This will be delivered at St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Slaterville Springs, NY this Sunday, Sept 12. It is based on the text Luke 15: 1 – 10.
A lost sheep. A lost coin. I’ve never lost a sheep. But, through the years
and lives of many beloved pets, I have lost both cats and dogs. The
experience is sheer trauma: a horrible knot in my stomach, walking the
neighborhood or the woods, calling, searching, waiting, glancing out the
window every five minutes, hoping .. I go about my business, things I have
to do, but there’s really only one thing on my mind and heart..come back,
dear one! And sometimes they do, to my relief and joy. The family circle is
complete again.
As for lost coins . how often do these frantic, ritualistic searches consume
us! It happened to me again just a few weeks ago. Returning from a camping
trip, my toilet kit just wasn’t there, anywhere. I knew I’d packed it . it
couldn’t be sitting out in the woods. Do you do this: I searched every
possible and impossible place . and then I searched the same places all over
again! Do we expect our lost coin to magically appear if we just put enough
effort and hope into the search? There was a happy ending to this particular
trauma. Like the woman in our Gospel reading, the lost object turned up in a
ridiculous spot and I rejoiced as the tension faded. I hadn’t left a little
piece of myself in the campground after all. The circle was complete again.
Plus, I’d proved I wasn’t crazy . I KNEW I’d packed the kit!
The point is, looking for a lost sheep or a lost coin quickly becomes
all-consuming. Jesus knew he could hook his audience and draw them in with
his portrait of the frantic search. We’ve all been there and done that. Once
his listeners were hooked, then came the unexpected twist that makes a
parable work: God is just like that shepherd and that housewife, searching,
searching, for the lost sheep and the lost coin, not giving up until the
lost is found and the family circle is complete again. Then joy breaks out,
the angels dance and the party begins.
A surprise indeed! Luke tells us Jesus’ audience that day included tax
collectors and sinners (who think they’re lost) and scribes and Pharisees,
(who think the sinners are indeed lost but can’t see that they themselves
might be.) Probably some in the crowd just think Jesus is lost!
Jesus astounds all of them with the twist in his parable. The Scribes and
Pharisees can’t believe he has the audacity to compare Holy God with an
unclean shepherd and a low-status woman, neither of whom can be counted
among the righteous. The tax collectors and sinners are shocked for the same
reason, only it is a shock of joy. Is Holy God indeed searching, searching
for us, the lost, right here, now, in the person of this man Jesus?
Luke’s Gospel is crafted by a gifted wordsmith. Every word counts. Notice
that the religious leaders, who confront Jesus about the worthless riffraff
in the crowd that day, are portrayed as murmuring against him: v.2 “And the
Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, “This man receives sinners and
eats with them.” Jesus picks that up and turns the tables in his parable:
the shepherd leaves the 99 sheep in the wilderness while he searches for the
one lost sheep. Murmuring in the Wilderness. Anyone steeped in the Hebrew
scriptures will think immediately of the Israelites murmuring against Moses
in the Wilderness at Mt. Sinai.ending in the disastrous episode of the
Golden Calf, which we heard in our Old Testament lesson today. The
Israelites turned against Moses and the God who worked through him to lead
the people into a new land and new covenant life. The shadow of the Cross
falls across v.2 with its image of murmuring in the wilderness.like Moses,
Jesus followers will abandon him, at the very end. By the grace of God, the
story will not end there, however.
In the architecture of his Gospel, Luke builds complex images, often around
a single theme. Our two little parables of the lost sheep and coin take
their place in a theme of seeking, finding, rejoicing. Last week in the
lectionary we heard about the householder who plans a banquet but loses his
guests to the busy schedules of their successful lives. So the search is on
for new guests, the maimed, the blind, the hungry are brought in. After all,
the party must go on, the preparations are complete. This week the shepherd
and the housewife seek and find and celebrate with the angels. The climax
will come next Sunday in the story of the Prodigal Son, who makes his way
home, to the chagrin of the older brother, to encounter the embrace of the
father and a grand feast of fatted calf.
In every case, the search, the finding and the rejoicing is unstoppable.
Neither the guests, whether grateful or ungrateful, nor the sheep and coins,
whether lost or not, nor the brothers, whether prodigal or stay-at-home, can
stop the celebration when the lost are found and the family circle is made
complete again. It’s a matter of common-sense: a good householder, shepherd,
housewife or father will tell you so. If this is true for sinful humans, how
much more for Holy God, creator of this beloved world. God is involved in an
all- consuming search for us, to restore the one human family. Jesus bet his
life on it. The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to empower us to bet our life on
it, too.
What is our context, today, as we hear these glad tidings of great joy? It
is the ninth anniversary of 9/11, marked by political feuds over a proposed
Moslem Community Center several blocks from ground zero and incendiary
threats to burn a Holy Koran in Florida. It is a moment to rejoice at the
conclusion of hostilities in Iraq (there were no reported combat deaths in
Iraq this week), while deadly conflict continues in Afghanistan (14 U.S.
soldiers were killed along with an unknown number of Afghani soldiers and
citizens). In a few moments we will join in a Litany for the fragile peace
talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders. We pray and yearn for the end
of all wars and the wisdom to create enduring peace in the one human family.
What is our hope? How do get involved and bet out lives on God’s peace in
fellowship with Jesus?
I found one inspiring answer to that question in an article by Nicholas
Kristof in the New York Times this week. Here’s what he said:
“This weekend, a Jewish woman who lost her husband in the 9/11 attacks is
planning to speak at a mosque in Boston. She will be trying to recruit
members of the mosque to join her battle against poverty and illiteracy in
Afghanistan. The woman, Susan Retik, has pursued perhaps the most unexpected
and inspiring American response to the 9/11 attacks..
In the shattering aftermath of Sept. 11, Ms. Retik bonded with another
woman, Patti Quigley, whose husband had also died in the attack. They lived
near each other, and both were pregnant with babies who would never see
their fathers. Devastated themselves, they realized that there were more
than half a million widows in Afghanistan – and then, with war, there would
be even more. Ms. Retik and Ms. Quigley also saw that Afghan widows could be
a stabilizing force in that country.
So at a time when the American government reacted to the horror of 9/11
mostly with missiles and bombs, detentions and waterboardings, Ms. Retik and
Ms. Quigley turned to education and poverty-alleviation projects – in the
very country that had incubated a plot that had pulverized their lives. The
organization they started, Beyond the 11th, has now assisted more than 1,000
Afghan widows in starting tiny businesses. It’s an effort both to help some
of the world’s neediest people and to fight back at the distrust, hatred and
unemployment that sustain the Taliban.
Ms. Retik has said of the project: “More jobs mean less violence. It would
be naïve to think that we can change the country, but change has to start
somewhere. If we can provide a skill for a woman so that she can provide for
her family going forward, then that’s one person or five people who will
have a roof over their head, food in their bellies and a chance for
education.”
Kristof ends his story this way: “In times of fear and darkness, we tend to
suppress the better angels of our nature. Instead, these women unleashed
theirs.”
I believe the angels that Susan Retik and Patti Quigley unleashed in their
all-consuming search for healing and meaning in their tragic loss are the
same ones that dance in heaven over the finding of a lost sheep or coin. God
grant that our own search for what has been lost in our lives and in our
communities may find fulfillment in the dance of the angels.
