"Found But Not Aware"

September 11, 2016  Psalm 14 VU 735, Luke 15: 1-10

If someone in our community goes missing, what is the reaction of the community?   We are all affected to some degree, how?   What is the reaction when the one lost is found?   

That’s how it is in the household of God.   We can all relate to loss in some form or fashion and have experienced feelings of emptiness and despair at some point in our lives, but will rejoice if by some miracle or stroke of luck what was lost is found or what seemed lost is given a reprieve for the moment.  

Jesus introduces us to the nature of God in the parables of lost and found as we read from Luke Gospel today.  Here is a nugget for you if you have the ears to hear. Your spiritual nature and God’s nature are one within you.  That is why Jesus could make the bold statement: “I and the father are one.”   In fact you could make the same statement and it would be the truth.
 God’s nature is to love us no matter what our circumstances, to forgive, and restore us because we are God’s children.  Within that same nature God is constantly searching to help and find the lost.  From the very beginning God didn’t stay in Garden, Genesis 2 but came out to rescue humanity which chose to become the lost.  From the very beginning God didn’t stay in Garden, Genesis 2 but came out to rescue humanity, which and I repeat, chose to become the lost.
 It is still that way today folks, we choose to go it alone but God seeks to save and rescue us from ourselves.  God does not have a dualistic mine.  There are no winners or losers because unconditional love can’t lose, it is programmed to win and God always wins.  If God loses in your mind, your God is just to small.  Richard Rohr would say it is so simple that it is hard to teach.  None of God’s children are beyond salvation.  God’s grace is poured out on all both good and bad.   Jesus challenges the hearers to consider what it means to be a community of lost and found, are there boundaries, what boundaries does our community uphold.  In doing so he invites us to consider what God is like by considering our own personal experience.  

The crowds are pressing in around Jesus to hear his teachings.  All manner of people make up this community, and they gather around Jesus for a variety of reasons.  The Disciples to receive instruction, the Pharisees and Sadducees to keep tabs on Jesus’ radical teachings:  and the people who do not really belong anywhere because they have lived so much of life on the fringes of societal norms.  They are described as prostitutes, thieves, liars, murders, sinners was the word used by them, same today.  Meaning that they are the people that no one of stature should be caught hanging around with, for fear that their reputations will somehow stain them also.  This stereo typical idea comes from a very common saying that is believed to be by many true.   “You are known by the company you keep”.  Ever heard it before from a parent or relative. Yet nothing could be farther from the truth. 

Somehow these outsiders have crowded into their community and Jesus has completely thrown the community into a panic.   This was hardly a dinner list that anyone of any salt would put together, can’t you imagine the talk: “and here they fellowshipping with, eating and talking with Jesus”.   If anything was to place a wedge in the Jesus community this would be it and I’m sure side conversations began immediately, just as they do today.  “Who Invited “THEM”  why would Jesus embrace this man, or that woman?  “Does he not know who they are, the way they live and earn their keep.”  “Jesus talks of godly things on the one hand and yet he eats and makes company with the likes of these”.   What’s going on here?  Watch out folks, for you might just catch yourself in that conversation.  

Perceiving the growing division in the crowd Jesus speaks of God’s nature in parables, 3 parables in particular, about losing something, something they valued.  He wants them and us to begin thinking of what is most important in our lives.   For instance in the story of the lost sheep, the shepherd values the health, and safety of his flock, after all it is his source of income and stability.  The woman who loses a coin values the hard earned money she has scraped and saved to feed her family.  In the parable of the lost son which is next in the series of lost and found, the father never loses sight of his own, he values his children not matter what their circumstances or behavior might be.  God’s love keeps no records of wrongs. {1 Corinthians 13: 5-6}  God’s is the nature of goodness {Mark 10: 18} and unconditional love, a love so true that no one could possibly refuse it once you have experienced it.  So then who can remain lost in the presence of God especially we who understand that God is everywhere and in every person and thing.  All are found but many are just not aware of it yet, so, Jesus gives us that job folks, of making others aware.   

What for you is the most precious thing in your own life?   What it would be like to lose it?   It makes no difference how, whether it be through carelessness, theft, or circumstances beyond your control.  You would be devastated, maybe even to the point where you would feel that you could not continue on.   That life without it would seem empty and meaningless.    

According to Jesus’ teachings, the nature of God is to seek the lost and never give up the search.  God values everyone and when one goes missing or strays off, God goes into search mode. The nature of God is unconditional love and  rescue, a love that is tirelessly searching for its own.  Woven right in to the very seed that produced you is God’s nature and when we stray from it we feel the loss.    Scriptures tells us we are all like lost sheep waiting to be rescued.    Did you know that sheep when they stray, even though they are able to baa for help when in distress, out of fear they will not?   Instead a lost sheep from the flock will curl up and lie down in the wild brush, hiding from predators.  It is so fearful in it seclusion that it cannot help in its own rescue. 

Have you ever consider this?  Even though we are able to cry out in distress, fear also holds us back.   In this way we are like lost sheep gone astray and full of fear.   Why?  Instead of shouting out loud, we go quiet, turn inward trying to hide from our mistakes, our weaknesses, or shame, as did Adam and Eve in the creation story.    Often we feel unworthy of God’s love, lost and alone we curl up and hide within ourselves.  We are so afraid immobilized or lost that we cannot help in our own rescue.  For we all like sheep have gone astray the scriptures tell us.  Folks it doesn’t say some but we all have gone astray.  Therefore we are all in need of being rescued.  So God sends us a shepherd and the shepherd will carry the full weight of the sheep home.   If you are working through circumstances in your life that have immobilized you, may I suggest that you call on your Shepherd.  For God loved humanity so much that God gave to us a Savior found in Jesus the Christ and it is that love that has never give up on you.