A sermon for Evensong on Sunday 15th September 2019 - are we ever really lost?
The Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity
The Collect
Almighty and merciful God, of whose
only gift it cometh that thy faithful people do unto thee true and laudable
service: Grant, we beseech thee, that we may so faithfully serve thee in this
life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly promises; through the
merits of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Gospel
Luke 15.1-10
Now all the tax-collectors and
sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2And the Pharisees and
the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats
with them.’
3 So he
told them this parable: 4‘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? 5When he has found it,
he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 6And when he comes home,
he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, “Rejoice with me,
for I have found my sheep that was lost.” 7Just so, I tell you,
there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over
ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.
8 ‘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? 9When
she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbours, saying,
“Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.” 10Just
so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one
sinner who repents.’
Let the words of my
mouth and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, my lord, my
rock and my redeemer. Amen.
It can be a frightening thing to be lost, I know what it’s like to out
in the hills, in fog or cloud, especially with snow on the ground, and with no recognisable features around, and starting to get worried, but also being reassured
that my sense of direction is sound, that my compass bearing is fine or I’m
with people I trust who know the way.
And in recent years, when we last had snow, I remember being up on
Stinchombe Hill in cloud, with snow falling in what mountaineers call a,
‘whiteout,’ with only our dog for company, and thinking, I know the way, I’ve
been up here hundreds of times, and so I set setting out across the top in a
straight line, and ended up very close to bench I knew must be there, but it
was interesting to trust in something I couldn’t see. So in a way, I was lost,
not knowing exactly where I was, but I also knew I would be okay.
Then there was a story going around on social media this week, which
dates from a few years ago, which I’ll read for you…
There are so many ways we can be lost…
Or ways we can feel lost, even when we are safer than we realise.
“I once was
lost but now am found. Was blind but now I see." These familiar lines are from the hymn, “Amazing
Grace.”
And that idea of being
lost and especially found is wonderful and for many it is one of the great
hopes of Christian faith, but what if I were to say, you were never really lost
in the first place?
This comes from not being
convinced that my faith can be neatly tidied away into a box labelled as found,
although I do have hope. Fiona touched on this last week, about being uncertain
and that it’s okay to be unsure and that makes sense to me as well.
At one level, we profess
to have faith, every week in the creed, effectively saying that we are found
but do we believe it, there and then, week in and week out?
Perhaps we could say that
it’s okay to be lost, because, like the shepherd, and the woman with the lost
coin, we can be assured that God, to whom we already belong, will never stop
seeking us, until we are found.
It is difficult to fit
faith into a simple before-and-after story. I once was lost but now am
found. In truth, my experience of being lost is a crucial part of my
relationship with God, I was lost before coming back to church many years ago,
I was lost in times of illness and I felt lost when made redundant and yet,
each time, when God seemed far away,
God always found me again,
and that rediscovery by God was always a joyful moment, and now, after this has
happened a few times, I take some
comfort in knowing that whatever happens, however lost I feel, God knows me, he
knows where to look for me and will keep searching until I’m safe.
And this is what today’s
Gospel is really about.
Jesus is in trouble,
again, for hanging around with the wrong people. As “all the tax
collectors and sinners” come near to listen to him, the Pharisees and scribes begin
to grumble: “This fellow, welcomes sinners, and eats with them.”
In response, Jesus tells them
two parables. In the first, a shepherd leaves his flock of
ninety-nine to look for a single lamb that is lost. He searches
until he finds it, and when he does, he carries that one lamb home on his
shoulders, invites his friends and neighbours over, and throws a party to
celebrate.
In the second, a woman
loses one of her ten silver coins. Immediately, she lights a lamp
and sweeps her entire house, looking carefully for the coin until she finds
it. Then, like the shepherd, she calls together her friends and
neighbors and asks them to celebrate the recovery of the coin: “Rejoice with
me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.”
In some ways, I wonder if
I’ve been misreading these stories for a long time, thinking that the lost lamb
and the lost coin represented sinners, who were, “out there.” Outside,
beyond the fold, beyond the home country we call Christianity, beyond God and
the Church.
But no. The
lost lamb in the first parable belongs to the shepherd’s flock from the very
beginning of the story — it is his lamb. Likewise,
the coin in the second parable belongs to the woman before she loses it; the
coin is one of her very own.
In other words, these
parables are not about unknown outsiders finding salvation and becoming
Christians. These parables are about us, the insiders. The churchgoers,
the worshippers and prayers, the Bible readers. These are parables about lostness on
the inside.
What does this mean? Well, it
means that lostness isn’t an experience exclusive to non or not-yet
Christians. Lostness happens to God’s
people. It happens within the beloved community. It’s not
that we cross over once and for all from a sinful lostness to a righteous
foundness. We get lost over and over again, and God finds us over
and over again. Lostness is not a blasphemous sin; it’s part and parcel
of the life of faith.
And, just because we may
know deep down that God still loves us, this, in no way, trivialises how lost we may sometimes feel, but, the searching in
these parables is not a show.
The shepherd isn’t
just pretending to
look for the lost sheep. The woman isn’t putting on an act with her lamp and
broom. What’s lost is really lost — even if the seeker is
God.
Let’s just think how
astonishing this is. That God experiences
authentic, real loss. God searches, God persists, God
lingers. God wanders over hills and valleys looking for his lost
lamb.
God turns the house upside
down looking for the lost coin. And when at last God finds what God
is looking for, God cannot contain the joy that wells up inside. So,
God invites all his neighbours over, shares the happy news of recovery, and
throws a party to end all parties.
If Jesus’s parables are
true, then God isn’t in the fold with the ninety-nine insiders. God
isn’t curled up on the couch polishing the nine coins she’s already sure
of. God is where the
lost things are. God is where lostness
reigns.
God is in the darkness of
the wilderness, God is in the remotest corners of the house, God is where the
search is at its fiercest. Meaning: if I want to find God, I have to
seek the lost. I have to be
lost. I have to leave the safety of the inside and
venture out. I have to recognize my own lostness, and consent to be
found.
This isn’t
easy. For one thing, it’s so hard for me to believe that I’m worth
looking for. That I’m not expendable. That I’m loved
enough and desired enough to warrant a long, diligent search. It’s so hard
to trust that God won’t give up on me.
That God does God’s best
work when I’m utterly lost and unable to find myself. That God will
feel so much joy at my recovery that he’ll tell the whole world the good news,
and throw us all a party.
But this is, in fact, the
case. Jesus tells these parables to religious insiders who won’t admit to
their own lostness. Jesus’s bewildering claim is that lostness has its
virtues. In some notes on this passage, I read[1]
a strong case for these virtues, that lostness makes us “stronger at the edges
and softer at the centre.” Lostness teaches us about
vulnerability. About empathy. About humility. About
patience. Lostness shows us who we really are, and who God really
is.
God looks for us when our lostness
is so convoluted and so profound, we can’t even pretend to look for God.
But even in that bleak and hopeless place, God finds us and perhaps we
were never really lost at all. This is amazing grace. And it is
ours.
Amen
Amazing grace, amazing sermon Fr Andrew. Thank you for sharing.
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