A Sermon from First Church, Scarborough… 

A sermon offered by the Rev. Ian F. “Jack” Steeves in the public worship of the First Congregational Church of Scarborough, Maine on Sunday, September 16, 2007.  The principal reading was Luke 15:1-10. 

“Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep” (Luke 15:6). 

“All is not Lost, Never!” 

The morning’s gospel reading underscores the fact that ours is a God who not only welcomes all comers, but even pursues them.  A forgiving God does not expect perfection, just repentance.  We can approach God without fear because God is not only waiting for us, God is moving towards us. 
 

We are now six years beyond the catastrophic events of that infamous Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001.  We all remember where we were and what we were doing.  As a nation, we suffered the loss of our fellow citizens.  As living individuals, the deaths of so many persons left us in a labyrinth of incredible feelings, trapped in the rubble of emotions – fear, anger, hatred, and perhaps some guilt.  We survived, they did not. 

“In the midst of life,” reads the Burial Office from the Book of Common Prayer, “we are in death.”  This is a grim thought to those of us who live with an untested notion of immortality.  To be reminded in the midst of our busy lives, that “we are in death” is shockingly rude.  We are not comfortable with death, our own or anyone else’s. 

Before the battle of Edgehill, in the English Civil War of the Seventeenth century, General Lord Astley prayed for his command and himself: “O Lord, thou knowest how busy we must be this day; if we forget thee, do not though forget us.” 

It is, putting aside all religious sentiment, one of the truly great sentences of the English language, ever spoken, brief in length and long in meaning, freighted with fear and courage, honestly human yet divine with faith.   

“…if we forget thee, do not thou forget us.” 

In the give and take that is human life, there are times when we need the watchful care of a friend; times when we must, in turn, remember the friend who is too busy to remember us.  We need a support we have not earned and we need to give assistance for which there is no known reward. 

But then, a true friend is the one who comes looking for you, before you know you are lost.  And, oh, the discoveries we make. 

Like old Job, we find that when we want to scream out our protests to the empty heavens we discover they are not empty and we are talking to God. 

Like tired Elijah standing at the cave entrance, we are called into conversation with God. 

Like Paul, when our best prayers seem to have bounced back onto us, we hear the whisper, “My grace is sufficient for you.” 

Like George Matheson, the blind Scots, hymn writer and preacher, depressed by his labors in a dull and unresponsive Kirk (church), we too have known the compulsive cry: “O Love that wilt not let me go….” 

Relationships of this quality are much to ask, and much to give.  So if it be too much to ask sometimes of men and women who owe us much, how shall we dare to ask it of God who owes us nothing.  It takes a certain gall to pray as Lord Astley prayed, to request of the Creator of the Universe and the Lord of life and death, and expect to get the kind of pure friendship that no man, no woman is capable of sustaining with us.  But, it is just this nerve of a believer, this extraordinary expectation of the faithful that we will receive God’s love that is the primary evidence of our faith. 

Today’s gospel reading reminds us of what can happen if we become lost and missing.  The gospel also reminds us how much God cares for each individual, lost and found, and how God calls us to accept and care for one another. 

Sometimes we get lost without realizing what is happening to us, like the sheep in Jesus’ parable.  We just amble off beyond the flock and spy succulent grasses and walk just over the rise.  We suddenly find ourselves on an empty hillside, by ourselves.  How we get to this position varies in every case (the result of stubbornness, stupidity, or even circumstances beyond our control), but the results are always the same: sudden awareness, fear, isolation, and no apparent way back to the familiar, the flock and the family. 

When we get lost, truly lost, there is usually someone looking for us – parents, siblings, spouse, friends, or the fire department, the warden service and the police. 

There is, however, Someone else searching too: a persistent searcher, with countless centuries of experience, who will leave no stone unturned, no bush not looked under, and no path unchecked.  This someone Jesus long ago compared to a shepherd who leave a flock of 99 sheep in order to search out the one lost sheep.  This someone Jesus long ago compared to a woman, a homemaker, who will use every mean at her disposal to find a missing, precious coin.  This someone is God who is persistent, industrious, and inventive in seeking out lost people.  There are no lengths to which God will not go to find us, every last one of us. 

And just as you and I will turn everything upside down until we find the lost wedding ring, just as scores of strangers will band together to search for a lost child, just so God is searching for us.  God wants to find us, to gather back the lost with an embrace, to rejoice with the re-discovered. 

And, who is this God who is searching for us?  This is the God whom Jonathan Edwards, our first American theologian, described as crying, “Where are you?’ after the fall of Adam and Even in the Garden of Eden.  This is the God of John Newton who called out to the former slave trader, “Where are you?” while in the midst of a violent storm at sea.  This is the God Jesus ached and died for, this is “ABBA,” the child’s name for father – with all the tenderness and compassion and involvement in the lives of the children that the name suggests.  This is the God who searched for every last one of us.  God is going to find us, some sooner and others later.  Make no mistake about it.  And, there will be great rejoicing when we all get home. 

Many will acknowledge that God will indeed receive back a lost man, woman, or youth who does return, but the notion of a seeking God, a pursuing God, a God coming after us is quite radical.  Such is the nature of our God.  And, so should God’s people be.  While many are lost, none need be forgotten.  All can and will be found. 

Christian hope promises us much more than that.  Christianity is not a question of everything or nothing.  It is every a matter of discovery and of becoming who it is in us to become.  In that process, we can be certain we shall not be left as orphans.  God will be with us.  While we know that God is searching for us, it would not be a waste of time, if we were to begin looking for others and, just perhaps, find ourselves too. 

The good news is that all is not lost, never.  God actively searches for us and never gives up.  As God’s children we are called to do the same – to have real faith in a real world – to never give up on a person or situation or ourselves.  We are called to pray and act in love, trusting in God’s presence with us in every moment, joy and sorrow.  We will live fully and hopefully – not in some fantastic never-never land, but in the ambiguous reality that is the here and now.   

Our song can be the words of the Psalmist, already spoken this morning: “I will both lie down and sleep in peace; for you alone, O Lord, make me lie down in safety” (Psalm 4:8).  Our God has come to be with us in Scarborough.  Come hell or high water, God will remain with us, in the many days and many nights ahead.  Amen.