September 11, 2016: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard.  Amen.

I love my Apple watch.  I do.  I don’t NEED an Apple watch, it was a gift.  It is not a necessity, but I do love it nevertheless.  And one of the biggest reasons why?  It helps me find my dang iPhone!  I don’t know about you, but I have this annoying tendency to lose my phone, my keys, even my eyeglasses, which are hard to find when you, well, don’t have on your glasses!  At any rate, this neat watch has a feature that lets you press on it, and it will make your iPhone chirp out a tone so you can find it.  I would demonstrate it, but I use the iPhone to record the sermons, but trust me, it’s awesome, especially for those of us with no land lines at home, so we can’t just call our mobile from the home phone.  The iPhone IS my home phone.  I should note there are also apps that do this, like the aptly named “find my phone” app.

It would seem there are a lot of these things around now – things you can put on your keys for example that will send an alert to tell you where they are, chips that can go in your car, or even in your pet!  We seem to be really good at losing things.

We are also good at being lost ourselves.

No, I am not talking here about the need for GPS devices, though again – way cool!  I have to say though that sometimes I just like to torment the GPS voice into repeating over and over “Rerouting…rerouting…rerouting.”  I expect one day to hear my GPS say “Listen, you idiot, if you aren’t going to follow my directions, than I quit!” And then it would self-destruct or something like on Mission Impossible.  But in all seriousness, I am not talking about GPSs, or maps, or apps.  I am talking about what Jesus is telling us in these twin parables of lost-ness.  There is a lot going on in these parables, and so much to consider – isn’t that always the way with his parables?

Consider this…in the parables we heard today, Jesus tells us that a shepherd, having lost one of his 100 sheep, leaves the 99 in search of the lost, and rejoices once the sheep is found.  Now, generally, who do we think Jesus was talking about as the shepherd?  God.  Right?  Jesus is giving us another analogy for the how the kin-dom of God works.  Jesus then continues and tells the story of the woman with 10 coins, who realizing one is lost, searches the house until she finds it, and then rejoices with her friends over finding it.  So, if the shepherd is God… then the woman is…

This twin set of shepherd and woman searching for something lost is both a masculine and a feminine image for God.  Jesus does not stop with the analogy of the shepherd to illustrate the kin-dom of God, Jesus adds in another image, a female image, for that same Creator God – this woman and her lost coin.  Kinda cool when you think about it, and makes sense, given that we are all created in God’s image.  But while that isn’t the underlying message I want to focus on today, I will always point it out because of our continued patriarchy in the church, as a reminder that God is not a boy’s name.

These parables, these metaphors Jesus offers us, are far more powerful than what we have often reduced them to, and so very much needed for us today.  Many hear these stories and hear only about sin, righteousness, and redemption.  That somehow the one that is lost is responsible for that condition, while the rest of the sheep stand comfortably in their pasture of self-righteousness, or while the rest of the coins sit securely in their safe and secure bank, as the lost ones are redeemed and brought back into the fold. While God’s redemptive grace is present in these parables, it is not the whole story.

We should know by now that whenever Jesus is giving us an example of things, that he is generally not telling us what we expect to hear.  Not this table over turning, temple leader smackdowning, holiness code breaking, itinerant rebel preacher & miracle worker that is our Savior.  Nope – Jesus was all about flipping over expectations of society then and now, and he is doing it again here in these parables.

See, the thing is, the thing about this whole lost and found stuff is that, while we like to think we are found, most of us are really lost.

We are all lost – from the moment we are born really.  That is why there are so many seekers in the world…all of us are here, not because we have all the answers, but because we know we don’t, and we are seeking to find something…to find ourselves and our place in the grand scheme of creation.  It is part of our very human condition.  It is also not something that gets fixed somehow for all time. We don’t get found, and then never lost again.  If only life were that easy. But Jesus is telling us that all of that is okay – that God is in the mix of it.

There are the very real times in our life when we are actually lost – can’t find our way to wherever we are hoping to go.  But for all of us, I think, there are times when what we want most of all is to find our way out – out of depression, out of addiction, out of loneliness, out of despair, out of grief, out of poverty, out of oppression.

We may feel lost in jobs that pay the bills, but leave us worn out or unfulfilled.  We may feel lost in the constant shuffle of life as a parent – busily hurrying kids to school concerts, soccer games, and dance recitals – in a dizzying zig-zag from place to place that would leave anyone disoriented, including, perhaps, our over-scheduled kids.  We may feel lost as a senior, struggling to know who we are now after retirement and how to live on a pension.  We may feel lost as kid in school trying so hard to fit in, but seeming not to, or perhaps worse – fitting in, but being not who we are. We feel lost when someone we love has died – who are we now without them, and how will we ever survive (if we even want to).  And we all felt lost 15 years ago on the morning of 9/11 – what was next, are we safe, what does this all mean? [1]

Life is full of these lost times – times where we, consciously or not, step forward each day, perhaps without really knowing our condition of lost-ness, or in spite of it.  Maybe you are feeling that way now.  It is at these times most of all that Jesus is telling us God is present – seeking us out, and rejoicing when She is able to take us by the hand and lift us up.  When He is able to wrap his arms around us and carry us through – whether or not we realize it is happening.

People often come to a place of spiritual seeking in these lost times – to churches, or synagogues, or mosques, or temples, or out in the woods, or to the ocean, or on a vision quest…and that is what all of these places are for.  But sometimes it is the church or synagogue, temple or mosque that is the source of our disorientation – or more to the point – that it is not the individual that is lost – but the religious institution. Because being lost is in a very real sense the degree to which we are disoriented from feeling God’s love and sharing that with the world, and that disorientation can, and has, sometimes come from the church – the very place where we hope to feel found.

This past Thursday evening, PFLAG NJ, Parents & Friends of Lesbian and Gays, who have recently moved their meetings to our church, held an event in our parish hall featuring The Rev. Warren Hall, “A North Jersey [Roman Catholic] priest who is gay  [and who ] has been suspended by the Newark archbishop after…taking stands in favor of gay support groups and, specifically, for expressing support for a former dean of guidance and basketball coach suing Paramus Catholic High School…  Kate Drumgoole [the teacher he stood up for]…was fired in January after Facebook photos appeared of her 2014 wedding to Jaclyn Vanore. The school claims Drumgoole was not fired because she is gay, but because she is in a same-sex marriage. Drumgoole is suing the school.”[2]  Both Kate and Jaclyn were also in attendance on Thursday.

I listened to Fr. Warren tell his story (and yes, I will still address him as Father, even though the church has removed this from him – in fact other Roman Catholics in the room that night stood up and said very much the same thing).  I listened, and I was deeply moved.  He spoke about his love of his classes – he taught about sports and spirituality while at Seton Hall.  He spoke with love about his parishes in Hoboken, following his removal from Seton Hall.  He talked about having to come out after the Seton Hall incident, lest everyone assume it was for some other reason he was fired.

I was struck by the moment when he was called on the phone, while on vacation on a cruise no less, and informed that he was “not allowed to function as a priest in any way” – he cannot celebrate Mass, he is denied the ability to consecrate the body and blood of Christ, he is unable to perform the sacraments of baptism, marriage, burial, not even able to be called Father.  Probably wish he couldn’t find his phone then, right?

Now, the thing is, something happens to every one of us in that moment of consecration to the Sacred Order of Priests in Christ’s one holy and catholic apostolic church.  When the hands of the bishops and all the other presbyters are placed on us, as everyone invites in the Holy Spirit chanting Veni, Sancte, Spiritus, we are changed.  They have big seminary words for it – Ontological Change they call it, but it is real, I assure you.  Being a priest is not what we do, it is who we are!

And so I thought about how disorienting it must be to be denied who you are, and what you love.  Then again, all gay people know that feeling, don’t they.  And all people who have lost their child, their spouse, their parents, also know that feeling.  Yet Fr. Warren spoke about his love of God, and the church – still, even in the face of all of this.

You see – Fr. Warren wasn’t lost at all, not now anyway.  He was finally, finally found – and all of heaven is rejoicing.  The church was lost, and has been for centuries, but Fr. Warren was finally found.  He was finally living his beautifully authentic life, and God, I am quite sure, is smiling and rejoicing, and giving him strength, as this will not be an easy new life at first.

New life generally isn’t – with humans, it starts with a loud cry, right?  Being found is sometimes a little disorienting too, like stepping on the solid ground after an amusement park ride.  So no, it won’t be easy for Fr. Warren, or anyone who is found, not at first, but at least the journey to new life is beginning for him.

But as for the church…it remains lost, the worst kind of lost-ness – when you don’t even know you are lost.  And it will take many more Fr. Warren’s to be found both in and out of the church for the church as a whole to find its way, because God isn’t looking for the church!  God is not searching for the church at all – because it isn’t about institutions – it never was.

You see – this finding thing, it’s about individuals, not groups.  The shepherd left the 99 sheep, the woman left the 9 coins. God cares about each individual as a uniquely created image of the divine.  And the awesome thing about that? – we are not lost to God among the throngs of humanity – never.  We may feel lost, but God will never stop hoping to scoop us up, to carry us.  It is about YOU in the midst of thousands or millions, YOU matter! You, you, and all you’all.  YOU matter to God – not this building, or the Episcopal Church, or the Roman Catholic Church, or anything else.  YOU – YOU matter!

The relationship with God is to each and every one of us.  Yes, we celebrate God’s all-inclusive love in community, and Jesus was all about community, but God’s love is for the individual – all individuals, most especially the individuals that groups toss aside. Fr. Warren was tossed aside, but in that moment, he was found, The church…that community of faith made up of a whole lot of individuals – a whole lot of sheep and coins – who value dogma over compassion, tradition over justice, doctrine over love – the church as a whole remains lost.

So what does it mean if one is found, but the church is lost?

See, the thing is, that isn’t the end of the story – not for the coin, or the sheep, or Fr. Warren, or any of us.  In both the parables of sheep and coin, Jesus tells us that the story continues.  There is rejoicing, but it is in the parable of the woman and the coin, where we really come to understand that all really isn’t lost for the rest of humanity – because she spends it!  She doesn’t put the money away – she uses it for what money is for!  God does the same with us!

We are never without purpose, we just sometimes lose our way.  God finds us, and uses us.  Uses us to proclaim that everyone is a beloved child of God, all parts of creation are special, unique, beautiful in their own right, and precious to God.  That no matter where you are born, who you love, what language you speak, how you vote, or where you live – you are precious to God, loved for who you are.  That all creatures of the sea, the air, the land – the plants and the earth – are precious to God.  This is how God uses us when we are found – to proclaim this, to ourselves, to one another, and to the lost.  It is our purpose to be who we are, and live as God intends – to fight for justice, to work for peace, to declare the love of God, to be examples of that love, that all may one day be found.

Fr. Warren was lost, and now is found.

Found to be who God created him to be – a gay man.

Found to proclaim God’s all-inclusive love.

Found to fight for justice over tradition & doctrine.

Found to find others, as each of us are called to do, that one day, the church universal may itself become a place where others may be found not lost.

And on that day, there truly will be “joy in the presence of the angels of God” and much rejoicing in heaven.

Amen.

For the audio from the 10:30am service, click here:

[1] I thank David Lose for this suggested possible states of lost-ness in our lives in his commentary.  I have modified and added to it, but the original idea was his.

[2]http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2016/09/gay_priest_suspended_after_expressing_support_for.html

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
September 11, 2016
Pentecost 17 – Year C
1st Reading – Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
Psalm 14
2nd Reading – 1 Timothy 1:12-17
Gospel – Luke 15:1-10