“In Between Lost and Found”

Luke 15: 1-10

Do you remember the first time you got lost? I do. I was about 4 years old and went shopping with my mom and sister. We were in a clothing store, and my mom and sis were looking for clothes. I, of course, was bored and fidgety, as most four-year-old children are. While my mom and sister were looking at dresses, etc., I started wandering. I noticed that I was just the right height to walk into a rack of clothing and disappear. Furthermore, I could transition from one rack of clothing to another. It was like suddenly being in a different world, along the lines of C.S. Lewis and the wardrobe that transported you to Narnia. I found myself getting lost in the bright colors and feeling the different fabrics with my hands as I disappeared into each successive rack of clothing. I felt as though I had been gone for hours as I explored one rack after another.

At some point, I thought to myself, “I wonder if Mom and Debbi are done yet,” and peeked my head out of the rack of clothing I was in. The store looked “Different.” My mother and sister were nowhere to be found. Suddenly, I had the feeling in my stomach, almost like falling. I began to panic, and it wasn’t long before the tears started to flow, as I began my desperate search for someone or something that looked familiar. I was lost and I knew it.

I did remember my mother telling me at some point that if I ever did get lost in a store, to find someone who worked there and ask for help. So, I began to look for someone who worked at the store. I found a cashier and approached her while still crying. I said to her, “I’ve lost my moooooom!” The woman asked my name, and I told her. She then said over the loudspeaker at the store, “Will the mother of Danny Fowler please come to the cash register?”  My mother showed up pretty quickly and said, “THERE you are!”  With a smile on her face, she messed my hair up a bit and hugged me. Suddenly, all was right with the world. Although I thought I had been lost for hours, it was more likely about 5-10 minutes. However long I was lost, it sure felt good to be found.

In today’s section from Luke’s gospel, we have two parables about being lost and found. There is a theme here of being lost, being found, and the joy that comes from being found.

First comes the parable of the lost sheep. As the passage begins, we find Jesus associating with “sinners and tax collectors.” “Sinner” is a blanket term for anyone who was outside of the holy system in those days. Why tax collectors are singled out, I do not know. Maybe they were an even worse category than your everyday run-of-the-mill sinner. After all, they represented Roman authority and rule over the people. They collected taxes from their own people to keep the system of oppression going. Many also took additional funds for themselves. So, perhaps they qualified to have their own category of sinner, apart from the rest.

Scribes and Pharisees took notice. This supposed Messiah was intermingling with people of ill repute. Their sins would rub off on him, thus making him sinful as well. Not only did Jesus welcome them, but he also ate with them!

Jesus spoke to a group of leaders who resented his inclusive welcome to all. They focused on how Jesus’ attention to those deemed undeserving undermined his authority in their view. So, he taught those gathered with this parable about one sheep getting lost among a herd of 100. Part of his teaching is directed to those in authority who represent God, emphasizing their responsibility to seek out those who are lost in some way. Jesus wants them to identify with the role of the shepherd in the parable, and begins, “Which one of you, having 100 sheep, if you have lost one, doesn’t leave the 99 in the wilderness to go find the one that is lost?” I would guess this first line of the parable confused Jesus’ listeners. The sensible answer is, “None. None of us would leave our flock unprotected to find one stray! That is common sense!” A sheep in today’s world is worth a bit over $1,500 each. So, Jesus suggests that a good shepherd abandons the livestock worth $148,500 to seek the one sheep worth much less? This parable must have to do with something other than demonstrating what a good shepherd should do. It just does not make common sense.

I think other scriptures can help us in this instance. There are a few passages that describe God as a loving shepherd. The Psalms contain several passages that describe God in this manner. There is the familiar passage in Psalm 23, where God is depicted as the shepherd who provides for the sheep and leads them to green pastures and still waters. Then there is Psalm 80:1 “Oh, give ear, Shepherd of Israel, You who lead Joseph like a flock; You who are enthroned above the cherubim, shine forth!” Psalm 95:7 says, “You are our God and we are the people of Your pasture, the sheep of Your hand!” In Isaiah 40:11, God is depicted as a shepherd feeding the flock, gathering lambs that have become separated from the rest of the flock, lovingly carrying them, and leading them back into the fold.

The scribes and Pharisees understood this message, for they were familiar with these illustrations of God as a loving shepherd. They were then reminded as representatives of God that they too were called to be loving shepherds. The passage illustrates something about God’s character. Theologian Fred Craddock says, “ Either the shepherd is foolish, or the shepherd loves the lost sheep, and will risk everything, including his own life, until he finds it.” That may not be a sensible example, but it speaks to us of God’s nature and of our value to God.

Rev. Kendra A. Monn, lead pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Fort Worth, TX, discussed going to the dentist, who, knowing of her profession, asked her if she knew the worship song about "99 Leaves." She had no idea of any worship song of hymn having to do with the leaves of a tree. “So I asked him to sing it. “he leaves the 99.’ I then recognized the song as Reckless Love. We then had a good conversation about the parable in Luke 15.” The praise song the dentist sang to Rev. Monn praises the extravagant, undeserved love of God that is shown to the singer, who experiences God’s love in being found. It teaches about the “Overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God.”

This passage teaches the same thing. God seeks us out when we are lost, with a reckless, overwhelming, never-ending love.

The second parable, of the woman seeking her lost coin, describes potentially hours of work, as the woman turns her house upside down in search of it. Anyone who has ever searched for an important document, a particular tool, or a single Lego or puzzle piece knows the feeling. I still remember when our son, Sam, lost the Sorcerer’s Stone in his Lego Harry Potter castle. It was, of course, the most infinitesimally small piece of plastic, and took forever to find. In this parable, the risk is not in leaving the 99 alone, but in expending energy, resources, and time that might not be recognized, rewarded, or replenished. 

Last year, when our church hosted Presbytery, I remember turning my office upside down in search of lost items. I was so busy hosting during the meeting, attending to people's needs, and directing them to the bathrooms, among other tasks, that at some point, I walked out of the office in the afternoon to attend the meeting and left the doors unlocked. Once the meeting was over, I returned to my office to retrieve my keys and wallet, so that I could head home. I knew where I had left them, but they weren’t there. Thinking I must have placed them somewhere silly, I spent the next hour opening drawers, looking on shelves, and in closets, only to come up empty. I couldn't find what was lost, because it slowly dawned on me that my wallet and keys had been stolen. There was no rejoicing at the end of that story.

In this second parable, however, the woman, who represents God just as the shepherd did in the previous parable, does rejoice at the end of the story. At the beginning of the parable, she cannot find one lost silver drachma, worth a day’s wage back in the first century, which was by no means insignificant. That daily wage back then translates to the average daily wage in the U.S. of about $ 163. So, she rejoiced when it was found.

How do these two parables speak to us today? For me personally, in part, they remind me of my role. The God I represent as a pastor in this world calls me to seek those who feel lost and cannot find their way in life. I am thankful for our Sunday morning services being broadcast worldwide on the internet and out into our universe, sharing God’s wisdom. I am grateful for our ministries, which help those who live in their cars through our Safe Parking program, those who need food through our Little Free Pantry, and for the work we do in our office to support those in need through deacon funds. Our church is reaching out to those who may feel lost in this life in one way or another.

There have been times in my own life when I have felt lost, not just in a department store, but in life itself —times when the events and forces of the world have torn me from my moorings. In such times, much like the first time I was lost, I experience the same feeling in my stomach, feel panicked, and search for anything familiar to help me. Those feelings of being lost often arise in the death of a family member or beloved friend, during times of family strife or discord within a congregation, or in times of great upheaval in our world (such as this time), and I wonder where God is and where I am in the midst of it all.

What do these parables tell us in such times- a world of economic stress, national political conflict, damage done to our institutions and communities during the past few months, gun violence, global war, etc? The artist’s statement in today's work heads us in a direction.  Rev. Lisle Gwynn Garrity writes, “I began my artwork for this series by collaging torn strips of newspaper articles together, overlapping global headlines with photos of current events. Along the torn edges, I added gold leaf. Then I photographed the result, editing the photos in black and white. These photos would become the backdrop for my pieces, as I wanted my digital drawings to emerge within the noise of the world’s deepest pains, divisions, and everything in between. The collage also serves as a reference to theologian Karl Barth’s famous quote about reading the Bible and the newspaper together. I wanted the gold leaf to represent God’s presence in the spaces in between the events and forces that can tear us apart.”

The good news is that God, the Good Shepherd, looks for us when we feel lost with an overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love and helps us find our way back into the fold. The Good news is that God, the Woman who has lost her valuable coin, lights a lamp until she finds it and rejoices when we are found.

I’ve experienced God looking for me and helping me find my way back home, almost like the GPS my wife and I used as we traveled by car all over Scotland. The words from the GPS app guided us, even when we felt a bit lost in the Scottish countryside in the middle of nowhere. In those times of profound grief, I’ve heard the words in my mind of Psalm 23, where my loved one will dwell in the house of God their whole lives long, or have also been reminded in John 16:22, “that although now I may be sad, I will seem them again, and my heart will rejoice and no one will be able to take that joy from me.”  When I am in discord with someone, I am reminded by the psalmist to “Seek peace and pursue it.” (Psalm 34:14) When I see the strife, warfare and discord of the world around me and feel lost,  I am reminded by the prophet Micah to go and “Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly in faith with God.”  I am reminded that despite the strife and brokenness in the world, the Prophet Jeremiah tells me that, “God knows the plans for my life, plans to prosper me and not harm me, plans to give me hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11) God helps me when I feel most lost in such times, seeking me out with helpful words of wisdom, so that I feel found once more, cherished, and loved.

Rev. Sara Speed, in her poem “The Good Shepherd,” writes,

Jesus said, “Who among you wouldn’t leave the 99?” Who among you wouldn’t look for the one?”

Someone in the crowd probably rolled their eyes.

Someone squirmed and looked at their palms.

Someone sighed and thought to themselves, “This man doesn’t understand the business. What fool would leave 99 to look for one?”

But maybe Jesus was not talking about us.

Maybe Jesus was talking about God’s reckless love.

Maybe Jesus was talking about God’s willingness to turn the world upside down

for me.

May we remember those moments when we feel lost in life, God whispers to us words of wisdom, and that, through God’s reckless love, God will turn the world upside down for us until we are found. Amen.