As most of you would know, I have a colour coordinated bookshelf. For some people this seems like a ridiculous cataloging method of the books I own; but for me it is just perfect. I remember things by colour, and this week I was searching for two specific books. When I was four-years-old my family was at Ashburton Presbyterian, and I was gifted a book by the Sunday School. It was a pop-up book, that I could flip little doors, or tablecloths on the pages. It had images of gold coins, even though it spoke of silver, and it also filled with a lot of white people with very pink rosy cheeks—and a ginger cat. This book had a bright-pink spine, and so it was exactly where I thought I would be able to find it — in the pink section on my bookshelf. This book was called ‘The Lost Coin’, by Debbie Trafton O’Neal, and it was a way that, as a child, I could participate in one of the stories from Luke 15. My favourite part was at the end of the book where everybody came together just to celebrate the joy of the woman who had found the one coin she lost, finishing with the words, ’God is happy like the woman, when someone who is lost returns to God.’ As a child this was a book I loved and kept coming back to, as it helped me to know that God would search for me until they found me. The second book I was looking for was a lot smaller, with a church on the front with a black spine. It is called “Searching for Sunday”, by Rachel Held Evans. If you have picked up on it already, it is this name I have chosen to call the Message for today. You see, this book ‘calls the church to regain its sacredness, passion, and yes, even its weirdness’ (Jill Richardson, theologymix.com). It is a powerful book, helping ignite passion in why, after thousands of years, we still meet together week-by-week and share in rituals and sacraments together. As a young adult this is a book I love and keep coming back to, knowing that I need to search for God until... I found God? I know that it seems an odd place to stop and question my own sentence, but that is a question that I want to leave with us for today. In Luke 15 we have story after story of what it means to be looked for, searched for.. longed for... to ‘come to life’ (Lk 15:32b). But are we searching for this life? Do we stop after we have found God, like a tick-box? Are we trying to help people find what it means to experience this abundant and liberating life and love of God? Are you Searching? Kelly Skilton
Comments