Sermon: The joy of being found (Sept. 11, 2016)

Pentecost 17C

September 11, 2016

Luke 15:1-10

Mom finds a "stranger" way to communicate with her missing son.

            There was a lot of hype this summer over the new Netflix original TV show, Stranger Things. It is sci-fi meets thriller meets drama. The genre is not really my thing, but the show is truly gripping. In the first episode, the youngest son of a single mother disappears without a trace. The rest of the season is about the desperate search for this 11-year-old boy. Both his friends and his mom, even in the face of convicting evidence that he is dead, are completely relentless, as they discover more and more clues that he is alive, somewhere, somehow. Without giving away too many details about the plot, I’ll leave it at this: it is a show about how one’s deep love for one who is lost will compel them to keep looking for that lost one, even when all hope seems to be in vain.

            Perhaps what makes the show so compelling is that this is a theme that grips our hearts, not only present in fiction but in real life. Today is the 15^th anniversary of 9/11, a horrible tragedy that took the lives of some 3000 people. Of those, not a trace was ever found of over 1,100 of them. But that doesn’t mean their loved ones will ever stop looking – for something. Anything. Any sign of their loved one. Like the families of those lost on the Malaysian flight that seemed to disappear out of the sky, they will keep looking, even though it seems all hope is lost.

            That’s what we do when we lose someone we love.

            But here’s a question: what about when we are the one who is lost?

            I’ve been thinking a lot this week about what it means to be lost. Being lost does not only describe those whose lives were tragically taken by a hateful act, 15 years ago. Being lost does not just refer to those whose GPS has led them astray, like my mom this week, whose GPS tried to take her to the Rochester, MN airport, and she nearly missed her flight! Being lost does not refer just to those notorious sinners Luke mentions in our Gospel lesson today: the tax collectors, the sexually suspect, and others who were despised by society.

            No, I think being lost is something every one of us has experienced. I think about the families

Made up of faces of some of those lost on 9/11

of those who were lost on 9/11, who undoubtedly felt angry, confused, helpless, lonely, devastated – maybe even like God and joy and all things good had deserted them. I think about those who are trying to figure out who they are in this world, and wander away from everything familiar in order to find it. I think about people who turn to drugs or alcohol to find solace, or who fall into addictions of other kinds, whether to find something, or simple to escape the nagging feeling of being lost. I think about myself, and all of us, in times when we want so much to do the right thing, but either circumstances are too gray to discern what that right thing is, or we’re too wounded to see clearly, or our sinful human nature takes over even our best intentions.

            There are so many ways we are lost, even when we know just where we are physically. And although for our loved ones we would turn the world upside down to look for them, would get a lamp and sweep the house, would leave 99 sheep in the wilderness to find that one, beloved lost one… we would do this for our loved ones, but when it comes to being lost ourselves, we sometimes feel completely helpless.

            This is something I find so compelling about these two parables Jesus shares today. In the parable of the lost coin, the coin is not to blame here. The coin has no agency, and has not lost itself so much as it is just lost. The sheep, well, the sheep did wander off, but isn’t that just what sheep do? The sheep was being herself, and found herself in a dangerous position, not because she was trying to leave, but just become she was being a sheep. Maybe she even tried to find her way back, and only got more and more lost, further and further from home, the more she tried.

            I think that is sometimes how we get lost, too. We find ourselves lost not because we tried to be, but because life just happened. Circumstances we would not have chosen somehow befall us anyway, like the coin. Or, we were just going about our business, being our human selves, maybe even doing our best, and we suddenly found ourselves away from the fold, away from where we wanted to be. Try as we might, we only ended up more lost, more deeply into the scary, lonely place we were trying to escape.

            I think scary and alone are maybe the worst things about being lost. I always find I’m much more tolerant of being physically lost if I am lost with a friend. Somehow nothing feels as hopeless when I have someone by my side, to bounce ideas off of, to watch out for me, to say, “Yes, let’s try that road.” But being alone, being lonely… This is truly lost. It is not only being without direction, but also, being without relationship. It is being cut off – from love, from companionship, from comfort. It makes me think of a little cartoon my mom used to have hanging in her sewing room, of a little man sitting on a suitcase, all alone in a dessert, saying, “If you feel far away from God… guess who moved?”

            And it is this feeling of being not only lost but also alone that helps us to understand what being found is. If being lost is being alone, being found is companionship. If being lost is fearful,

Lost sheep is found

being found is safety and comfort. If being lost is brokenness, struggle, anxiety, helplessness, dejection, anger, and everything that keeps us from relationship, then being found is affirmation, healing, understanding, reconciliation, and everything that brings us back into relationship – relationship with one another, and relationship with the God who loves us so much, He would drop everything to seek us out, and bring us home.

            But that isn’t all God does. What each of these parables have in common – both these two and the one that follows, which is the well-loved parable of the Prodigal Son – is that when what was lost is finally found, there is a celebration. There is joy! All of heaven, in fact, rejoices that the lost has been found, that the one who was cut off, scared and alone, has come home, home to the heart of God.

            Such joy, I think, is foreign to many of us. We are scared of such joy, because as soon as you let down your guard and allow yourself to experience joy, you make yourself vulnerable, thinking, “This could all be gone again in a second!” This fear comes from years of painful experiences. But I was watching my daughter, Grace, this week, a new walker, and the way she toddles around, she is not jaded by the woes of the world. Anytime she walks anywhere, she giggles with delight. As I worked on this sermon one morning, I saw her dig through her toy basket, find her Sofie the Giraffe toy (which, for whatever reason, every baby loves), squeal with delight and come running toward me,

waving Sofie over her head as she made her squeak. Pure unencumbered joy at having found her beloved toy.

            This is the joy I imagine God has upon our return, our being found. It is the unencumbered, even naïve joy of a toddler who has found her favorite toy. It is the wiggly joy of a dog when you’ve returned after a long day or a vacation. It a heartfelt embrace after a fight with someone you love. It is pure delight. God’s is a joy that does not come easily or without cost – indeed, reconciliation with us came at the cost of God’s own Son – but because of that, we know that it is a joy that is true. When we are found, when we come back to relationship with God, when we seek healing and reconciliation with God and with each other after brokenness, God celebrates with all the angels of heaven. What was lost has been found! My beloved has returned! What amazing grace!

            Let us pray… Gracious God, we are often so lost in this world, unsure of which way to turn, or how to find the safety, love, and companionship we crave. Help us to know, when we are in this darkness, that you will not leave us in this lost place, that you will do anything and everything to bring us home, and welcome us back into your joy and your light. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.