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. +