Pentecost 17C
September 15, 2013
Luke 15:1-10
Grace to
you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
We
had a nice little hometown grocery store when I was s kid – my parents still go
there. It is the sort of store that, when my dad comes through the checkout
with a quart of milk, the checker says, “Oh, Lois was just in – she already
picked up some milk.” Well, one day when I was a kid, I was shopping with my
mom. I was maybe five years old. For whatever reason, while we were in the toilet
paper aisle, I decided to pull out my defiant daughter hat, and would not
budge. No, I would not follow her, I would not leave this spot. My mom, who is
even more stubborn than I am, said, “Fine,” and turned around and walked away
to continue her shopping. I watched her disappear around the corner,
unbelieving that she was actually leaving, and as soon as she was out of sight,
I freaked out. Uncrossing my arms, I went in frantic search of her – but I
couldn’t find her. I looked down both of the neighboring aisles, but to no
avail. My mom was gone, and I was lost.
Not
knowing what else to do, where else to look, I quickly went to the check-out
and explained that I was lost. They asked my name; I gave it in full. The nice
checker brought out the loudspeaker and said, “Would the mother of Johanna
Kathryn Johnson, please come to register 7.” I waited with fear and trembling –
I was just sure that when my mom arrived, she would be furious. It was stupid
what I had done, I knew, and I would surely be punished. In short order, my mom
rushed up to the register, and to my shock, she looked as relieved as I felt!
We embraced, smiling, happy to have found each other.
But I did not quickly forget what it felt
like to be lost. Feeling lost – it’s not unfamiliar to any of us here. Whether
you have been physically lost (in the grocery store, for example, or driving in
a new place), or figuratively lost, it is a feeling not at all foreign to any
of us.
I’ve
been thinking a lot lately about being lost, and so it is no wonder that this
lost and found theme of our Gospel lesson today has been ringing in my head all
week. A shepherd loses a sheep and heads off into the wilderness to bring him
home. A woman loses a coin, amounting to a tenth of her wealth, and she sweeps
the house, searching from floorboards to rafters, until she finds it.
In my musings on lostness, I have thought
a lot about the relationship of being lost and losing something, especially something important to you – and I think the
two are very much related. For most people, we are most comfortable when we are
surrounded by people and things with which we are familiar. We like knowing
what to expect, how things are supposed to function. Having that familiarity
not only brings comfort to our lives; it also sustains us, fulfills us, and
makes us feel safe. But inevitably, we lose a piece of that reality: we get
divorced, or a loved one dies, or we move, or change jobs, or have a
miscarriage, or get cancer. And when this happens, our familiar, comfortable reality
shifts and changes. Suddenly the life we’ve always known looks and feels
different, and by extension, we feel different. Our former self feels lost.
Who am I now, without that person in my
life? Who am I, if I can’t conceive or sustain the life of a child? Who am I,
without my job to define me? What is my new reality going to look like, and
when is it going to feel like home? Will it ever feel like home? Will I ever
stop feeling lost, and start to feel found?
It
is a helpless feeling, isn’t it? And we are so funny when we are lost. As a
five-year-old, I apparently knew just what to do to be found: I went to someone
I trusted who I knew could help me. Why isn’t it that easy anymore? Now,
instead of seeking help when we’re lost, it seems we are tempted to hide – how
counter-intuitive! I don’t mean we leave the toilet paper aisle and go and hide
in the produce section and hope to be found there. I mean, we hide our
feelings, and who we are. We hide behind masks of fakeness, trying to be
something or someone we’re not. We hide behind exaggerations of a self we wish
we were. Sometimes we do 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 can find us.
Perhaps
you heard a couple of weeks back about Antoinette Tuff, the school clerk who
prevented a mass school shooting by talking with the gunman for about an hour.
He told her he didn’t have anything to live for, he was ready to die that day,
and he would take anyone with him. And she didn’t duck and run for cover – she
listened to him. She told stories about her own life, times she had felt the
same way. She referred to him as “sir,” and then as “sweetheart.” She told him
she loved him and was proud of him.
She told him he did have something to live for. She related to him. She
prayed for him. She grounded the whole experience, terrified as she was, in her
faith in God. And in that hour of conversation, Ms. Tuff went into the
wilderness and found a
lost young man, humanized him, and in the end, convinced him to surrender, to
turn around, to repent.
In
Jesus’ explanation of the parables, he says there is joy in heaven over a
sinner who repents. I want to be clear that I in no way mean to imply that
feeling lost is a sin. Whether you’re a notorious sinner like the ones in our
Gospel, or by and large a pretty righteous person, we all can feel lost at
times. But repentance is something in which we always need to engage.
Repentance, you see, is a reorientation, turning around, turning toward God.
And I don’t care how righteous you are most of the time, we are all by our very
nature, sinners, and we all run the risk of losing sight of God, and often when
we feel lost we are especially susceptible to this. So when we lose our way,
but then turn back toward God, or are found by God, God rejoices. God rejoices
when, in our lostness, we look out and search for God. God rejoices when we
reach out to others who may be lost, and instead of judging them, or running from
their pain and brokenness, we sit with them there, offering them a place of
solace, a place where they can know they are loved, that they are found.
Being
found. That, of course,
is the good news in our Gospel reading today. Because even when we are so lost
that we can’t on our own turn toward God, God still goes all out to find us. As
the parable goes, a sheep wandered into the wilderness, and the shepherd left
the other 99 to go find that lost sheep. The woman lost a coin and searched
tirelessly until she found it. Jesus asks, “Who of you would not go to these
great lengths to find these lost things?” and all my life I assumed the answer
was, “Everyone, Jesus! Yes we would!” But there was always a part of me that
thought, “Gosh, leaving the 99 sheep for the sake of one? That seems awfully
irresponsible.” I always felt a
little guilty that I probably wouldn’t actually do that. Practical girl that I
am, I would cut my losses, move on, and be more careful in the future. But
that’s the point, you see? We wouldn’t do that. We wouldn’t go to the extremes
that the shepherd and the woman in the stories do to find what is lost.
We
wouldn’t, but God does. Our God is not about being practical. Our God doesn’t
cut losses and move on. Our God goes into the wilderness to find us when we are
lost. Our God tears the house apart until we are found. And in both of these
stories, what happens when what once was lost is now found? Celebration! As the
shepherd and the woman call together all their friends and have a party, so
does God bring together all the company of angels to celebrate that a lost
sheep has been found, that a coin has been rediscovered. God isn’t mad at us
for getting lost, as I feared my mom would be in the grocery store 25 years
ago. Like my mom, when God finds us, we are welcomed back with a huge smile and
a look of relief, and there is celebration in heaven when we return to God,
when we return home.
Let
us pray… Most merciful God, your grace is amazing, and we give you thanks
that you find us when we get lost. Help us to place our trust always in you,
knowing that your hand guides us and your love supports us through all of our
trials and losses. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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