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For a multitude of reasons, I tend to lose things. I remember often when it’s moving or a really an intensive cleaning and I have a cup of coffee. I’m working on a room, cleaning up a closet, packing a box, the coffee will go on the box, or the dresser, or in a corner and I never find my coffee mug that day. Obviously, I should go get another one. Which means by the time the whole house is clean or packed, I have half a dozen coffee cups floating in random places around the house.
Of course then there’s the object permanence problem, which in infants means if you put something behind your back they forget it ever existed. For me, if I put it away in a cabinet or a drawer, I forget it’s there and we’ll either buy a new one or not use it when I need it. But if I’ve dropped a Chapstick on the floor in a corner, I know where that is so don’t move it.
Recently, it was the bowl that goes inside the communion font, which I had put in the drying rack in the kitchen, and then promptly forgot about, as I didn’t see it again. So I forgot about it until I opened the font one day and realized it wasn’t there, and opened every cabinet in the kitchen and still did not find it. Turns out it was on the counter in the corner, I didn’t look there. Which the lesson is sometimes when you lose things, you just call Donna to find them for you.
I think that might be one of the problems with the stories we have today. Did the sheep and the coin get lost? Lose themselves, roll away on their own, or did the shepherd lose his sheep and the woman lose her coin?
The obvious and standard answer to who’s who in the parable, for what the parable means is generally that God is the shepherd, the woman, and the father. This is lovely. The shepherd was able to look out over the field of a hundred sheep and notice that one was missing, that it instead of 100, there was only 99, which had to be difficult. And when he finds the one lost sheep, it is cause for joy and celebration for what had once been incomplete was now whole with all 100 sheep that they threw party. They danced and they ate and they were joyous.
But in our, the shepherd first loses track of the sheep and then abandons 99. I wonder what that means for how we think about God?
The woman only had 10 coins to keep track of, and that might be all the money she had in the world or that might be all the money she had for the week to make sure her household eats. We could say the sheep wandered off on it’s own, but the coin did not wander off. The coin was definitely lost and she definitely lost it. And then she searched and searched for it, and when she found it she threw a party, celebrated and danced and ate and it was joyous. Those are all lovely images of God.
But the losing the coin in the first place? Being neglectful of the hole in her bag or placing them too close to the edge of the table, is that how we think about God? Or how we want to think about God?
Then we have the story of a father who had two sons, and I think if we’re really honest with ourselves, and we think about family dynamics, the father had lost the youngest son long before the young man walked out the door with half of what was owed to him. And the father had already lost his oldest son long before the father sat at the celebration table for his youngest who had been dead and resurrected and noticed the oldest son wasn’t there, when he noticed the table wasn’t complete.
We see God as the father who runs to his youngest son, who embraces him without any hesitation and that is the image of God I want, but the father who missed all the warning signs? I’m less excited to put that on God.
We usually put God in the role of the shepherd, the woman, and the father. And there are many beautiful and faithful readings of the stories that way–the God who seeks, searches, and runs to bring us back. Reading the stories that way has given me hope so many times when I have felt lost.
And you might know what it’s like feel lost, whether somebody lost you or that you have gone through some valley of the shadow of death or you ran away. When we sing Amazing Grace and I once was lost but now I’m found it rings true in your heart and soul. It’s probably true for all of us at some point.
In most parables we like to think of ourselves as the hero or the good servant, and if not them, the ones who are found, forgiven, and chosen. Don’t get me wrong, we totally understand the oldest son’s anger and disappointment and jealousy, but we try hard not to live in that place.
We think of ourselves as the lost brother- either brother, the lost sheep, the lost coin, and we prioritize the one. In one of the later written gospels that isn’t in the Bible, it turned the lost sheep into the biggest and the best, the most important, perhaps to justify leaving the 99 and going to find the one.
But what if it’s not about that? What if it’s about what makes us complete, not as individuals but as a community, as a family of faith, as the people called church, as those made in the image of God? What if it’s really about how we are not whole when there are some who are not here? Those who have been hurt, pushed aside, told they are unwelcome; what if the body of Christ is not whole while there is even 1 who has been lost?
What if we are the shepherd who is supposed to notice the one in a 100 who is missing and then climb the hills and valleys for them? What if we are the woman who is supposed to bring out a broom and sweep each corner, light every lamp until they are found? What if we are the ones to throw a celebration every time someone is returned in reconciliation and love and community? What if we are to be the father who notices before it’s too late, before one walks out the door or refuses to come in, what if we are to be the father who is moved in love always anyway.
Despite how our author tries to explain the story, the sheep, the coin, and neither of the brothers are repentant. The sheep and the coin couldn’t even try and yet their return is celebrated with joy and food and dance and community coming together.
We have been gathering in a circle and around this table every week in Lent, and I wonder if you have noticed who’s missing? It might be one who’s been part of this community for decades and we just haven’t seen them in a while, or one who’s brand new and just got busy, or one who stopped by a few times, or one you’ve met who maybe needs community needs support and a reason to feel hopeful. Maybe any one of them has felt lost or abandoned, disappointed or angry. Maybe there is one that you must be reconciled with. Maybe they’re waiting for someone to leave the table and go find them to sweep every corner until they have been revealed to climb all of the hills and valleys so that they can be found.
Because we don’t know what happened to the father who had two sons, but the bible is full of stories about a father who had two sons:
A father had two sons—Cain and Abel—and so we realize that to kill an individual is not only to kill a brother; it is to kill a quarter of the world’s population. We may have written off Cain, but he not only survives; he thrives. We may judge him only as guilty, but even he has a story to tell. Cain committed fratricide, but that is not the sum total of who he is. The mark of Cain is a mark of divine protection; if God can protect him, surely we can as well. Can we find it in our hearts to reconcile him to the human family?
A father had two sons—Isaac and Ishmael—if either is sacrificed, then both are. Today some of the children of Isaac and Ishmael can find themselves at odds or at war, as the Middle East shows us. Yet these two sons reunite at Abraham’s death, and together they bury him. Ishmael’s hand was to be against his brother’s, but Ishmael here proves the prediction wrong. If Ishmael and Isaac can reconcile, perhaps their children can do the same.
A father had two sons—Jacob and Esau—one who stole birthright and blessing and one who vowed murder in revenge. And yet, when Jacob, wounded from his wrestling at the Jabbok River, encounters Esau, the two reconcile. (Amy-Jill Levine Short Stories by Jesus)
Earnest Hemmingway wrote a short story that goes something like this.
Once in Spain, a father and his young teenage son, “Paco”, had a falling out. After a huge fight, the boy cursed his father and ran away from home to make his own way in the city of Madrid. After a year went by, the father’s heart softened toward his son and he grieved his absence. He set out to go search for Paco and bring him home but he soon learned that it was near an impossible task. Madrid was such a large city that looking for a single boy there was like looking for a needle in a haystack. He spent day and night searching but made no progress. Finally, not knowing what to do, he took out an ad in the local paper before returning home. The ad read:
“Dear Paco,
All is forgiven.
Meet me at the Hotel Montana at noon on Tuesday.
Love, Papa.”
When the fateful day came, Paco’s father took the train to Madrid and walked from the station to the Hotel Montana. When he got there he was stunned by what he saw: a crowd of 800 young men named “Paco”, each one waiting to be reunited with his father.
What if the ones lost are waiting for someone to love them, to find them, to show up, to meet them half way, or most of the way? Maybe it isn’t about repentance but about looking in the fields and seeing. Maybe we need Recognize that the one you have lost may be right in your own household. Do whatever it takes to find the lost and then celebrate with others, both so that you can share the joy and so that the others will help prevent the recovered from ever being lost again. Don’t wait until you receive an apology; you may never get one. Don’t wait until you can muster the ability to forgive; you may never find it. Don’t stew in your sense of being ignored, for there is nothing that can be done to retrieve the past. Instead, go have lunch. Go celebrate, and invite others to join you. If the repenting and the forgiving come later, so much the better. And if not, you still will have done what is necessary. You will have begun a process that might lead to reconciliation. You will have opened a second chance for wholeness. Take advantage of resurrection—it is unlikely to happen twice. (Amy-Jill Levine Short Stories by Jesus)