Lectionary meditation & desert wandering

Lectionary for this week.

The lectionary today doesn't start well. No matter which reading you choose it is doom and anger. Humanity fails again and again. I have been thoroughly and utterly uninspired by these readings. There are little glimmers of course. God even changes his mind in one of them, a human being gets into a debate with God and he wins! That's good, yes?

Jeremiah's description of a desert blasted by God might have described a place in my journey a few days ago. But I'm no longer convinced its a desert at all that I stand in, or if it is that the desert is such a bad place. After all, it was the wilderness where so many of the prophets met God. Where so many of them went in preparation for their own ministry. (And yet we all seem to fear the spiritual desert so strongly.) When seen that way it stops being such a fearsome or frightening place.

For thus says the LORD: The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end. - Jeremiah 4:27

No, it doesn't sound good but there is always that caveat at the end with our God isn't there? No matter how dry, how alone I might feel there is always the promise that God is there ready for more. We all live in the hope of that promise for something more.

And the more of course crops up again in the Gospel:

Luke 15:8 "Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?

9 When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.'

10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

I love this image, of God as the frantic housewife. God who leaves no stone unturned searching for us (or remaking us once She has found us). God who rejoices when we are found, when the promise She offers is fulfilled. I can picture God down on her hands and knees in the dirt, fingers reaching back into the dark crevices of the universe searching for the little soul who has hidden itself away in fear and self loathing. There a glint of gold! And with a leap of joy She is out the door, little soul clasped in her hands, dancing and smiling and calling out our name.

I hid myself very well, preferring the darkest corner of God's house to being found and shaped and remade and sent out into the wilderness. But God kept at it, that's the amazing thing the one we can't get around. God kept after me long after someone else would have given up. And I could almost feel that leap of joy around me when at last I let myself be found. If the hills tremble at God's rage they dance in delight at His joy. If the mountains are shaken in his anger they quiver with ecstasy with his laughter.

I'm still waiting for the ecstasy to come back but the desert no longer looks so frightening, in fact its rather peaceful. Its preparation and safety and quiet and solitude. To think, I've been worrying and upset about this vast empty place and at the same time complaining to all and sundry that I can't get enough alone time. Yes Lord, I'm listening, I'm just a little slow sometimes.

(And yes, I do realize that here I am at the end of my meditation and no longer uninspired by the lessons, it always works out that way if I just buckle down and spend time with them.)