Loading...On Monday mornings at 10:15, a group of us gather either here, in Gleason Hall or in the Parish House at Pewee Valley Presbyterian to read essays from this book: Into the Mess & Other Jesus Stories: Reflections on the Life of Christ[1] by Debie Thomas.
We read each essay together and talk about it, opening our hearts and souls to the words Debie Thomas has written about Gospels we read and hear throughout our three-year liturgical cycle. Thomas is a scholar, and an Episcopal seminarian. Her writings are found in the Christian Century magazine and elsewhere. She brings her life experience and context, her spiritual questions, an honest commentary on her struggles, and her discernment to these essays.
[1] Thomas, Debie. Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories: Reflections on the Life of Christ. Cascade Books, 2022.
There is always room for you to join us on Mondays. We value the insights, experiences, hearts, and souls of one another in our lively, thought-provoking conversations nearly every week. Right now, we are meeting at Pewee Valley Presbyterian and would love to have you join us.
Especially tomorrow, when we will be discussing the essay Thomas wrote on today’s Gospel.
I really am interested in hearing what you have to say after today’s worship and when we read through the essay tomorrow, because sometimes something we read is so unexpected that it might turn our understanding of something very familiar upside-down. That’s what happened to me when I read her essay to prepare for this sermon.
Thomas deserves the credit for pointing out something I have never noticed before -- that changes everything I thought I knew about these two parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin.
Like many of you, I’m sure, I’ve heard many sermons talking about the “lost” as people who do not know God, often people judged to be sinners, or “less than.” In this Gospel, they are specifically identified as tax collectors and sinners, which might need some context.
According to E. Trey Clark, Assistant Professor of Preaching and Spiritual Formation at Fuller Theological Seminary: [quote] “Tax collectors were often-despised individuals who gathered income on behalf of the Roman Empire. For many, they represented morally compromised people who were aligned with the oppressor of the Jewish people. “Sinners” [he continues] is a rather general term to refer to individuals who are not included among the upright or righteous followers of God’s law.”[1] [End quote.]
Put another way, at the beginning of this Gospel, these were the people the Pharisees were grumbling about, because they weren’t a part of their crowd, they weren’t a part of our crowd. They were judged by what they did for a living or for living differently, loving differently, believing differently than these religious men. They were not acknowledged for who they were as humans or how they believed in God. They were not recognized as beloved children of God. They were judged.
This makes me uncomfortable.
But Thomas noticed something different, and I think it matters. She wrote [quote] “The lost lamb in the parable belongs to the shepherd’s flock—it is his lamb. Likewise, the coin belongs to the woman before she loses it; the coin is one of her very own. In other words, these parables are not about outsiders finding salvation and becoming Christians. These parables are about us, the insiders. The churchgoers, the bread-and-wine consumers, the Bible readers. These are parables about lostness on the inside.”[2] [End quote.]
Lostness on the inside. [Head exploding motion] Whoa!
I don’t know about any of you, but can I say with certainty that there have been times in my life where I have felt lost right inside the safety of church. Feeling like I’m going through the motions, unable to shake a sense of emptiness, distracted by the world, angry or frustrated or hurt by one thing or another, feeling unworthy of God’s love. Even having a mindset, an arrogance, that I can do it myself, that I know what’s best for me, that I am fully capable thank-you-very-much of fixing my problem on my own—instead of trusting that God will and wants to help.
It’s easy to let the weight of what is happening in our personal lives, the world we daily inhabit, those circumstances beyond our control—the illnesses, deaths, and any number of losses—these things and more, to let them get in the way of the knowledge of and confidence in God’s ever-present love. To forget that it is okay to ask God for help.
Or, when what is happening in the broader world, the school shootings, the assassinations, the threats of war, or the breakdown of negotiations, when these impact our minds and threaten our relationships, we just might want to get lost in hopelessness and fear, forgetting that God is crying for this world with us.
It can feel easier to hide in embarrassment, to make ourselves scarce, to intentionally become lost, when we’ve done something we or someone else may think was wrong. To separate ourselves from the community to lick our wounds or to struggle through a complex issue. To forget that God still loves us in our imperfections, in our brokenness, in our failings, in our being human, and wants to help.
There may be times when worship becomes stale or hard to hear or feels empty and we just need a break, so we take one, physically, spiritually, or emotionally, and we get lost in the wilderness a while. When we take that time away, it doesn’t mean God isn’t looking out for us or isn’t searching for us. It means God will find us at just the right time.
I wonder if we become lost because we think we are not worthy anymore of being found by God. Of being loved by God. Is there anything we can do that is so terrible that God would not look for us? That God would stop loving us?
The answer to those questions, my friends, is an emphatic “no!”
If these parables are about people who are a part of God’s flock, who become lost for whatever reason, as Debie Thomas suggests, then I think we are being given permission of sorts to be, well, human.
But more importantly, they remind us that God does not leave us. Ever. And when we separate ourselves from God, which is inevitable and normal throughout our lives, God will search for us, under bushes, behind curtains. Frantically. Urgently.
When we are found, Jesus says, there will be a celebration. What was once lost is found! The lost sheep has come back to the fold, the lost coin can return to the purse, the lost person has come back to the community. And wow! That is worth some kind of recognition.
I hope we will know that we are worthy of this party. You are worthy of this party. I am worthy of this party. Because God loves us so much, missed us so much, that God will go to any length to find us, again and again.
Amen.
[2] Thomas, Debie. Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories: Reflections on the Life of Christ. Cascade Books, 2022, page 130.
