When we worship, we come together as a gathering of the found.
Of course, people have all kinds of reasons why they come to church. Some come because they have friends in the church with whom they like to talk.
Others come out of a deeply rooted sense (fostered by their parents no doubt) that going to church is the right thing to do on Sunday mornings.
Some come because of the amazing preacher; and thus, they go to church elsewhere.
Still others come because they know that sometimes there will be a tasty fellowship meal following the service..
Of course, there are much nobler reasons for coming to worship, and most of you are no doubt people with a noble reason.
Despite even noble reasons, I would like to make the claim that the true reason that we are gathering here this morning is because we were found. We are a people who, because of our own nature, have made a habit of getting lost, and miraculously God has come to the rescue.
We are a once lost, now found people who get the opportunity to be reassured in the Christian community weekly that God will not forget or forsake us, God has forgiven us; not even sin or death can keep us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. We are a once lost, now found people whose famished and hungry souls get to be restored through the word of the Lord.
We are a gathering of sinful, broken people who have been found; we are truly nothing more than that.
I’m going to level with you here; there is nothing great about you. Sorry to burst any bubbles, but the actions of Christians are not necessarily more righteous than the actions of anyone else in this world.
I know an atheist, who was a good friend in college, who made a profound impact on the lives of the poor in Africa through the Peace Corp. She is not a great person because of her involvement with the church. She wants nothing to do with the church. Worshiping the Lord does not necessarily have anything to do with being a good person.
That being said, those of us who do gather on Sunday morning are nothing less than the found people of God. We are a people who God has taken the time to find and gather in God’s holy name. That is why we rejoice with God this Sunday morning. We have been found.
Let that truth ring lightly through your souls while we consider something else. There are a couple of completely obvious things in our biblical texts that I want to make sure are not overlooked because of the fact that they are so obvious. They may be too obvious, and therefore we miss their important.
The first is that both the sheep and the coin in our parables get lost.
Obvious, right?
One sheep does wander off while the shepherd was directing the herd where to go from behind as shepherds do.
In addition, the woman’s dowry coin (the wealth that was solely hers, and belonged to no one else) did rip off of her headdress and roll into a dark corner in her home. Getting lost is not something to be taken lightly.
One Saturday evening a number of years back, I received an e-mail from someone close to me that read, “Everything is dark, God is no longer in my life.” Getting lost is not something to be taken lightly or quickly glossed over. It is terrifying to roll into a dark corner and not be able to see the light.
As we recall the horrors of the terrorist attacks on 9/11, we also recall the hopelessness that those people in the stairwells of the collapsing Trade Center towers must have felt. We are reminded of the darkness of tragedy. We are reminded of the darkness that can overtake a human soul and cause a person to do unthinkable horror. It is terrifying in the darkness.
In the darkness you can do nothing but grasp around. Hopefully, “Oh my God please,” hopefully, you will grasp onto something familiar and safe; something that will pull you from the darkness into the light. But, the truth is that you are just as likely to grasp onto something sharp and harmful, or wander further into the deep. When in the dark, the right way and the wrong way look the same. They are both black.
But, you my friends are not in the dark. Everyone gathered here today has been grasped by the hand of Jesus Christ and thus have been found.
We are a once lost, now found people who also know deeply to our core the second truth that these “lost” parables reveal to us. Everyone is precious to God. Everyone is worth finding. Might I even be so bold as to say that Christ somehow does not feel complete unless Christ finds everyone who has been lost.
Look at the examples Christ himself uses. The shepherd is no shepherd at all if he loses his master’s sheep. He is an incomplete and worthless shepherd if he lets sheep go missing for too long.
Look at the woman who loses her dowry and you will see this aspect of God even stronger. As I said before, a woman’s dowry was her only wealth in the ancient Israelite world. To lose even one coin would be to lose a part of her literal worth. So, of course, she frantically searches the house to find her lost coin, because in a way, her worth is not complete without the coin.
Shepherds are not complete without all of their sheep. Women of the ancient world were not complete without their entire dowry. Parents are not complete without all of their children. Siblings are not complete without their brother or sister.
God is not complete as long as God’s children are lost, wandering in the dark. God does not miss the fact that a child is missing from the dinner table. Children of God do get lost, and it is not taken lightly. God is not complete unless every last one can be found and drawn back.
God is so passionate about this that God sent God’s only son to lose his life in order that we might be found. God saves us from the darkness, and bring us out of the blackness of sin and fear into the light, because, no matter how hard we try, we cannot find our own way out of the dark corner alone.
We are a once lost and now found people; nothing more, but also nothing less.
Nothing more, because we are not wonderful and great and perfect; we are simply human. This was the Pharisees mistake when they questioned why tax collectors and sinners were eating with Jesus. The Pharisees assumed that they were greater than those low lives. They were wrong.
But, we are also nothing less than the children of God who help to complete the body of Christ when we are found. God is complete when we are found.
We are a once lost, but now found church who cannot help but feel the same emptiness and pain that God feels when one of God’s children are lost?
The loss of a child affects the whole family. The emptiness of that spot at the dinner table compels us, not out of obligation, but out of love to find and search and invite.
We are a found church, but that also makes us a finding church.
We are a church that searches in the dark areas and reaches out a hand so that people can find the light. We are a church that welcomes the tax collectors and sinners and gladly eats with them at the Lord’s party celebrating their return. We are a church that does not give up in searching and finding because God did not give up on us.
God will not give up until every last child is found.
O, found people of God, I have just one question of you as you leave here today. Who do you know who is lost and who needs to be found? Go, and let them know that starting this day, they are now found.
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