Lost and Found Proper 19 Yr C September 15, 2013

Episcopal priest and author Rick Morley says:
Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?
Nobody. No one does this. No one would ever do that. It’s insanity. If you lose 1% of your holdings, you don’t risk the other 99% to get it back. By leaving the 99, you risk them roaming off, being stolen, or being killed and eaten by a wolf.
No one leaves the 99.
Or what woman upon losing a coin, lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and searches until she finds it? And then calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, `Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’
Nobody. No one does this.

You don’t call friends and neighbors together for a celebration only to spend more money feeding and entertaining them. I mean why bother looking for the coin at all, if you’re just going to blow more money?
It’s insanity. Nobody does this.
Except Jesus.
Jesus does this. Jesus leaves the 99 to search for the lost. Jesus sweeps the house and then throws a party when the lost are found. It’s totally and thoroughly insane.
And it’s the Gospel message.
It’s the Good News of Christ that when a soul is lost, when we are lost, that soul, US, is missed, longed for, and not only worth the search party, but worth the celebration-party when the soul is brought back into the fold.

Our God is the God of the lost, the God who celebrates when the lost are found .
I've been lost lots of times....at one time or another we've all been lost---literally and figuratively.…we all, now and again, find ourselves tangled in the bramble unable to get free and desperately looking for rescue.
The good news is that rescue plan is already in place. On the first Christmas Day, the rescue plan was complete as God in the flesh was born: Jesus Christ. The moment Jesus began to walk this earth, the moment Jesus defeated death through his own death and resurrection, the rescue plan was activated.
I've said many times that God is constantly reaching out for us, moving toward us. The penultimate movement toward us happened with the birth of Jesus Christ. For, through Jesus we’re always, always rescued.
We’re never a hopeless case. We’re never lost forever, because God is always, ALWAYS looking for us.
Who goes searching for the one out of a hundred? Who goes searching for the one out of a thousand? Who goes searching for the one out of a trillion? Who goes searching for you and for me, no matter how far afield we have flown?
Jesus, the Good Shepherd, Jesus the rabble rouser, Jesus the teller of obscure parables, stories that expose a truth we didn’t even know existed, that’s who searches for us, Jesus: the one who will always find us no matter what.
Today’s Gospel, and the whole 15th chapter of Luke is called the Lost and Found gospel  . I guess it could also be called the sin and forgiveness gospel.
Because in "Luke-speak" being lost is a metaphor for sin…and being found is a metaphor for forgiveness. But and this is important--- forgiveness isn't just something that happens to us...forgiveness is allowing ourselves to be found, it's accepting God's love for us.
When we sin—that is when we miss the mark and stray into the bramble, we need to stop, acknowledge the mess we're in and accept that God is looking for us, that God is reaching for us. All we have to do is accept this and trust this.
It’s the paradox of our lives: God doesn’t give up on us, we give up on us. God will never stop looking for us. We just stop wanting to be found.
We do the abandoning, the giving up and the turning away, not God.
Let me say this again: God never turns away from us and God is constantly reaching out to us, pursuing us, longing for us to return to the fold.
I know that some of you are thinking--"yes, but.... you don’t know how awful it is, you don’t know how far I’ve strayed, you don’t know how lost I truly am.” You’re right, I don’t know.
But I know how lost I’ve felt in my life, how far I’ve strayed and I know I KNOW that God never abandoned me. I know that I abandoned God.
Our churches would be filled to overflowing if people truly got this message, if people realized that God is like the most loving and forgiving person you have ever known or imagined, except more. God’s love for us and longing for us knows no boundary, it has no limits, it never ever ends. No matter what we do or who we are, when we lose our way, God is there to search us out, to find us, to heal us, to lead us home. (ibid)
If people GOT this message our pews would be packed, and our services raucous with praise and thanksgiving.
If only people knew.
People can know.
We can tell them.
We can show them.
You see, when we, as I mentioned last week, courageously bear our cross by speaking up for those without voice, when we stand up for those without standing, when we refuse to accept intolerance , when we do that, courageously and boldly, we’re showing people that even though we once were lost--Even though we’ll get lost again---God finds us, God will always find us.
It’s the insanity of our faith—no matter how far we fall, no matter how low we get, no matter how lost we feel, God will always catch us, lift us and find us. Always.
Thanks be to God. +

Holy Hatred and Courageously Bearing the Cross Sept 8 Proper 18c

“Whoever comes to me and does not HATE father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” Holy Hatred Batman!
 “Holy hatred” is how one commentator characterized what Jesus is asking us to do in today’s Gospel.... i think it fits....it's a tough message to hear isn’t it? Especially when it’s the first day of our program year—Sunday School, the choir and folks we haven’t seen a lot of over the summer months are all back, our stewardship campaign is getting ready for kick off and in the luster of all this joy we have Jesus telling us to hate! Telling us, in no uncertain terms, that we must be willing to turn our backs on our family, friends and life as we know it–to hate all that we currently love, small l, in order to Love, capital L, God.
Now, what Jesus knew and what we tend to forget is that being a Christian really isn’t easy. To truly live out our baptismal covenant, to be followers of Christ, requires a lot more of us than just showing up on Sunday morning. We are charged, through our baptism, to stand up against the evils and the wrongs of this world---globally and locally, generally and personally, popular stances and not so popular stances. To be willing to disagree with those we love, to support unpopular causes, to go against the grain of mainstream culture---to hate the things that distract and detract from the pursuit of establishing the Kingdom of God here on earth.
Holy Hatred indeed!
Today’s readings share a certain theme—the cost of bearing the cross and the need to stand up against the forces of this world, against wrong, against evil. As it’s put in Deuteronomy, we have a choice, live a life centered around the eternal love of God, or live a life centered around the fleeting love of things temporal. The author is pretty vocal about what they consider to be the right choice….”choose [God] so that you and your descendants may LIVE…”
And then we have this quirky little letter of Paul to Philemon where Paul is actually—dare I say it?—compassionate in his encouragement of Phil and in his support and love of Onesimus, Philemon’s runaway slave. Paul is asking Philemon to welcome Onesimus back into his household, not as slave, but as a free man. Paul acknowledges that what he’s asking of Phil is costly.
Paul’s correct, living the life we proclaim in our creeds IS COSTLY.
My seminary's motto was Magnani miter Crucem Sustine: Courageously Bear the Cross. But just what does it mean… to courageously bear the cross... to really be a disciple of Jesus Christ?
Well it begins with this notion of Holy Hatred.
Holy Hatred is to resist, deny and ultimately defeat the evil that permeates our world.
And picking up your cross, or as my alma mater puts it, courageously bearing your cross, is doing just that.
It’s a process…Holy Hatred leads to courageously bearing the cross.



This is what Jesus is trying to get across to us.
It’s what Paul is asking Philemon to do.
Hate the evil of this world and through faith, name it, confront it and deny it.
It’s the Christian task here on earth. It’s what we’re marked and sealed to do at our baptism and beyond.
And just how do we do this? Well…
We courageously bear the cross when we struggle, really struggle with what to do about Syria.
We courageously bear the cross when, upon hearing of the murder of a 13 year old girl just blocks from where we are right now, we say to our mayor, our common council reps and our children that no life—no life---is disposable and that when a child is killed senselessly and brutally all of us—all of us-- are hurt down to our core.
We courageously bear the cross when, faced with the graft and corruption and “business as usual” in our local governments, be it Erie or Niagara County, Buffalo or Niagara Falls, that we stand up and say NO it isn’t business as usual because we deserve and demand to have a government that is truly and always by the people and for the people.
We courageously bear the cross when we say to our school boards that our children deserve to learn without the fear of common core test scores determining the success of their education.
We courageously bear the cross when we see the abuse of a spouse or a child or a senior and tell someone about it.
We courageously bear the cross when we reject the hateful rhetoric that fills our airwaves and our social media.
We courageously bear the cross when we say NO to those who would restrict who can marry whom and who can adopt whom and who can worship whom!
We courageously bear the cross when we sit down with the teens in our midst to say what Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke demonstrated was disrespectful  and demeaning and that it is never ever ok to objectify another person. Never. Ever.
We courageously bear the cross when we reach out to the stranger, the foreigner, the outcast.
We courageously bear the cross when we turn over the tables of the money changers, touch the untouchables and eat with notorious sinners.
We courageously bear the cross when we live as Jesus has taught us.
I think you get my point.
Holy Hatred is understanding that the way of THIS WORLD is often in conflict with the Way of God.
And Courageously Bearing the Cross is doing more than nodding our heads in ascent, or paying lip-service to the mantra, Dignity to all Forever. No Exceptions.
Courageously Bearing the Cross is walking out of here, forgiven, healed, renewed and strengthened to love our neighbor as our self and realizing that our neighborhood stretches from the corner of Jewett Pkwy and Summit Ave (Linwood Ave and North St) to Syria, Africa, China and all parts in between.
Holy Hatred Batman, I believe we have work to do!