17. Sunday after Pentecost, 09/15/2013

Sermon on Luke 15:1-10, by Amy C. Schifrin

15 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them." 3 So he told them this parable: 4 "What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.' 7 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. 8 "Or what woman, having ten silver coins,[a] if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? 9 And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost.' 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

Between 1980 and 1991 eight thousand El Salvadoran men, women, and children disappeared from their families as a brutal political regime raped a nation. Thirty years later, the aging mothers of these children are still seeking them in their hearts. In 2005 the waters of Katrina swept away two thousand citizens of our own nations. Surviving families were displaced, overwhelmed with grief as they tried to rebuild and survive. In 2011 the earthquake and tsunami that destroyed the Fukushima-Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan caused eighteen hundred immediate deaths and continues to threaten the lives of our Japanese brothers and sisters. The U.S. statistics on current drug addiction include 1.3 million who are addicted to methamphetamines, 1.9 million who are cocaine addicts, and more then 22.9 million children, youth and adults who have experimented with inhalants.

This very week in war-torn Syria, there are four million internally displaced people, and two million more who are seeking refuge outside of their homeland, separated from loved ones, hungry, homeless, in need of medical care: in a word-lost.

Warfare, natural disaster, brutality, greed, addiction, illness or rebellion, this world knows what it means to be lost. Truly there isn't one of us here who doesn't know what means to be lost. To think that someone precious to us is gone and that we know of no way to find them is more than we can bear. Sometimes folks get lost due to their own rebellion and sometimes it comes from powers far greater than themselves, but for those us who are grieving, who are searching, who are longing to hold them in our arms, the pain is all the same and words echo those of psalmist, Out of the depths I cry to you of Lord! Lord hear my voice...Save me, O God, for the waters have risen up to my neck...Hear the voice of my supplication as I cry to you for help...How long, O Lord, Will you forget me forever? How long must I bear pain in my soul, and have sorrow in my heart all day long? O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion!

The psalmist, as with all the biblical writers, those shepherds of God's ancient people, those whom God used to speak his word to the world, knew about devastation and loss. They knew what it meant to be a refugee, and to be in exile from a homeland. They knew what it meant to run from a violent and brutal regime, and then mistakenly to run towards the false idols as they tried to obliterate their pain. They, too, knew what it meant to suffer loss through warfare, greed, illness and rebellion, and so though God's Word they gave the whole world a way to voice the pain that continues to grip our hearts and to bring it to God. When we call out to God from our pain, our voices are joined to theirs that with them we may be joined to the eternal promise that the One who created us in love will, indeed, hear our prayer.

Scribes and Pharisees knew these words, too, these words that were meant to comfort all people, for just as there are none beyond Gods' care, there are none whom God does not seek to receive in his loving arms. Yet we hear that on this day, when a large crowd filled with tax collectors and an array of sinners had gathered to hear the Word Incarnate, our Lord Jesus, the Pharisees and scribes were grumbling, wanting to hold back the mercy of God that was intended to shower the whole world. Jesus, seeing how lost they really are, then tells story after story of the lost, that they in turn would know the joy of the "found". On this day we hear him teach not only the scribes and Pharisees, but we hear him speaking to all who have drawn near to hear him, all who have been lost, all who have known the lost, that is, all who need to be carried on his shoulders as they are found.

Jesus tells us that however it is that one has become lost, that he will seek them out until they are found. Whether they were lost in their own homes like a coin hidden in a corner, or lost in the wilderness like a like a lamb in the brambles-whether the lostness is of their own doing or something that was done to them, he wants them to be found. Now we know that neither a lost coin nor a wayward sheep would bring about the pain of the loss of a loved one in a flood of exploding mortars, but both coin and sheep are the symbols he gives us to understand the treasure that each life is to its owner. Yes, its owner, for that is who God is-the One to whom all life belongs. He is our creator, our protector, our saviour. He is the One whose heart aches for us when we have gone astray. He is the One who calls our name when the silence of the darkness is choking us. He is the One who comes to the furthest corners of the earth to break the golden calves that keep us enslaved. He is the One who sweeps away the debris under which we have been hidden, so that in his light we shine as brightly as the stars in heaven. We are precious to him beyond all human imaginings. Every life is valued, every life exquisite as it is seen through his beauty.

Rejoice with me, for I have found the lost, he says. We cannot understand the joy of heaven over any sinner who repents, unless we understand the pain, despair, and utter panic of being lost, and of the heartbreak of those who are searching for the lost one. We cannot understand the joy of heaven over any sinner who repents, until we are showered with mercy and brought to life when we thought that all that was in front of us was death, like we were no more than a ram in a thicket waiting only to be slaughtered. And we cannot understand the fullness of repentance, until like a coin buried in a forgotten corner, someone finds our return worthy of a party, of a happiness that cannot be contained.

Twelve years ago this week, September 11, 2001, we saw the agony of those who lost their loved ones when the Twin Towers fell. Five thousand burned and crushed, bodies mangled and torn asunder, firefighters entering into the blaze never to return. That bloody inferno on a Tuesday morning is seared into our minds, and as we see it, all the pain and loss that we have already endured in this life rises up behind our eyes and meets the pain that is before us. In the days that followed, there were frantic and desperate people, mothers and father, brothers and sisters, children and adults lining those barricaded streets, people with photos of their loved ones in their hands, loved ones who had not yet come out of the fire. Calling for their loved ones, calling to any who could hear, calling against the darkness, calling until they had no voice left, and then calling again. This is the relentless way that God calls for us, with a love stronger than death, and then he does what we alone cannot do as he enters into the heart of the flame, laying the lost ones on his shoulders and carrying them home.

If we could see the end of such pain, if we could only hear the voices of saints and angels when those who have come to death sing now with fullness of life, then, and then alone would we know that every time a sinner repents, every time a sinner looks to God for help, every time a child made in God's image stops destroying themselves, and every time we feed the poor before we even think of feeding ourselves, that same rejoicing is going on. Without such repentance we are as good as dead. Without such repentance we might look alive but we'll never taste how joyful this party really is. And God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, wants you to taste it now. Rejoice with me, he says, rejoice with me. Whatever powers, whatever fears, whatever losses are filling your hearts, he is looking for you now, that you would hear his voice, and that he then, would then draw you into his holy embrace, and fill you with his eternal joy. Amen

The Rev. Dr. Amy C. Schifrin
Strawberry Point and Monona, IA
E-Mail: amyschifrin@yahoo.com

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