I was privileged to give this sermon last Sunday at the Episcopal churches, Saint John’s, Lancaster, OH and Saint Paul’s, Logan, OH.
Listen to this sermon here.
In our gospel readings for today, Jesus tells us two parables about finding what is lost.
As is the case with most of His parables, Jesus presents us with a fairly simple story, easy to repeat and remember, but when we meditate on these stories, we find many layers of meaning which light our path to the kingdom of God.
In our first layer of meaning is the understanding that the sheep and the coins are not just sheep and coins. The sheep and coins represent all of us. We are the lost in these stories. We are lost to God, God as the shepherd and as the woman who has lost her coin. God is worried about us; God wants us to be found.
Being lost to God means that we have forgotten something fundamental about ourselves. That we have lost our connection to that divine spark which is the birthright of every one of us.
I was thinking about people being lost and I remembered the Lost boys, from the story of “Peter Pan or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up” by Sir James Matthew Barrie.
The Lost Boys are so lost that they have forgotten how to grow up at all. Although, even in the paradise of Neverland some of them do grow up and become Lost Men, the pirates who are the crew of Captain Hook’s ship the Jolly Roger. When we are lost to God and have forgotten our Creator and God, we don’t mature into adulthood and responsibility – maybe some of us retain the innocence of childhood as the lost boys do, but others of us mature into lost people who actively participate in the evil of the world.
Our reading from Jeremiah today describes people who are lost as being – foolish or stupid – ‘they do not know me’, ‘they have no understanding’ , but do possess ‘skill in doing evil’, as ‘they do not know how to do good’.
There is also a movie which comes to my mind about being lost. This movie has many characters, an entire isolated community of people who are just like the ones described in our reading from Jeremiah. In this movie there is also a man accused of being lost – however, he the only one in the story who knows exactly who he is and where he is going. This movie is the western epic from 1958 – The Big Country. In this movie, Gregory Peck is a retired sea captain who travels to an unnamed part of the American western plains to marry a cattle baron’s daughter. Everyone tells him how important it is to stay on the road and that if he leaves it, he will be lost on the endless plains. But for a man who can navigate on the open ocean with a compass and the sun overhead and the knowledge of where he is in relation to the road and the river – the Big Muddy – he always knows exactly where he is and who he is.
Gregory Pecks’ sea captain character is a model of Christian modesty and forbearance. He is roughed up by some local cowboys and just passes it off as being new to the area, an initiation that any newcomer would face. He refuses to fight the Charlton Heston character in front of a crowd, instead fighting with him in private in the very early hours of the following morning – then asking the question – what did this fight prove? He ultimately brings an end to a war between competing cattle barons by promising water to both barons from this same river – the Big Muddy that by the end of the movie he controls.
Being Lost to God, is not a problem that God can solve for us, it is our problem, in that we have lost our relationship with God within ourselves. And because of this loss of connection with our divine nature, we blindly seek to fill the void it leaves in our lives. The supporting characters in – The Big Country – and many of us, are lost to ourselves. Lost without that anchor of a relationship to our divine nature – we attempt to fill that void;
with possessions and wealth,
with hard work in an endless effort to get ahead,
by being ruthless and demanding.
Or ( pause )
As the sea captain in the movie – The Big Country, we succeed in finding God and finding ourselves and knowing exactly who we are.
Finding ourselves – taking ownership of our salvation, by seeking God in prayer and study.
Where we, through God’s grace and mercy come to that realization that God has also been looking for us all along, so that He can extend His forgiveness to each of us.
Jesus in the parable of the lost sheep concludes with the mystery of redemption:
There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
In the parable of the lost coin, the woman spends more money on the celebration of the finding her coin, than the value of the coin which was lost. The woman and her neighbors celebrating the finding of the coin are God and His heavenly host rejoicing that a person lost to God and themselves has returned to a state of grace. We are not coins with some set value – each one of us is of infinite worth, created in the image of God Himself, which is why the heavens rejoice when any of us are redeemed by accepting God’s mercy and forgiveness.
Paul describes the arc of his own life in his letter to Timothy.
The lost man Saul turned away from his path of blasphemy, persecution, and violence. Finding gratitude, mercy, and faithfulness, he became the Apostle Paul, that best version of himself through the Good News of Jesus the Christ.
We are all called to go and do likewise.
Seeking God, finding ourselves, becoming that person that only God knows we can and will be.
To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.
Amen.
Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem: A hot wind comes from me out of the bare heights in the desert toward my poor people, not to winnow or cleanse– a wind too strong for that. Now it is I who speak in judgment against them.
“For my people are foolish,
they do not know me;
they are stupid children,
they have no understanding.
They are skilled in doing evil,
but do not know how to do good.”
I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void;
and to the heavens, and they had no light.
I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking,
and all the hills moved to and fro.
I looked, and lo, there was no one at all,
and all the birds of the air had fled.
I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert,
and all its cities were laid in ruins
before the Lord, before his fierce anger.
For thus says the Lord: The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end.
Because of this the earth shall mourn,
and the heavens above grow black;
for I have spoken, I have purposed;
I have not relented nor will I turn back.
1 Timothy 1:12-17
I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners– of whom I am the foremost. But for that very reason I received mercy, so that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience, making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
Luke 15:1-10
All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
So he told them this parable: “Which one of you, 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? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, `Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, `Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
What is Good 