Rev. Daniel E. Somers, Dcn+
Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church
Sermon
March 31, 2019
Lost but Found
“He was lost and is found.” “He was lost and has been found.” Where have you heard those words before?
Yes, turn to your Hymnal at No. 671: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a poor wretch like me! I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now see.” The penitent author of the hymn had been a notorious and skilled antebellum slave trader. I don’t know who or what persuaded him to repent, but we should be grateful.
Lost, losing – how often these words are featured in our everyday discourse: Lost and found. Losing consciousness. Lost in the clouds. Losing one’s mind. Losing one’s shirt. Losing weight. Lost cause. Losing one’s way. Losing one’s marbles. Lost in space. Losing one’s job. Losing perspective. Lost opportunity. Lost soul. The list could go on. No doubt more examples will occur to you.
Jesus in today’s Gospel according to Luke in chapter 15 told not one, but three parables about losing. That of the prodigal son that you just heard was the third. A contributor to the current issue of The Anglican Digest writes that a parable has been defined as a heavenly story that makes no earthly sense. I disagree.
Obviously, Jesus wanted to drive home a point that his audience of Pharisees and scribes, the most religiously observant people in Judea, was having difficulty grasping. They were like the parable’s faithful, dutiful son seething at the house’s entrance. To them, this Galilean rabbi was like the loving father, lavishing all of this attention on the prodigals, the sinners and tax collectors.
First at verse 4, Jesus tells the parable of the shepherd who leaves his flock of ninety-nine sheep in search of one stray. When found, he tells his brethren, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” Jesus continues, “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine persons who need no repentance.”
Evidently, Jesus’ pharisaic auditors were not swayed. So he recounts at verse 8 the parable of the woman who loses one of her ten silver coins. She too rejoices with friends about recovering the lost coin following a diligent search. Jesus repeats his point: “Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
An image is formed by today’s lectionary pages, most especially by the epistle and the gospel story of the God with open arms, ready to receive us in a welcoming, loving embrace. The image is constant and unchanging. Past and future don’t exist in the eternal present of God’s embrace. God is always waiting. God is always willing to take us in.
“All this is from God,” writes Paul, “who reconciled us to himself through Christ.” This act of reconciliation is rather difficult for us to understand since reconciliation implies that each side has been estranged before coming together. Here is where language fails us, because as both Jesus and Paul make quite clear, it is we who have moved away. It is we who must return and be reconciled. God’s arms remain open. They will never push us away. Never.
In the parable, we see the father forever on the lookout for his lost son who runs to meet him with open arms. No reproach, no scorn, no anger, no bitterness. The young sinner acknowledges his sin and does not conceal his guilt: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” This is the beginning of repentance, of turning around, of re-turning, of knowing that we don’t belong to ourselves alone. Our separation is first against heaven and then against those who love us.
In Paul’s understanding of the work of God through Christ, we can understand the full meaning of this wonderful story. “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” In the image Jesus paints of his Father, we begin to see the new creation. The prodigal son’s father does not reprove, says nothing of the past. Rather, he asks nothing of the past because the “old has passed away.”
Let’s focus on the elder, dutiful son. He too deserves our attention. He doesn’t mind work and is a stickler for fairness. He cares about fairness a lot; this welcome for his younger, profligate brother sticks in his craw. Jesus in telling this parable and that of the shepherd is opening himself up for criticism. After all, who is to be lauded for exposing to the wolves and the elements the ninety-nine sensible sheep while searching for the lost one or downplaying the virtue of the loyal son? However, here is the point: no matter how virtuous and righteous we are, we should join in the rejoicing, the hallelujahs for the recovery of the one lost soul! Be thankful for that amazing grace that reclaims one sinner who like the former slave trader had inflicted untold misery on fellow humans. It’s our turn to come home and join in the celebration. Hopefully, some of the Pharisees and scribes in attendance understood and embraced the proffered embrace.
I am sure that we all have had our moments with our fathers. What did Mark Twain say of his? When Twain was 18, he couldn’t believe how dumb his father was. By the time Twain had turned 21, he couldn’t believe how much his father had learned in the intervening three years. I had more than a few tense encounters with mine; they didn’t stop at age 21.
My German-born father had lost his father at age ten; in essence he never had one. I tell the inmates at bible study at Northern State Prison never to underestimate a father’s importance. My father never grew up experiencing that heart-felt embrace of reconciliation. No, he was steeled by Nazi persecution, the Great Depression and World War II. I am the eldest of four children. The German paradigm of the father being the unquestioned master of the house didn’t work for me in 1960s America. He tried desperately to keep me in college in 1969 as the Vietnam War raged. The cost of tuition was of no moment given the student deferment that it bought, my struggles to keep up academically notwithstanding. Political activism had become my principal interest. The education offered at Middlebury College was rigorous and very demanding.
When I dropped out in my sophomore year, however, he did not rail against me. Rather, he had one of the lawyers in his firm counsel me as I prepared my application to the draft board to be classified as a conscientious objector. As you may know, the application was successful. Afterwards, before I was called to do my alternative national service, he and my mother drove me to the Valley Forge exit of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, knapsack in hand and a hundred dollars in my pocket, to hitchhike across the United States, up the Alaskan Highway and back. He knew that I had to wander. He too had ridden the rails, dodging the railroad bulls in the 1930s. He didn’t hold me back. He didn’t decide what my journey should look like. He and my mother let me go. What did he know that I didn’t? That you couldn’t return home before leaving first? That you couldn’t taste resurrection without dying? That maybe being lost is part of the deal that all of us must confront?
There would be more turbulence along the way in our relationship over the years. But despite all of my faults and stumbles, his love as a father never died. Shortly before he passed away eight years ago, he looked at me and, considering my wife, my four children, my career as a lawyer (ordination had yet to occur to either one of us as a possibility), and yes, my skill as a horseman and foxhunter – he, my youngest brother Conrad and I rode together for many years with the Cheshire in Pennsylvania -- said, “You seem to have everything under control.” That from him was the highest praise.
Notwithstanding all that had preceded, the wrong turns, the disputes, I had returned. At times, I might have been deemed lost, but in the end had been found. I had wandered but returned like the prodigal to my father’s embrace. Neither one of us gave an inch, but by God we embraced. His voice stills resonates in my ears and my soul, in my very being. Dad, thank you.
As our bishop writes in this week’s edition of “Good News in the Garden State”, quoting from the Book of Joel at 2:13, “Rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and repents of evil ….” Turning, returning are great themes of Lent. Turning to God, returning to God are great biblical themes. Bishop Stokes asks that we meditate on this week’s gospel of the prodigal. Allow it to seep into your soul, to speak tenderly to you, and then turn to the Lord anew for God is indeed merciful and loving.
In the name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit. Amen.
