LUKE 15 - please read all of it!

You may remember going to parties that were very good or quite ghastly. At some you were made to feel at home, or you may have felt left out because other folk were all of a clique. Maybe your host had found you or had failed to find you. Maybe you were in the wrong mood. Luke 15 begins and ends with eating and feasting. It begins and ends with trying to reconcile those righteous who criticize those who have repented. 

Luke 15 should help us to know God better and to be able to encounter Him better in the everyday. The three parables Jesus tells need to be taken as a whole, for they describe a relationship with God: that of being at home with Him. What is the cost of being at home with God and what is the reward? To repent, or come to our senses, costs conquering our pride. The reward is God’s bounty, Love, and presence. Taking all three parables together, our own experiences of “lostness”, from time to time, will help us appreciate more being at home with God and being reconciled to Him.

In the parable of the lost sheep 1% is lost. The sheep has strayed, and God fulfils the role of Good Shepherd to find it. In the parable of the lost coin 10% is lost and has been mislaid or dropped. Here God, in a more feminine guise, sets out to find it. As before, there is rejoicing - though we assume that neither was the sheep slaughtered for dinner nor the coin spent on fast food!

In the parable of the prodigal son, 50% is lost, wilfully and deliberately. It is the boy’s choice of his own free will and here God waits for him and when He sees him afar off then He goes out. The boy has come to his senses and repented - literally, turned round to return. Again the depth of God’s grace is manifest in forgiveness and feasting.

There is always a need to repent. Think, too, of the publicans etc and the Pharisees at the start of the chapter. Even the elder brother needs to repent and bury his pride. Perhaps he is concerned that his half share of the property will be raided to re-instate the younger son, but really the Father is in control and no doubt the elder son works for himself, now, so his father does not offer a kid for a feast. It supposes that the righteous know God better - “you are always with me” - but the elder son nevertheless is needful of something (to forgive his brother) for he has to be coaxed to the feast.

It starts with food and finishes with a heavenly feast, which we seal in our Holy Communion.

TH

LIGHT AT LEAKE The next three meetings are on 9th and 30th October, and 20th November, all 8 p.m. at Leake Vicarage. Here is a summary of the meeting on 18th September. We looked first at a suggested outline for four evenings on the theme of Light. The first study focused on Genesis 1 and John 1, but we did not reach John. What kind of writing did we find in Genesis 1? Clearly not a scientific account, but a poetic description of creation. Creation began with light. Without light nothing can exist. Plants need light, humans need light ……………… 

Light and intuition - “the light dawned”. We discussed what is meant by soul and spirit, looking at Genesis 1 and 2. God’s light in us. Why do some people worship many gods: the Bible speaks of people without the light carving idols from wood and bowing down to them while cooking food - on the rest of the piece of wood! 

God said “let there be light” - connection between Word and Light. (More on this in John.) A number of questions led to us noting the connection between Truth and Light, as stated in the Bible. Discussion of light turned our thoughts to darkness and what that meant. There is a great deal of darkness in the world - it is easy to dwell on that and forget that the light has shined. We ended with reflection on two passages from scripture which highlighted our discussions: Isaiah 8:16-22 and 1 John 1 & 2. The evening ended with prayers.

Liz Hoare.