17th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 19C

17th Sunday after Pentecost—Proper 19C September 11, 2016 When I was a child, I remember receiving a very strong message or teaching. I don’t remember if it was from my parents, my school, our culture, or maybe even Sesame Street. But that teaching was this. If you ever get lost, try to find a policeman, and he or she will be your friend and will help you find your parents. Fast forward many years, to young adulthood, as I was living in New York City for my first year of seminary on September 11, 2001. I watched as a whole city, a whole country suddenly found ourselves lost after the attack on the World Trade Center, and I also watched as that childhood lesson was lived out. I watched as all the first responders in New York and the surrounding areas made incredible sacrifices to their own lives and their safety to fulfill that vocation, that calling. To help find those who were lost. It is the calling and the vocation of our first responders here in this community—to find and help those who are lost. And it is why we honor and thank them this day. Our gospel reading for today also talks about being lost. Today’s reading is 2 out of a series of three parables that Jesus tells in Luke’s chapter 15. Luke starts off by setting the scene saying that “the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus.” As a result of this, the Scribes and Pharisees, the religious insiders, begin grumbling… “What kind of person is this Jesus of Nazareth who’s willing to consort with such a disreputable bunch?…” When Jesus hears them complaining about him giving so much of his time and attention to folks who are clearly notorious sinners, he tells them (the Scribes and Pharisees, the righteous and faithful of his day) the two parables that we heard today and then upon their heels, he tells the parable of the prodigal son, which we don’t get to hear today. “Which one of you…” Jesus says, wouldn’t go after a lost sheep or search for a lost coin to the extent that the shepherd and the woman in the parables do? And do you know what the answer is? The answer is none of us would do that (except for maybe you first responders among us) because it doesn’t make any sense. Who takes all that time and energy to find one lost coin and then throws a party and spends more money that what was lost to celebrate? Who in their right mind goes off and leaves 99 sheep who are all together in one place to go off and find one lost sheep? Nobody! Jesus tells us and the Pharisees and Scribes this parable because he knows that we don’t get it, and that is the point. He is telling us that God’s economy is clearly not our economy. He is telling us that God does not discriminate between who is righteous and who is lost (like we like to do). He is telling us that even when we think we are the faithful, the righteous, deep down, every single one of is lost and in need of God’s seeking out and finding us and restoring us to relationship with God and each other, over and over and over again. And that’s good news. But the problem comes when we, like the Scribes and the Pharisees, grumble and complain about who God chooses to invite to God’s party. Because, you see, in this old Episcopal church, we believe that the work of God is to restore all people to loving relationship with God and that the work of the church is to help facilitate in this. So that means, when God restores one of us to relationship, God rejoices; God celebrates. And it is God’s deep hope and delight that all of us come to that party and celebrate too. The deep joy in heaven or the Kingdom of God is that everyone and everything will one day be restored. There’s a line from a movie that we like to quote in our family. It’s from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and it is from when Jones, who has gotten separated from his scout troop because he has wandered off on his own and made a discovery and is being chased by the bad guys, returns to where the horses are to find that no one else is there. He says puzzled, “Everybody’s lost but me!” It’s funny because he’s the one who has run off to have all these misadventures, but it is also true isn’t it? Deep down, we each think “well, everbody’s lost but me.” But that is not what Jesus is saying here today. He is saying that for God, we are all equally valued and loved and sought after. For God, we are all lost until we are all fully restored together to the body of Christ through the reconciling work of God that we are called to share in. It can’t really be a party until we all rejoice that we have all been found together—even the ones we think shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be getting all that attention, even the ones who treat us horribly, who break our hearts, who make us look bad, who we don’t choose to associate with. It can’t really be the kind of party that God wants until we all rejoice that we have been found together. So today, we are thankful for the God who does not give up on any of us, ever. We are thankful for the God who will go to ridiculous lengths to find each and every one of us, over and over again. We are thankful for God’s servants, the first responders, who do the work of finding and restoring the lost in our community. And we are thankful to be all in this together. Amen.