by talking about many configurations of “us,” so there is not one “us” and one “them”/“the other.” For example, all humans are created in the image of God. We are all “us.” Then some humans put on the clothing of Christ. That’s another us. Every bit of our identity which is shared with others becomes a different “us,” a different configuration of “flock.”
With this kind of complexity of relationship, there are many ways to be lost and many ways to be found, many flocks of which we are a part, and others from which we are apart.
There is a healthy way to say “us.” If we can’t find that healthy way, then we risk being an exclusionary “us”, contributing to fragmentation and lostness on the one hand, or on the other hand remaining isolated and focused on “me, me, me.”
Maybe we can ask, “How are we found, and how are we lost?” What is the nature of a healthy, wholesome “flock”? How do we say “us” and still love “others”? Answering these questions in positive ways will help us to contribute to wholeness and “salvation”/reconciliation in the world.
Tim G,
I really resonate with your questions/comments. Intellectually, I think of God in very metaphysical terms—the God in whom we live and move and have our being, the matrix of the universe, beyond categorization or limitation, the source of everything (which is certainly beyond my understanding.)
But as a human being I understand connection/relationship through emotional experience. My perceptions and my understandings are very affected by my emotions too.
Because of this, I speak of God in anthropomorphized terms, because this makes emotional sense to me. It causes a reaction in me and shapes my relationship to the world. The idea that God would “grieve” my loss as viscerally as I have grieved my losses, creates a strong sensation of connection in me and shapes my commitment to community. It stimulates fidelity in me and trust. It causes me to act as though I am significant in the scheme of things. I understand myself as beloved, and that understanding changes me. Significance is relative, and perspective is important.
Emotional-relational language, symbols, and perspective affects me more fundamentally, at a more primal level than language about metaphysics. That’s why I, personally, choose to use this language, and these biblical stories, and the images in them to influence the shape of my faith and my language about “God.”
Thanks for your comments!
September 8th, 2010 at 12:34 pmI just listened to Rev. Russell’s video blog about this text. Awesome. Great questions. How do you know when you’re lost? How do you know when God finds you? Is God lost? Where is God?
Give it a listen.
September 8th, 2010 at 12:43 pmI’m looking at this passage paralleled with Genesis 21:9-21, the story of Hagar being cast out into the wilderness. She believes herself lost and God comes looking for her. It’s a compelling story and one that has particular resonance given our present religious environment.
(Note: We’re handing out copies of the Qur’an this weekend. No burning, please.)
I do believe that God loves me that much. The trouble is whether or not the communities in which we dwell will reflect that same love…or will we continue to cast one another out?
September 8th, 2010 at 1:11 pmNanette: Your response reminds me of the question posed after Tillich, “How does one pray to the Ground of Being?” Certainly, in terms of the emotionality of having a relationship with God, the language has to be about the anthropomorphic God, not some metaphysical construct. Indeed, it becomes reflexive in the very real sense that prayer becomes like self-talk to the being within. But I remain convinced that the duality concept is the key to overcoming the frustration many Christians feel with the seeming one-sidedness of their relationship.
September 8th, 2010 at 5:21 pmNanette, awesome! Thanks for your responses!
And I appreciate the conversation from Joel, Tripp, and my namesake. Lots to chew on.
Nanette, you’ve named some of what bugs me, giving privilege to the “lost” or the “found.” My hope is that we all become “found” together.
Peace to all, Tim S-B
September 8th, 2010 at 6:51 pmGood conversations and insights, friends!
Tim G, tell me more about “the duality concept is the key to overcoming the frustration many Christians feel with the seeming one-sidedness of their relationship.” What’s the frustration you’re thinking of? And how is the duality concept a key to overcoming it? I’m intrigued, but I need you to spell it out for me.
Tripp, where are you getting your copies of the Qur’an? What a great idea. And nice connection with the Hagar story.
September 8th, 2010 at 10:52 pmSome people in my church keep talking about bad people who go to bars. I think that Jesus would go to a bar in search of the lost.
September 9th, 2010 at 7:56 amOK, but I suspect space limitations will limit this to a mere sketch. The Biblical God is all but incomprehensible to many Christians steeped in the Cartesian world of science and technology. Indeed, the demythologizing of the Bible and the modern metaphysical explanation for all things spiritual has resonated with many professed Christians, who are nonetheless reminded weekly about developing a “personal relationship” with (or through Christ) God. And so for a great many of those people the challenge is try to reconcile these two VERY different metaphorical constructs for the Christian deity. The explanation I was hinting at does not require a reconciliation, since the duality is not amenable to some linguistic explanation that explains how they can both be true. They simply are, and the emotional content of the anthropomorphic God is not incompatible with the metaphysical God. It is an expression of the fact that as human beings such a projection demonstates the reciprocal nature of our own being into the spiritual realm. It requires a suspension of the powerful tendency toward either/or thinking so predominant in Western thought, not unlike the Eastern acceptance of apparent contradictions like no-self.
September 9th, 2010 at 11:16 amThanks, Tim G. I agree that it’s okay to use a diversity of ways of thinking about God and they don’t have to all cohere rationally. I’m reading Karen Armstrong’s book, “The Case for God,” in which she writes about the history of ideas about God. She describes pre-modern theology which accepted mythos (including metaphor/analogy) as a legitimate means of knowing truth. She then writes about the Enlightenment period emphasis on rationality and what was lost with that shift. I’m hoping she’ll bring the topic right into contemporary times. (I’m only 2/3 through the book.) So far, it’s a great read! I think theology is more like poetry and less like “science.”
Grant–I agree. I think Jesus would go into bars to be with the people there. Your comment makes me think of Tripp’s question about “whether or not the communities in which we dwell will reflect that same love…or will we continue to cast one another out?” As pastors, how can we help our congregants experience/embody Jesus’ love? How can we ask, and help others ask, the hardest questions?
September 10th, 2010 at 11:01 am