“[Jesus said,] ‘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?'”
What is the value of a single coin? Not much today, when we make money with printing upon paper, or with electronic imagination.
What is the value of a single coin? It might be little even in those ancient days, unless, of course, it was a tenth of everything she owned.
What is the value of a single coin? It might be food to take me through the day, or into a coming week, or possibly next year.
What is the value of a single coin? Enough to set me searching high and low, to bear the cost of burning oil in the lamp, to celebrate the sudden silver gleam amidst the dark.
What is the value of a single coin? A better question might be this: What is the value of a single human soul? Enough, said Jesus, for the heavens to rejoice.
A poem/prayer based on Luke 15:1-10, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year C, Proper 19 (24).
It looked like any other stone that had been tumbled around in the ocean. Not very big. Not very solid. In fact, it was noticeably speckled with holes. The edges of the holes had been smoothed by sand and water moving over it. Eventually, the waves had flung it up on a beach.
And the waves had grabbed it again, so many times, the stone simply couldn’t count them. Not that stones count that well anyway. It had been swept away in the receding waves, then tossed back by the flowing waves, then undermined by another wave going, and pitched up the beach by another wave coming. It was kind of dizzying.
It was also kind of musical. The stone had a lot of company rolling around in the waves, and they rattled against one another as the water pulled away and they rolled together. The music they made, of course, was rock and roll.
If they’d named themselves as a band, I suppose they’d have been the Rolling Stones.
Those days had been exciting, not as exciting as the day it was flung as a hunk of liquid rock into the ocean, but it had been rhythmic and musical and, of course, rock and roll.
With time, however, the beach had grown. New stones, new sand, and new rocks came in with the tides, and the beach expanded further out from where the stone would rest from time to time. Eventually the waves never reached it at all. The stone felt somewhat lost and sad. It felt small. It felt unimportant. It was surrounded by plenty of other stones, but what were they to do except bake in the sun and drip in the rain?
That’s when a seed found its way to the beach, and tumbled down into the space between this stone and the next. It took a rest for a while, and the stone, which had hardly noticed it, forgot all about it – until it began to sprout. A root went down. A shoot came up.
“What are you doing there?” asked the stone.
“I’m growing,” said the plant which had been a seed.
“Why grow next to me?” asked the stone.
“Why not?” asked the seed.
“I’m small and unimportant,” said the stone. “I don’t even make music any more.”
“If you were bigger,” said the plant, “I could never get around you. If you were bigger you’d keep me away from the light. If you were bigger, I’d never find the rain. For me, right now, you’re the most important stone in the world, because you’re here and you’re being exactly what I need.”
The stone started to feel better, but then said, “I’ll still miss the music.”
“Hold that thought,” said the plant.
When it grew tall enough, the wind blew through its leaves with a whistling tone. Below it, the stone’s heart sang.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories ahead of time, then tell them from memory during worship – and make changes as I do. In this case I think all the puns made it into the story when told.
Photo of stones on the beach in Pohoiki by Eric Anderson.
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