He's Looking For Us

"All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus.  And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, 'This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.'

So he told them this parable"  'Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and goes after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.  And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.'  Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.

'Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?  When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, "Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost."  Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.'"

--Luke 15: 1-10

I lose things all the time.  It's a trait that runs in my family.   Once I lost my high school class ring in an airport restroom in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  I went back and looked for it, nowhere to be found.  Six months later, while sitting in class, I got called to the office and told I had a phone call.  A woman on the other end told me that her boyfriend found a class ring for a Joe Mitchell from Pound High School while working in a paper factory in Madison, Wisconsin.  I was in Virginia.  Unbelievable.  She asked if I wanted it back.  I said sure, and she mailed it.  I still have that ring; in fact, I never wore it again.  I've lost plenty more things in my life that never did turn up, but that story always gives me hope that maybe whatever I've lost might actually get found, if not by me then by someone else. 

My high school class ring, found in a paper factory in Madison, WI.

Any of you ever lost something that precious, something that felt so very important to you?  Have you turned the whole house upside down looking for it?  Did you pray to Saint Anthony to help you find it.  Saint Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of lost objects, and there's a neat little prayer to him that some of us learned as kids.  Do you know that prayer? 

Dear Saint Anthony, please come around

Something is lost and cannot be found.

St. Anthony of Padua, patron saint of lost objects.

 Do you remember how relieved you felt when you found that for which you were searching, after you had put in so much time, so much energy and effort into finding it?  You know how much that thing meant to you?  Well, that's how much--and then some--that you mean to God!

The two parables that Jesus gives us today are meant to remind us of that fact.  In the first he likens God to a shepherd, who leaves the 99 in the flock to go searching for the one sheep who is lost.  This is the Good Shepherd, of course.  This is the shepherd who heads out into the wilderness, where the hyenas how and the temperature dips below freezing as the sun goes down, and does not come return until that sheep is found.  That's the kind of love that God has for you.  God comes and meets us in the wilderness of our lives, maybe in the form of a dear friend, or even a stranger, and brings us back home. 

Then Jesus goes on to tell a parable about woman who loses a coin and searches the whole house, turns it upside-down until she finds it.  That's God, Jesus says.  And you're the coin.  You're the one God is searching for, you're the one that God rejoices in finding.  Odds are that coin would've been pretty important, would've supplied the woman and her family with a daily meal.  God is like that.  The joy of God, and of all the angels for that matter, when one of God's children is found, is like the joy of a home when a coin which has stood between the family and starvation, has been found.  That's how much you matter to God. 

A children's book rendering of the Parable of the Lost Coin.

Knowing that God loves us, knowing that we matter to God, is sometimes the easy part of all this; after all, we get reminded of that each and every week.  It's something that the Pharisees in Jesus' day understood.  Of course we all matter to God! But what makes these two parables so powerful is not so much the reminder of how much we matter to God, but the fact that God actively searches us out.  This is a radical piece of the Gospel that Jesus gave to the people, a piece that had not heard before.  Sure, God wants sinners to come home, but for God to actively go out into the cold, harsh world to find them?  To turn the whole place upside-down looking for them, looking for you and looking for me? Surely not for you!  Surely not for me!  Surely God would not waste time on folks like us, so broken, so frail, so lost.  If anything, we should be looking for God, not the other way around! But that's what God does. God actively seeks each and every one of us out.

We believe in the seeking love of God because we see that love incarnate in Jesus Christ.  The living embodiment of God, who came to seek and to save that which was lost, who comes to seek after us and who finds us.  Jesus did not wait around for the those sinners and tax collectors to come to his table.  Instead, he went out looking for them, so that he could invite them in, not just to the table, but into a new relationship with him.  Our Lord is not a passive Lord.  

Years ago I was having dinner with a priest and the senior warden of his church.  The priest asked the senior warden, "Where did you and the Lord find each other?"  I chuckled a bit.  This is the kind of thing those evangelicals ask each other, right?  But he was serious, and the senior warden's answer was serious. He told of a time in his life where he was lost and broken beyond repair.  But then Jesus found him, and his life has never been the same since. These two guys understood.  I didn't understand.  They understood that Jesus is out there, actively searching us out, calling us to newness of life, calling us to lives we never thought possible, calling us to changed hearts and changed lives.  I understand now because I have heard many more stories like theirs, and I have seen for my own eyes and experienced myself that Jesus actively seeks us because he loves us that much.   Some of you have had those moments, found Jesus on a beach, found him in a church, or found him in the deepest ditch of your life.  Well, he's still looking for you.  It's not a one-time thing; it isn't like we just meet Jesus, get saved, and are good to go.  No, he is out there every single day, calling us to newness of life.  He'll keep looking for you, and if you keep your eyes and ears and hearts open, you'll find him.  

Jesus, like us, knows the joy of finding something that is precious and beautiful to him.  You are that which is precious and beautiful!  You are more beloved to him that any ring, any object that you hold in your possession.  You are richer to him than gold, as the Psalmist says, sweeter far are you than honey in the comb to Jesus.  Wherever you find yourself today, whatever is going on in your life, know that you mean that much to Jesus.  You mean so much to him that he will stop at nothing to find you!  He's out there.  He's out there in the wildness like the shepherd, he's turning this whole world upside-down like the woman searching for her coin.  He's looking for you, and for me, calling us to repentance, calling us to truly know and experience and share his love, calling us to be found by him again and again and again.