Follow The Leader

Why do you suppose The Runaway Bunny is one of the most popular books for toddlers ever written? Because it reassures the child that whatever happens, she can’t get lost for good. Even if he gets mad and runs away, he still can’t get lost - because the mother bunny will always come after her child. And there is no place the child can go, no hiding place, no disguise, nothing at all that can defeat the love of the mother rabbit. Wow. Sounds a bit like God, doesn’t it? Listen to this:

"Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night,' even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you." [Ps 139:7-12]

That’s Psalm 139, in the Old Testament. David and the prophets all knew they couldn’t run away from God. David found it comforting, Jonah less so. Remember how Jonah tried to get out of preaching to the Ninevites? He took a ship west across the Mediterranean rather than trekking cross-country northeast to preach to Israel’s ancient and mortal enemies. Jonah wanted ‘em dead, not saved! Jonah got mad at God and ran away from home, but God found him - out in the middle of the ocean and down at the bottom of the sea.

Why do you suppose Jesus needed to preach this parable? Could it be that people had forgotten they couldn’t run away from God? I don’t think so. What I think is that people thought God was going to come after them for all the wrong reasons. Of course God would keep tabs on the king, he was important to God’s plans. And of course God would make sure Jonah carried out his orders and completed the mission. Jonah was important. If God was going to chase down anybody, it would be the important people, the religious people, right? The ones who went to temple regularly and never so much as spoke to a Gentile, never mind eating with one! Surely he wouldn’t waste his time on drug dealers and bag ladies. It was obvious that Jesus was a fraud and a phony, the Pharisees thought, because he couldn’t even see who was important and who wasn’t.

It’s not that criminals didn’t get pursued. That wasn’t the point. The powers that be were absolutely delighted when Paul took it upon himself to drag those pesky Christians back for heresy trials and the accompanying floggings and even stonings. That was okay. In fact, it made sense to the Pharisees that God would want to chase down the bad guys. Society needed to be cleaned up, no question about it. People broke the Sabbath right and left if they weren’t constantly reminded how important it was, and the young people nowadays! Aping decadent Greek habits and coming home with who knew what shocking ideas picked up in the marketplace from one of those wandering philosophers.

But Jesus didn’t yell at the sinners, Jesus yelled at the good, decent, religious folk. What was going on here? Their world was turned upside down.

That is why Jesus told this parable. They had forgotten - if they had ever really grasped it at all - that God was a God of love. They were afraid of God. Back in Moses’ day, when God spoke from the mountain, the people “were afraid and trembled; and they stood afar off, and said to Moses, ‘You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.’” [Ex 20:18-19] And of course they were right to be afraid, because God himself had told Moses: “Go down and warn the people not to break through to the LORD to look; otherwise many of them will perish. Even the priests who approach the LORD must consecrate themselves or the LORD will break out against them.” [Ex 19:21-22]

By the time the New Testament was written, everything had changed. The veil in the temple had been torn apart, and the people who claimed Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior were permitted to come into God’s presence just as if they were Moses himself, just as if no-one had ever gotten toasted for approaching the divine presence without the proper safeguards.

The tone of the New Testament passage that tells us the same message as the Psalm I just read is very different. It’s one of my favorites, and probably one of yours, as well.