Last night I watched my favorite ever TV show episode. The episode is one I have seen before. So many times that I can recite from memory large portions of it, and I am not a person who memorizes TV dialogue. I know you're curious what it is, so I'll tell you: its a episode from the first season of the West Wing called "Mandatory Minimums." As I reflected on the pleasure and joy of re-watching this familiar episode, I thought about how this episode has a real home feeling for me. It feels warm, good, close and I know it inside and out. It is a place I like to revisit.
Two weeks ago I spent some time with a friend of mine, Phil Maciak. He is a professor at Louisiana State University. While walking among a cemetery in New Orleans, Phil told me about a project he is working on about re-watching episodes and movies. I was and am still intrigued by it.
As I sat down to work on my sermon last week, I read through the Gospel passage and realized that it's one of those familiar ones: the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin. These are stories we know, and understand. Maybe even stories that function a little like re-watching a favorite TV show in that they make us feel at home. Sunday was also homecoming for us at St. Ann & the Holy Trinity.
So today I am thinking about how the nature of the lectionary is to re-read, re-encounter, re-confront passages on a three year cycle. Some of them are our favorites, they make us feel at home. And others might strike us in a whole new way when we are in a different time in our lives. I wonder if any of you, having re-read, or re-heard a scriptural passage have either felt like home, or felt that they understood it in a whole new way.
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