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Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 15
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
8 “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins[a] and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”


There is a certain sadness that comes with the end of summer.

Maybe sadness is too strong a word. Maybe I should say longing, or loss—a sense that something has passed and will not return—until next summer, of course. But we still have summer memories, stories to share, and books that finally made it off the shelf.

In fact, this summer I tried a new approach to reading. Rather than pick from the “I guess I better read this” selection on the shelf, I decided to read only books I found at the dollar store. Call it my frugal homage to summer reading—and the surprizing titles I found along the way.

First, a work of fiction—Patricia Bracewell’s “The Prince of Blood”—an historical novel set at the end of Anglo-Saxon England. Queen Emma is at the centre of a tangled web of characters, including King Æthelred (yes, that Æthelred) and her brood of children and step-children.

Next up was Antonia Fraser’s book “Perilous Question: The Drama of the Great Reform Bill 1832,” a work that’s not just for nineteenth century parliamentary history nerds, but the general reader too. Everything that is currently happening across the pond—a nation divided, a bitter fight at Westminster, and a sense that the monarch is getting dragged into this mess—happened in 1832. And everything turned out alright.

Finally, I read David Alexrod’s autobiography called “Believer: My Forty Years in Politics.” Axelrod begins as a cub reporter in the tangled world of Chicago politics, then starts running political campaigns, and eventually advises a young community organizer and part-time law professor who would become the 44th President of the United States. Along the way, you discover that Obama (and Axelrod) must live in the tension between high idealism and the vexing choices a candidate (and then a president) must make.

Back to sadness, the book describes some of the seeds of the current mess south of the border (the Tea Party appears midway through the book) and the sense that something has been lost—a deep respect for the office of president, an administration with a sense of history (Dr. King looms large as a touchstone), and the common decency that was present just three years ago.

Loss is a strange thing—it can appear from nowhere, and sting with a sense that it exists outside of time and reason. Things that you didn’t know you were missing can press in on you, making themselves known and pushing aside everything in its path. It involves people, of course, but loss can include circumstances and settings, times past, and a “world” that is gone and feels like it may never return.

And into this melange of emotion enters Jesus, sharing three parables about loss, two of which feature in our reading today. The three of them—lost sheep, lost coin, and lost son—fit the same pattern: a situation described, a problem solved, and a glimpse given, always a glimpse of the Kingdom of God. We get to learn what God is like, or rather, the things that God cares about, and the way God responds to those involved.

Before I do that, however, I want to describe another book, read long ago, that has something to say about the topic at hand. I’ve mentioned it before, and it remains one of those top-five-desert-island-books that demands attention even if you don’t read it. The book is Judith Viorst’s “Necessary Losses,” first published in 1987.

You might know her by her most famous book, “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.” A great book, but for today it’s “Necessary Losses” with the sub-title: “The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies, and Impossible Expectations That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Grow.” That’s pretty much the whole book in the title.

You left your mother’s womb, that was a loss. You went to Kindergarten: loss. You made a friend and lost a friend: loss. You graduated and they forced you to go on to what’s next: loss. First love, first car, first job, first former job: loss. Do you get the picture? Everything new, everything next, everything now eventually transforms into something else or nothing at all. All that we have and all that we hope to have will be with us for a time and then be with us no longer. Summer is mostly over, and 2019 will soon follow.

Viorst argues that everyday is a little loss, but if we accept it, and maybe even embrace it, we can live more fully and happily. And it’s not that we will somehow stop feeling it, or stop marking it, but rather we will make it a part of ourselves, the necessary losses that make up life on earth.

Meanwhile, in heaven, something else is happening:

“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins[a] and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

First, see the pattern: a situation described, a problem solved, and a glimpse given—a glimpse of the Kingdom of God. Coin is lost, coin is found, and there is great rejoicing in the Kingdom of heaven. Situation, problem, solution. But what we don’t see as clearly in the parable, but is nevertheless present, in the sense of loss. Maybe it’s easier to see in the first parable, or the key moment in the first parable:

Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?

This is loss God feels. God feels the sting of that lost sheep, and the logic-defying desire to pursue that lost sheep when worldly-wisdom says ‘cut your losses.’ For the Most High, there are no losses to cut: there is only you and me, lost or nearly lost, and always the subject of an intensive search. The great rejoicing in heaven is a mirror of the great loss God feels over the one-that-got-away. Or nearly got away, because the pursuit is endless, and the resolve to find us infinite.

But there is more. The story of Jesus is also a story of loss. God (in Jesus) also left the womb, left the adoration at the beginning of the story, left the safety of clan and region, left the known and the familiar, left home in the Galilee, left the comfort of the open road, left the Temple in dismay, left the disciples in moment of uncertainty and betrayal, left his life on a cross, left the tomb, left his friends in a locked room, left his companions by the seaside, and even left the table when the bread was broken and the wine was shared. His whole story is one of loss, reminding us that God knows the loss we feel in the most intimate way possible.

But after loss comes rejoicing. The God that promises to turn our mourning into dancing will not tire in seeking us in our time of loss, nor stop rejoicing when we are found. Even those who mistakenly think they’re are already there, already found, are being pursued by the God-who-searches, through our misapprehension, through our false sense-of-self, and (for some) through the desire not to be found at all. God’s refrain is always the same, and ever shall be:

Seeking the lost, seeking the lost,
Saving, redeeming at measureless cost.

Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 5:57 AM