Sermons for the Month

The Broom: A Symbol for God
DATE: September 16th, 2007
SERVICE: 16th Sunday After Pentecost
TEXT: Luke 15:1-10

“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN

Can you imagine this (a broom) as a symbol of the Christian faith? I would have never thought that could be the case, but I was reading an article this week about a celebration for someone who had been promoted in a Christian organization. It was a momentous occasion and her friends wanted a distinctive symbol to commemorate the event, so they brought brooms. Can you imagine that?

It was a reminder of God, who in today's Gospel lesson searches for the lost just as shepherd goes out to find a lost sheep or a woman scours her home for a lost coin.

This idea, that God would show loving concern for the lost, rocked the religious world in Jesus' day. It was particularly unacceptable to those who delighted in the idea that those who strayed were separated from God forever.

That's not the case, Jesus tells them, instead God is like a woman who has lost not just spare change, but one of the 10 silver coins that were sewn into a headdress and given to her upon her marriage. This coin has significance; it's her dowry and it was so protected by Jewish law that no one could take the headdress from the woman, even if the family lost everything else and could not pay its debt, the husband was not allowed to take this one item. (1)

This is a valuable coin indeed. So, she fervently picks up the lamp, turns over the floor mats, and sweeps every square inch of her home until it is found. That's how God views those who have lost their direction and wandered away; they are valuable and every effort must be made to return them to awareness of God's care.

Jesus is living proof of this; just look who he chooses as dinner companions. Barbara Brown Taylor, an author and professor, says that there is a Middle Eastern proverb that says, "I saw them eating and knew who they were." She writes that although it does not make much sense in our own age of fast food, in Jesus' day what you ate and whom you ate with were critical matters. That's why the religious leaders grumbled, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."

Among the Jews eating together was a religious experience, a way of celebrating their faith which included very specific rules about what happened around the table. Cleanliness was vital: clean food, clean dishes, clean hands and clean hearts. So, Jesus offended a lot of people when he sat down at ate with filthy folks whose lives were contemptible.

When they saw him eating, they thought they knew who he was - someone who had lost all sense of what was right and proved it by eating with sinners. (2) And, if it wasn't bad enough that he ate with them, he seemed to enjoy doing so.

It was as if a celebration was occurring, which fits perfectly with the Gospel lesson's proclamation that there is joy in heaven when the lost are found. I had not thought about this before, but another pastor noted in a sermon that if there is great joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, then there also must be great sorrow over any sinner who has not repented.

Just think about that, it suggests that God weeps over us when we choose the wrong path. It's as if we have a cheering section in heaven, he wrote, watching closely as we play the game of life, always rooting for us and hoping for the best. Our cheering section is deeply grieved when they see us losing, but deliriously happy when they see us turning around and going the right direction. (3) You see, free will being what it is, we can choose to wander off, to get lost, but today's Gospel makes it clear that God looks for us, hoping to find us.

In last week's Kid's Sermon (at the Contemporary Service) I had the children lift up their bangs and stare at each other's foreheads. When I asked what they saw there the responses ranged from dirt, to freckles to a scab, but more than one knew about the cross that was traced there when they were baptized. I told them that it's like an invisible tattoo; it cannot be washed off, and is a constant reminder that they belong to Jesus forever.

If we were to continue reading in Chapter 15 of Luke the next parable in this trio is the well-know parable of the Prodigals, or as it's usually titled, the Prodigal Son. It's about the wayward boy who asks for his inheritance, wastes it, finds himself down and out, and decides to return home and offer to be a slave in his father's household, since he is no longer worthy to be treated as a beloved son. But, to his dismay, his father sees him coming, is extravagant in welcoming him, rejoicing that the lost has been found. It is, of course, another illustration of the over-the-top love of God.

There's a story from the mid-1800s about a man who was found because of this prodigal story. It's about praying wife whose husband did not believe in God. She was visited by traveling evangelist John Vassar, of whom she begged for a Bible. He gave her one, and left, but when her husband came home and saw the Bible he was enraged. Seizing it with one hand, and the ax with the other, he placed it on the chopping block and hacked it crosswise in two. Returning to the house, he threw half of the destroyed Bible at this wife and tossed the other half in his tool shed.

Well, months later on a wet winter day, wanting to get away from his Christian wife, he retreated to the tool shed. The time passed slowly, and in boredom he looked around for something to read. Thumbing through the mutilated Bible, his attention was caught by the story of the Prodigal Son. He became absorbed in it, but, guess what? The ending was in his wife's half of the Bible. He searched the house for the bottom half of the book, but could not find it. Finally, he broke down and asked her for it, and read the story again and again. In the process, he was found by God. (4)

Martin Luther wrote that on our own we cannot believe in Jesus, or come to him, but the Holy Spirit calls us through the Gospel; that's certainly what happened to that man. He was found, and just as was true in all of today's stories, there was rejoicing.

Whether we see God as a shepherd caring the lost sheep, or the woman sweeping the floor until the lost coin clinks, or the waiting father welcoming the lost son with open arms, the message is the same. God misses us when we are lost, searches for us, and rejoices when we are found.

So, I guess this broom is a religious symbol; it reminds us that if we are hiding in the corners (or the tool shed) God will sweep us out and return us to safe keeping.

AMEN

(1) "All the Tax Collectors and the Sinners were Coming Near", Luke 15:1-32, ONEFAMILY Outreach, pgs. 4-5, www.onefamilyoutreach.com

(2) "Table Manners" by Barbara Brown Taylor, Christian Century, March 11, 1998, pg. 257, www.religion-online.org

(3) SermonWriter, Proper 19C, Luke 15:1-10, pg. 8, www.sermonwriter.com

(4) On This Day by Robert J. Morgan, May 15, Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 1997.

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