Have you ever lost something? Have you ever lost something
and then turned everything upside down to look for it? And how does it feel
when you find it? That’s how it is when God finds one of us!
You know, sometimes looking and finding can lead us to some very
strange places. My dad had a sure-fire method for finding lost things: go to
where you last remember having it, he would say, and look down. More precisely,
look down in a 1 yard or 1 meter circle— downhill. Chances are that your lost
coin or whatever is you're looking for is there, hiding, aided by gravity.
But what if you have no gravity? What then?
I remember something I read once in Smithsonian Air
and Space magazine about things that get lost in space. I don’t mean
fictional starships falling into wormholes, I mean things like screwdrivers,
small parts, M&Ms, and more. Because in micro-gravity, no matter how much
Velcro you use, how much duct-tape, or how many pockets you have, things have
this way of escaping. NASA says that of over 22,000 inventory items on
the International Space Station, 638 of them (just under 3%) are missing.
On the International Space Station, they have a system for
lost-and-found. When someone comes up with something that doesn’t belong, they
put it in a big clear zip-lock bag and then show it to mission control to see
if they can track down who it belongs to.
In 1989, astronaut Sonny Carter was on board the space
shuttle Discovery. Somehow his wristwatch came loose and floated
away inside the craft. He and the rest of the crew searched high and low, left
and right, and every nook and cranny they could think of…there is no “down” in
space, remember. Even after the Discovery landed, technicians
could not find the watch even with the help of gravity! The next time the Discovery flew
and was in orbit, another astronaut, Steve Hawley, found the watch…and a
package of salt tablets, a hair brush and a “Go Air Force” bumper sticker… all
of which had worked their way behind a maintenance panel under a cushion in a
cosmic version of all those coins in your sofa.
While there was certainly rejoicing in the heavens, there
was also a lot of good-natured ribbing back at mission control in Houston.
Jesus says in today’s Gospel that God can be compared to a
woman who has ten coins but, when one is lost, turns the house upside down
until the coin is found. He also says that God is like a shepherd who leaves a
flock of 99 sheep to find the one lost sheep.
And he tells us that God celebrates like the woman does with
her friends when she finds the coin and like the shepherd who rejoices when the
lost sheep is found.
When we are lost, God just doesn’t just wait for us to come
home. God looks for us. And when we are found, God throws a party.
In our hearts, we know what it means to lose things.
Sometimes we dread the possibility. Because what we lose won’t end up in a
celestial lost-and-found … because what we might lose could be something much
more important!
A long time ago, in a diocese far, far away, when I was a
young priest in West Virginia, all the clergy were required to spend a week at
the diocesan camp for at least their first three years in the diocese. I took
part in Intermediate Camp for junior high school students or Creative Arts Camp
for many years beyond the three. One of things we trained for was what to do if
a child came up missing. We’d count heads in the morning, at mid-day, early
evening and at bed-time…and other times in between.
If a camper came up missing, we didn't go back to bed
comfortable that we had 99% accounted for.
No! When a child would turn up missing the plan was that
we'd turn the camp upside down and call in the reinforcements until the child
was safely found. In reality, in the rare event that a count showed us one kid
short, it was typically because the child was just in the wrong place … someone
else’s count would come up with an extra kid. I was never heard of a child
wander into the woods or anything, thank God; but we trained for it just the
same.
Just so, when a sheep is missing, the shepherd does not say
“Meh! There are 99 others!” No, instead the shepherd jumps into action. Why?
Because the shepherd places infinite value on all the sheep!
And when Jesus loses one of us, he comes to find us because
we are worth that much to him!
There’s a version of today’s parable that didn't make it
into the Bible. It’s from the gnostic Gospel of Thomas, and in that one, the
shepherd goes out to find the one sheep because it was 'large.' That
non-biblical author felt the need to add extra value to the lost sheep to
justify the effort… because without that little detail Jesus’ story just seemed
to him ridiculous.
But notice that in the Gospels that are IN the Bible, there
is no modifier. The lost sheep was not bigger, fluffier, prettier, or more
profitable. It was just a sheep.
And notice that we don’t know the value of the coin the
woman searches for. It could have been a penny, or it could have been a
denarius… worth a whole day of labor! All we know is that it’s valuable to her!
These little parables about the lost from the Gospel of Luke
are images of God's love for us. They are windows into the breadth, length,
height, and depth of God's love for each of us. They tell us that we are all precious,
and we are all worthy of the ridiculously grace-filled ways
God goes to in order to find us and bring us home when we are lost!
In my experience, one of the most powerful witnesses of
God’s mercy and renewal come from people who are recovering addicts. They can
tell with absolute conviction of their redemption through God’s mercy. They
know how their addiction works, they can talk about all their rotten choices,
their get-over behavior, and the depths of despair and the need they had to medicate
their pain and meet their physical craving for more drugs or alcohol. They
know. And as they begin to move a step at a time to a life of sobriety, their
growing awareness causes them to witness to how much God is doing for them. Their
stories often move others who are lost by nudging them away from self-hatred to
self-respect; away from an image of a punishing God to an embrace of a graceful
God who is always seeking them out because they are loved. For many it is a
long road taken a step at a time, but the people I have heard travel that road
tell me they have found God mighty to save.
I once knew an older couple who despaired for their son, who
was an alcoholic. They were desperate to bring their child back to health. They
tried tough love, and they prayed for his deliverance. They went to Al-Anon meetings and to their own therapy along the
way. The addiction had been a problem since before high school, when he wasn’t
able to receive his diploma because he was in jail for underage drinking and
driving. At one point, when their son was in his thirties he ended up in the
hospital; this time the doctor told them he wasn’t sure he could save their
son.
Well, a year or two later he was not dead
but at work, attending daily AA meetings, in treatment, and working with a sponsor.
He began to date a woman who was also in recovery, and they became very
involved in their church. He told me that God sought him when he was the most
lost, and found him through caring friends, desperately loving parents, and the
truth-telling companions in AA, and a compassionate, honest therapist who led
him back to sobriety.
And God does this over and over again… sending people to us
at precisely when we need them, whatever our situation and whatever our need,
setting before us the grace to get help even when we would rather reject it.
Part of his testimony was that God continued to seek after
him even when he did not want to be found… even when he was unaware that he was
lost! … even when he could never imagine life not being lost.
Jesus teaches us in these little stories of lost coins and
lost sheep that no matter how far away we may stray, no matter where we might
find ourselves, we are never too far away from God’s love! God seeks us, and
God’s grace is ready to embrace us when we are found.
It might seem crazy that in all the vast universe, God would
go to such lengths for even one of us. But that’s how God is. Persistently
searching. Turning things upside down, sweeping every corner and looking in
every nook and cranny to find us. And, above all, rejoicing when we are found!
Here is a link to the bulletin for the Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost at St. John's Episcopal Church, Clearwater
Here is a link to a video of the sermon.
Here is a link to a video of the liturgy.
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