Sermon for
September 12, 2004
15th Sunday after Pentecost
“God’s Lost and Found”
Luke 15:1-10
RALLY DAY
My father received this email from
my brother the other day.
It sounds all too familiar….
Recently, I was
diagnosed with A. A. A. D. D. - Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.
This is how it manifests:
I decide to wash my car. As I start toward the garage, I notice that
there is mail on the hall table. I decide to go through the mail
before I wash the car. I lay my car keys down on the table, put the junk
mail in the trash can under the table, and notice that the trash can is
full. So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out
the trash first. But then I think, since I'm going to be near the
mailbox when I take out the trash anyway, I may as well pay the bills
first. I take my checkbook off the table, and see that there is only
one check left My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go to my
desk where I find the can of Coke that I had been drinking. I'm
going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so
that I don't accidentally knock it over. I see that the Coke is
getting warm, and I decide I should put it in the refrigerator to keep it
cold. As I head toward the kitchen
with the coke a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye--they need
to be watered. I set the Coke down on the counter, and I discover my
reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning. I decide I
better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.
I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water
and suddenly I spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table.
I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I will be looking for the
remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide
to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the
flowers. I splash some water on the flowers, but most of it spills
on the floor. So, I set the remote back down on the table, get some
towels and wipe up the spill. Then I head down the hall trying to
remember exactly what it was I was planning to do.
At the end of the
day: the car isn't washed, the bills aren't paid, there is a warm can of
Coke sitting on the counter, the flowers aren't watered, there is still
only one check in my checkbook, I can't find the remote, I can't find my
glasses, and I don't remember what I did with the car keys. Then
when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled
because I know I was busy all day long, and I'm really tired. I
realize this is a serious problem,
and I'll try to get some help for it.
Don't laugh -- if
this isn't you yet, your day is coming!
GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY.
GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL
LAUGHING AT YOURSELF IS THERAPEUTIC
School has started! Are you
excited about that? Do you feel good about that? I sense a
mixed reaction in the congregation this morning to the fact that school
has started! What a surprise!
I have a question this
morning for those of you who have gone back to school in the last week:
how many of you have already lost something at school? How many of
you had something when school started and you just can’t find it?
Now, not to put our school students on the spot, let me ask the rest of
us: how many of you have lost something in the past week that you
just can’t find?
It’s terrible when
you lose something and you just can’t find it, isn’t it? If
you’re like me, the first thing you do is wonder who is the
irresponsible person was who has taken my prized possession and lost it!
It certainly could not have been my fault….as if the item grew wings or
legs and just flew or crawled away all by itself! Are you like that?
It’s just terrible to lose something and you just can’t find it,
isn’t it?
When school starts
there is a certain department that becomes very active. It’s
called the “Lost and Found.” Is there a “Lost and Found” at
your school? That’s where you go after you search everywhere, turn
all your pockets inside out, throw everything in your locker on the floor,
turn your book bag upside down, and even clean up your room and still
can’t find it. What happens at the “Lost and Found?”
Well, from what I remember you go to the office and ask if anybody has
turned it in. As your heart pounds with anticipation, the person at
the desk looks in the box. Then, with the item that might be yours
still hidden from you, what question are you asked?
Describe the
item to me?
Now why in the world do they do that? Why
don’t they let you look at it—you can tell whether it’s yours or
not! Well, not everybody is as honest as you are. There are
certain procedures and policies that are followed very carefully at the
“Lost and Found Department” to prevent theft by the unscrupulous.
Does your school have a “Lost and Found?”
Jesus tells two
parables about getting lost. In the first, a shepherd loses one lone
sheep from his flock of 100. In the second, a woman loses one of ten
silver coins. As we know the parables that Jesus tells throughout
the Gospel of Matthew, these stories are about the kingdom of heaven;
stories that illustrate the reign of God; descriptions of what life is
like when God is in control. There are so many stories like these
that Jesus tells, God must really know something about being “Lost and
Found,” don’t you think?
If it is your
experience that things just get lost so easily from time to time, well,
the Gospel says this morning that it is so very easy to get lost yourself.
You know what that’s like. That experience is most acute at this
time of year when the challenges and schedule of school and extra
curricular activities and other responsibilities seem to come upon us all
at once.
Have you ever been
lost? Perhaps you were traveling to a new place and had to stop and
ask directions. But the experience these parables of Jesus describes
is so much deeper than that. Jesus tells us of one sheep that has no
idea where it is or where it is going. Have you ever been lost like
that?
Little 3 year old Kenneth Gerken
knows what that’s like. Do you remember his story of a couple of
weeks ago? He and his infant brother had been staying with their
mother at the Kreis Pond Campground near Missoula, Montana awaiting a move
into a residence. He somehow wandered away from the family and was
reported missing. Following an intensive search throughout Thursday
night, and Friday night, and Saturday night as they looked for little
Kenneth who had no food and only light clothing their fear increased as
the temperature dropping into the low 40’s each night. Finally, on
Sunday, two weeks ago, one of the searchers came upon him sitting on a
logging skid trail near the top of a knob. “He was shivering. He was
pretty wet,” the searcher said. The County Sheriff said,
“I believe in
miracles, folks; Missoula got one today. You never give up, but I
was really
getting
oriented toward a recovery (instead of a rescue).” Roanoke
Times, August 31, 2004,
p. A3
Can you imagine the fear in a 3 year old’s little heart? Can you
imagine the agony of that family? Can you imagine the joy and
celebration when he was found?
If you can imagine the
agony of this family desperately searching for their lost child you begin
to have only the slightest awareness of the pain in the heart of God when
any child of God is lost. If you can imagine the fear this little
boy experienced you only begin to have the slightest awareness of the pain
in your own heart—a pain you so often isolate yourself—the pain of one
who gets so lost in the maze of demands and activities and
choices—demands and activities and choices that seem to always crowd out
of our lives that which is most vital, the most life-giving, the most
nourishing.
With so many demands
placed upon us all at the same time we are faced with such important
choices. With so many choices it is vitally important to set
priorities. If you don’t set priorities the chances are good that
you will find yourself lost. You will lose out on what is really
worthy of your attention.
The church is bold to
say that this community is worthy of your attention. If you are
worried about getting lost this is where God will surely find you.
What is worthy in life?
On National Public
Radio a couple of weeks ago Naturalist Shirley Zickefoose told of a chance
encounter at a stoplight in her small town in southern Ohio. As she
waited at the light she saw this clod on the street. She at first
thought it was “chaw.” What’s “chaw?” Well, she
learned from her husband, who, unlike her, is a native of Ohio, that a
“chaw” is a wad of chewing tobacco that is left outside the store or
the restaurant on the sidewalk or the street, deposited there before the
“chewer” goes into the establishment. She had always wondered
what that stuff was in the parking lot! But this did not quite look
like a “chaw.” As she looked closer, it was a baby morning dove
gone from its nest way too early. So she got out of her car at the
stop light, held up traffic, and chased this tiny bird here and there
until she finally caught it. As she got back in the car the folks
along the street were giving her some strange looks, but she didn’t
care. “OK,” she thought to herself, “now I need to find the
nest.” The first crabapple tree she came to looked like a good
candidate; and sure enough there it was, a nest with mother and brother.
All she needed now was a ladder. She knocked on a nearby dormitory
door that late evening and Handyman Jim retrieved the most beautiful 15’
ladder she had ever seen. She placed the ladder, climbed the tree,
set the baby bird in the nest, returned the ladder, and got back in her
car to head home. The entire incident only took about 12 minutes.
The next evening, as she drove by the crabapple tree she stopped.
Looking up she saw two bobbing heads with mouths wide open awaiting the
nourishment that was to come. You see, Shirley Zickefoose is a
licensed Bird Rehabilitator. I guess she just couldn’t help
herself. When she found that helpless little bird she just had to
try to return it where it could get all the vital, life-giving nourishment
it needed. When she found it, it’s not lost anymore.
To get that baby bird back where it belonged she holds up traffic,
subjects herself to ridicule, and just about begs, borrows, and steals to
restore it to its rightful place.
When you get lost,
that’s when God finds you. That’s the secret to God’s lost and
found. You see, just like a naturalist that comes upon a bird fallen
from the nest, God knows you better than you know yourself. God
knows your family better than you know them. God knows your children
and you’re your grandchildren better than you do. God knows how
very easy it is for you, for you family, for your children and
grandchildren to get lost. God longs to getPOST /_vti_bin/_vti_aut/author.dll HTTP/1.1
children, and your grandchildren back where they belong. That’s
why this time of the year in the church is so very important. After
the summer it’s time to come back to church. The church is bold to
say in the name of Jesus today that this is where you belong. This
is where you find vital, life-giving nourishment for your soul. On
this Rally Day we reach out in love, open wide our doors, and boldly
proclaim that you need to be in Sunday School and worship because you
won’t find such a life-giving community anywhere else. Children
and grandchildren need to sing the Lord’s song in our children’s
choirs as least as well as they sing the world’s songs. Our
children and grandchildren have a wonderful opportunity after school each
Thursday to grow in faith and fellowship through “Peanut M&M’s.”
And God surely knows how much our youth need the influence and culture of
the church in their lives through our youth group. So we set goals,
have a carnival, share a cookout, and welcome everybody today to the
church. When you get lost, let God find you here.
Don’t you just hate
it when you lose something and you can’t find it? Well, imagine,
just imagine the pain in the heart of God when God loses you. It is
so easy to get lost in life. When you get lost, that’s when God
finds you. That’s the secret to God’s “lost and found.” At
God’s “lost and found” you don’t even have to show your
identification! But why do we so often choose to make it so hard for
God to find us?
