The Lost and Found Department

Luke 15:1-10

September 18, 2022

Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley

Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://youtu.be/XwZxJoi50s4

Jean and I spent time this week with some good folks at a Presbyterian seminary near Atlanta. We were with representatives of the other nine churches that received ReKindle grants. Our first two hours together were spent simply sharing why we applied for a grant and what we hope to do with it. We heard a lot of common themes, about fewer members attending worship these days and congregations that didn’t represent the neighborhood around the church building, about churches that are smaller than they used to be but still trying to do all the good ministry they used to, about leaky roofs and organs in need of repair, about feelings of burn-out and inadequacy and fears that the church might not recover from the pandemic.

We heard about a church in New Jersey, a congregation of 160 people where 28 people died between March 2020 and April 2021. Twenty-eight individuals gone from one church. What a loss. We heard about the Synod of the Northeast. That’s a region of Presbyterian churches in New England and New York which includes the Albany Presbytery. In the last year, 72 ministers in the Synod of the Northeast renounced their ordinations. For a variety of reasons, in the space of twelve months, 72 Presbyterian ministers in this area permanently left their vocations. That’s quite a loss.

Some lost things are found, but others are lost and never recovered. That’s a fact of life which underlies these parables. Sometimes we experience loss which means that we grieve, we are sad, and feel less engaged with the purpose and meaning of life. Sometimes we feel as though we are the ones who are lost and that makes us lonely or anxious or uncertain. We have come through a season of many kinds of losses and if we are still grieving or still feeling lost ourselves, then let us remember that God is the diligent shepherd, God is the careful woman who keeps on seeking us.

* * *

Many years ago, Tony Campolo was in Britain to attend Greenbelt, which is an outdoor Christian event like the Wild Goose Festival. Traveling on the train, he noticed a guy who seemed kind of out of it. Tony guessed that maybe he was returning from nearby raucous concert festival. Tony said he looked down and noticed that the guy wasn’t wearing a shoe on his left foot. He said to the man, “Excuse me, sir, but you’ve lost your shoe.”

The guy replied, in a kind of stoner haze, “No, man, I found one.”

I guess it’s all a matter of perspective.

Have we lost a shoe or found one? Do we see ourselves as the lost sheep and the lost coin or the found ones? Each of us might answer that as individuals. But as I thought about it for us as a church, I realized that that much has been found here.

We have found money. I mentioned the ReKindle grant. We are one of only 10 congregations in the country to receive this grant in 2022. It is a grant of $10,000. One of the grant’s administrators said that there are large churches for whom $10,000 represents a rounding error in their budget. They know we are not one of those churches. The fact that we received a grant is evidence that outside professionals believe that we at Emmanuel will make a difference with that money. They have hope for and faith in us.

We also have found opportunities. One of them is the Thriving for Racial Justice program which includes just 26 other congregations across the US and Canada. It is an opportunity which is focusing some of our energy and care on the sin of racism that is endemic to our culture. It is an opportunity which offers resources and encouragement for that hard work.

We are one of the decreasing number of churches that have a full-time pastor. In our American Baptist region there are 273 churches. This week I asked Jerrod how many of those have a full-time pastor. His estimate is that 70-75 percent are part-time. That means that Emmanuel is one of perhaps 70 Baptist churches with full-time pastors across the state. I say that not to toot my own horn, but yours. It is your commitment which makes that a reality.

If some of us are feeling the grief of loss, if some Emmanuel are still trying to find our way to a new rhythm, it is right and good to acknowledge that. At that same time, I want to recognize how much is not lost, to be aware of our “foundness” here.

On this occasion, Jesus was primarily speaking to those who were found. He told these stories to the religious leaders, the ones who already had a place to belong and a role to play. On this occasion, Luke says, the church leaders were grumbling about the company that Jesus was keeping. He was hanging out with tax collectors and sinners, those who might be seen as lost from a social and religious point of view. And the found ones, the religious leaders, strongly disapproved of Jesus’ welcome and hospitality.

* * *

This lamb was found hiding under a creek bank. She was not making a sound and it took some careful searching to find her, according to Carl Glen Hinshaw, her shepherd.

He found this lamb with another one not visible in this picture. On the way to finding these two sheep, they had found evidence of mischief—the electric fence was lying on the ground with wool all over it. The hay feeder was flipped upside down. The water in the waterer was all muddy. It looked like the sheep had been up to no good and after a series of bad decisions they had ended up in the creek in the rain.

We might deduce these sheep are to blame for their predicament, but that’s because we don’t know what really happened. What really happened, Hinshaw says, was that a young sheep dog, was left unsupervised and got through a hole in the fence. He got two other dogs to go with him and they entertained themselves by running the sheep. They terrorized four of the sheep, running them to death. This one and her companion escaped and hid.

Reflecting on Jesus’ parable and his own experience, Hinshaw says that sheep aren’t simply misplaced; they end up where they are by walking.

“Sheep don’t wander away from the flock. It isn’t in their nature. A sheep who has left the flock left because it was driven away. It was terrified and did not know where to look for safety, so it ran. And the reason it was terrified is usually due to poor shepherding — the shepherd has led the flock to a pasture where there are predators, or has left it out in a storm. Or the shepherd has neglected that hole in the fence and left unsupervised a young, inexperienced sheepdog, who is supposed to be a helper but has discovered that terrorizing sheep is darned fun. And then that shepherd went back to bed.”

“In other words,” Hinshaw says, “ very often the person we are to seek out is not ‘lost’ and is not missing because he or she made poor decisions. They left because we drove them away. They did not look or talk or think or love like we do, and we did not create spaces they felt safe in. We looked the other way when they weren’t admitted to school because they weren’t a “good fit”, or they were given a hard time because they were a woman in a man’s job or a man in a woman’s job. We did not invite them into our neighborhoods, or our clubs, or our churches. They were being abused by other members of the flock, wolves in sheep's clothing, and we did not protect them. They were being harassed by police and we told ourselves that it was their fault for being where they were, behaving how they behaved. If they would just make different choices, they could help themselves.”

“This lamb was hiding from a predator who terrified her and had killed one of her sisters, and that was not her fault. It was ours.”[1]

This story resonates with me. I expect it resonates with you too. You and I know people who have been driven away from safety by other Christians. You and I know churches that have failed to protect, who have actively harmed the lambs in their care. And so we receive Jesus’ parables and this modern story as important messages about welcome and care and inclusion and fierce protection.

But there’s more here. The accent in these stories is not being lost. The accent is not on being found. The accent, I believe, is on joy.

The joy of finding what might have been lost forever.

The joy of knowing that what we have, what we are is cherished and valued.

The inherent celebration that should come in the presence of “foundness.”

It doesn’t always happen, does it? Having found money and found opportunities, knowing about the harm that some have experienced, we take seriously Jesus’ call to rounding up God’s herd and recovering God’s treasure. We remind ourselves that to whom much is given much shall be required. We try to be very good shepherds—hiking over hills, scrambling down creek bands, climbing through brambles because the lost sheep could be anywhere. Or we seek that pesky coin – sweeping, moving furniture, rearranging clutter. We are diligent, because we care. And then, maybe it happens. We grumble because we’re overworked. We complain because no one else seems to be responsible. We convince ourselves that we may actually be the only ones who care, so we work harder and grumble more. . . .And we miss the intent of Jesus’ story. The accent is on joy, Jesus is calling for everyone to join in the celebration.

Rev. Will Willimon was a Methodist minister and bishop, now retired. For many years, he was a campus pastor. One spring break, he took students on a retreat. It was for those who were intrigued by Jesus and wanted to explore Christian faith.

On the first night, he showed the students a video of an actor reciting the Gospel of Luke, the same Gospel from which we read today. When the video ended, the group of a dozen students sat there in stunned silence.

Then one said, “It is a great story, a really great story. Jesus is cool. But there’s one thing I can’t figure out.”
“Well, what is that?” Willimon asked. “Perhaps I can help you.”

“Jesus is great, I just can’t figure out why all the Christians I know are so darn boring.”
“Now I am remembering,” Willimon said, “why it was not a good idea to bring people like you on a retreat.”
But at the end of the retreat, it was that young man who wanted to be baptized. After another month of conversations, on the weekend of graduation, Willimon baptized him. The rest of the group gathered to witness his baptism.

The day of the baptism, one of the members of the group telephoned and said, “Dr. Willimon, just to put your mind at ease, I want you to know that I have made the arrangement for the post-baptismal party.”
“Party?” Willimon asked.
“Sure. I’ve got the keg and everything.”
“A keg of beer?” Willimon said. “It never occurred to me to get beer for a baptism.”

“Why are you always calling us irresponsible?” asked the student. “See? We have to think of everything.”[2]

Jesus’ stories end with an open question, an invitation to celebration. The shepherd calls his friends and neighbors to rejoice with him. The woman calls her friends and neighbors to celebrate with her, but we don’t know if they do.

Friends, we may be the lost ones. We may be the found ones. Like the guy with one shoe, we may be half-lost and half-found. Nevertheless, we are the ones invited to celebrate. God calls everyone to the party. Because the lost ones matter and the found ones matter and joy must, must be celebrated. Thanks be to God.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/carl.g.henshaw

[2] Rev. William Willimon, in his sermon “Outrageous Parties” delivered at Duke University Chapel, September 13, 1998 https://repository.duke.edu/dc/dukechapel/dcrst003549