I watched and listened to a wonderful interview this week with Nadia Bolz-Weber, a sort of contemporary Lutheran celebrity. If you have a spare 90 minutes, I encourage you to watch it or listen, even and especially if you have been disillusioned with the church in any way. She has a disarming honesty about her, and is so willing to be transparent and speaks so directly to the human condition. Have a listen.
One of the things she mentioned was that a preacher should always preach from her scars, but never preach from her wounds. She was speaking more about emotional struggles, specifically her bout with depression. The pulpit is not your therapist couch, she says. This really struck me because this year has made it so easy to preach from my wounds; this is always tempting when whatever difficult thing is going on right now is all that occupies your mind as you attempt to bring the good news to a congregation in yet another new and inspiring way week after week.
I have struggled with this concept especially this week. It's not that this week has been particularly emotional (though it has, in some ways), but rather that the Gospel text seems to be speaking directly to me this week. It is the "lost parables" from Luke 15, about the shepherd going after the one lost sheep and leaving the 99, and the woman searching and sweeping her house for her one lost coin, and the celebration that each of them has when what was lost has been found. (The Prodigal Son is also included in these lost parables, but it is not a part of this Sunday's reading.)
Following Nadia Bolz-Weber's advice, I am avoiding preaching from my particular wounds this week - later, I will preach from the scars they leave - but I did need to get all of this out somewhere before I could focus on writing a sermon for my congregation, so I have switched temporarily to blog mode.
For some background, read the blog I just wrote about the current state of my heart.
Not surprising, I am drawn to the lost and found motif of these texts. Feeling lost is something we all can relate to. I think of one time in the grocery store when I was maybe 5 years old and I pulled out my defiant daughter hat and refused to follow my mom out of whatever aisle we were in, and so she left me there and as soon as she was out of sight I freaked out and when I couldn't find her I went to the check out and said I was lost. They asked my name (to which I responded, "Johanna Kathryn Johnson,"precocious child that I was), and the nice checker said it (in its entirety) over the loudspeaker, and lo and behold my mom came and found me. I remember how that felt, to be found, and how relieved my mom's face looked (I thought she would be mad!), and I can understand why there might be such joy in heaven when God (aka the shepherd and the woman) finds us. Or, when I lost one of my diamond earrings (a gift I received at 16 when I finished chemotherapy treatments) in the bed, and the utter relief when I found it amongst the sheets.
But it's not just about being lost in the grocery store. To be lost - is this not something we all have felt, not only in body, but in the depths of our being? Or to loose something precious - not just earrings, but our joy or passion for life, or our composure, or even our faith?
I lost my boob, and I'm about to lose another one. I also recently lost my name - I changed it officially to Rehbaum this week. Those are big things, things I have known and loved for many years, things that even have defined me. (Maybe not so much my physical breasts, but more what they represent as far as my life goals and what I have considered my life calling.) Just as distressing as losing something, though, is when that loss makes me, Johanna, feel lost.
I have thought about this a lot. These parables are lost and found parables, about the rejoicing that happens when what "once was lost" has "now been found." Well, I lost/will lose my boobs, and they will never be found again. So? What do I do with that, Jesus? They are gone forever. Call me vain, but that sucks. So then I have to think - this isn't just about my boobs. What has that loss really made me feel like I have lost - and how can that be found?
Losing something important can make our whole self feel lost - this happens all the time in life, doesn't it? If you lose a loved one, for example, or get divorced, or have a miscarriage, it is easy to fall into the despair of lostness. "How can I go on without that person?" "Who am I if I cannot conceive or sustain life?" "What is my purpose?"
"Which one of you," Jesus asks, "having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?" I used to think the answer to that was, "We all would, Jesus, of course!" even as I thought, "That doesn't seem very responsible." Well, I guess that is the point - no one would do that. No one, that is, except our crazy, reckless God. In my most human moments (which, let's be honest, are most of my moments), it is so tempting to fall into the deep hole of lostness - even to lie alone in the dark and not want to talk to anyone about the despair I am feeling, wanting to hide it from everyone. Who could possibly understand?
How counter-intuitive that, when we are lost, we also want to hide. We hide behind masks of fakeness, trying to be something or someone we aren't. We hide behind exaggerations of a self we wish we were. Sometimes we even hide physically, avoiding human contact, just nursing our wounds and feeling sorry for ourselves, but never stepping out the door so someone can see us and tell us we are found.
But we can try to stay hidden all we want. God won't let us stay that way. That's the surprising news of this gospel - God will go all out to make sure we are found, that we don't stay hidden and lost. Like a woman searching for a lost coin, or a shepherd leaving the 99 sheep to find the one.
I want this to be good news for me, I really do. And it is. But the fact is, I still feel a little lost. So even if that is future good news for me, I'm not feeling it right now. There is some heart work that needs to be done before I can be receptive to being found.
But some of that work is already in progress. I completely lost my composure the other night - it was a difficult night, one Michael and I are still processing apart and together, but you know what? It felt good. I needed that to get out, and it helped me find some clarity. I lost the possibility of breast feeding. I found that nourishing a child goes beyond breasts, and this brought me more conviction that this is something I want to do. I lost my nice, 30-year-old boobs that filled out my clothes just right, didn't get in the way, and made me feel like a beautiful woman. I found that this never was the source of beauty for me or anyone. People look first at my eyes, my smile, and my personality - not my cleavage - and say, "She's beautiful."
This lost and found motif - I have some thinking yet to do on it. For now, I will rest assured that even as I feel lost, God knows where I am, and when I am ready to let down my guard and let in the Spirit, beautiful found discoveries will become apparent. Let it be so.
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