Lost and Found

Art by Charlie Mackesy

Luke 15

My friend and colleague Emmy Kegler has a book release this week and her new book is called One Coin Found. Her prologue is all about this particular chapter of Luke—the LOST chapter—with three parables trying to show us what life lived with God is like. A lost sheep is found by the shepherd, a lost coin is found by a woman sweeping her house until she finds it, and then, this one… the parable of the Prodigal.

Humans make connections. Humans try to make meaning.

Amanda Brobst-Renaud writes this week that “One of the main struggles in reading this parable is that once we hear the words ‘A man had two sons,’ we quit listening -- even as preachers…”[1]

As I reflected on these words from Jesus this week, I think it’s true, it’s hard to keep listening.

First, I’m identifying with the older brother, in pain about everyone who has left… missing them, wondering where they are, why I’m still left with so many responsibilities in the family… I can get so caught up in older brother that I quit listening.

Then, I move to the younger brother… when I left my hometown, I knew I’d never move back. I’ve moved from place to place. Sure, there were brief visits, but it’s been clear that the places I’ve left will never be my community again, there’s no going back, and as I moved from place to place, sometimes it’s felt less than welcoming. There are times in my life I’ve wondered—How in the world did I get here? I’ve wished at times that I could reel back time and have a re-do. How do I renew the relationships that are gone? Is that even possible?

Then, there’s the parent, who could never give enough to his children. I’ve certainly been there, where there’s just not enough of me to meet every need, where I’m afraid that as I give attention in one arena of life, I won’t ever give enough in another… and anticipating the moment when children leave and time will tell, will they leave and never come back? And if that happens, is it a good and natural thing or is it a sign that we failed them?

And then there are all the missing characters in this parable—where is the mother? The sisters? 

If we haven’t stopped listening by this point, caught up in our own stories of how we identify and make meaning with these characters, then there’s at least one more opportunity to draw conclusions… and that’s as we think about this story and church. Who among us here hasn’t wondered why someone else is not here? Who among us hasn’t felt like leaving at some point? (or at least has been glad for or longed for a break?) Who among us hasn’t loved seeing someone return and celebrated, but then worried about whether we’ve given enough attention to the ones who stayed all along?

So…we can very easily get caught in the pain of our own stories—our stories of brokenness in ourselves, in our families, and in our experiences of church. No one else has our exact stories, but it seems like, it may be that every one of us identifies easily with one of these characters… or all of them at once… and that makes it hard for us to keep listening until we get to some good news.

Another challenge—we live in a time when withinU.S. culture, we seem especially bent toward distancing ourselves from each other. In an article from the New York Times in called “No Hate Left Behind: Lethal Partisanship is Taking Us into Dangerous Territory,” author Thomas B. Edsall describes how 42% of Democrats and Republicans think the other side is not just worst for politics but downright evil. And 20% think the other side is not fully human or even that we’d be better off if the other side all died.

Why? Well, “politics have taken on moralistic, judgmental cast.” For both right- and left-wingers, “our moralizing does not consist in pondering how to universalize the maxim of our actions or to bring about the greatest good for the greatest number, but rather of condemning, demonizing, or scapegoating a designated sinner.”[2]

“The parable of the Prodigal itself tempts us to distance these brothers, inviting us to choose who is the more beloved of the two of them… but the parable itself refuses us this luxury. The father crosses the threshold twice. He leaves once to welcome the younger son, he leaves the second time to invite the elder son to the party.”

If he was a politician, he might be called a flip-flopper… “extravagantly not able to imagine the party without both sons present.”[3]

Their needs were so different, how could this parent show each one in their own way how much he loved them? But no matter what he did to meet the individual needs of one, that move of love and attention would set off the other so that finally, one left, convinced that he needed nothing more from his family, breaking the father’s heart. It was a dream-come-true to see him again… but even then, the joy for one child fills the other with resentment… so the father bends, because the brothers don’t or won’t, and tries to make a bridge. My love, the father both says and does, is so deep and expansive that it wants to hold together all of you.

For one child, the parent throws a feast. For the other, the parent proclaims, “all I have is yours.” This is the vision that Jesus uses to describe what the reign of God is like… hoping, still hoping, that we might be able to keep listening, long enough to take in the good news…for all of us.

“The parable invites us to sit with the younger son in the mess [and welcoming embrace]; [the parable invites us to be] with the elder son in the bitterness and fear of being overlooked [and reassurance of love], and [we watch] the father as he leaves the comfort of his home to bring in all that is lost and all that feels forsaken.”

Like the God who goes out to find each and every wandering sheep, like God who picks up her broom to find her lost coin, like the parent who is watching and hoping for the return of the child who has left home and constantly loving the one who has been home all along, God’s reign is marked by meeting the need of each of us to be found, to be invited in (again), to be the love that brings us together and makes us whole.

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[1]Amanda Brobst-Renaud, “Commentary on Luke 15,” workingpreacher.org
https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3992

[2]Thomas B. Edsall, “No Hate Left Behind,” New York Times,March 13, 2019 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/opinion/hate-politics.html

[3]Amanda Brobst-Renaud, “Commentary on Luke 15,” workingpreacher.org
https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3992

“I long to gather you…”

Luke 13: 31-35

It is Lent… and I’ve been away for Lent’s beginning. As part of my family and I arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, our very first cab driver let us know that Lent had begun for him. He was fasting—the first of 50 days where Orthodox Ethiopians will not eat at all throughout the morning and then eat from a fasting menu (no meat) for their evening meal. I was a little sorry that I was missing our yearly opportunity here to be marked with a cross of ashes, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return…” until I realized that as a traveler along dusty roads, I was covered in dust from morning ‘til night. Remember that you are come from the earth, you are covered in it, you will return to it. There was no escaping this truth in our travels. We woke in the dark each morning to the sounds of prayer being called. At first, we heard the call to the first of five times of daily prayer for Muslims across from our guest house, but then throughout most of our trip, we heard the much longer Christian worship services, broadcast over speakers in the same way. The constant call to worship reminded us over and over of Jesus’ longing expressed this week… Christ’s longing to gather people as a hen gathers her chicks… and Jesus’ frustration that so often, we are not willing.

My friend Carrie, a pastor in Jerusalem, writes that the news says “Jerusalem is at a boiling point.” A fire bomb was thrown, the gates to the Old City closed, a Palestinian in Hebron was killed after an alleged stabbing attempt. “It’s true,” Carrie writes, “today feels closer to ‘boiling’ than it has in a long time” but she sat in the middle of it, getting a haircut. Her stylist Samer said, “Yes, take a photo to remember how our life goes on even with a fire raging…”

I notice how she persists, how all the people of that diverse, holy city—our whole world compressed into one place—continue on despite the continuous challenge to life, the constant threat of death. 

Jesus cries out, laments Jerusalem’s capacity (and really the capacity of all of us) to kill and destroy, ignore and avoid God’s people, God’s word, God’s presence among us but Jesus does not… 

Even with a threat over his own life, Jesus persists. 

If Herod—exploiter, killer—is like a fox in the hen house, Jesus calls himself the hen who protects her chicks even at the cost of her own life.

In our pilgrimage to Ethiopia, one of our visits was to Lalibela. Nine hundred years ago, King Lalibela spent 23 years of his life constructing eleven wondrous churches hewn into the stone, connected to one another through tunnels with architectural details that continue to stun architectural students and pilgrims alike. How did he do it? Well, with divine/angelic help or 400,000 workers, “You decide…” our guide said. How they did it remains a wonder but why they did it was to create a much nearer-to-home Jerusalem for devout followers of Jesus in Ethiopia. Lalibela created a church to remember Jesus’ birth—and every Christmas, thousands of pilgrims from all over this diverse nation flocks to hear the good news of Jesus’ birth announced once again. There is a church devoted to Mary, the mother of Jesus. There is Bethlehem—house of bread—where those who hunger receive bread daily. There is a famous, iconic cross-chaped church… there is Golgotha, where Jesus’ passion and death is remembered and in another church is the tomb. Lalibela created this “Jerusalem” to gather people out of devotion to the one who describes himself as our Mother Hen, always determined to gather those she loves.

But Jesus weeps, we are not willing to be gathered, loved like that…

We weep with Jesus…

As we witness, powerlessly, as a flight crashes… killing all 157 people aboard that plane. A whole family going to reconnect with their father/grandfather in Nigeria, 21 United Nations employees from many countries working on global food aid, going on a routine flight for a meeting in Nairobi, Kenya…

As we witness, powerlessly, as a small group of violent white supremacists from Australia entered two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and shot and murdered people gathered for prayer and community support including those from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Jordan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia…

One of our Ethiopian driver guides, who makes a decent wage in his chosen field of tourism, who ate with us at restaurants where we couldn’t have possibly finished the size of meal we were given—and we all noted that—told us this story about his parents’ village in the countryside. “Do you know that they still wonder each day if they will have a meal? The children come home from school and if their mother has something to give them, she makes eye contact and says, ‘Come and eat.’ But if she has no food, she will not even look at them… and they know, there is no food today.”

We weep with Jesus as tragedy, hate and hunger continue in our world, a world that Jesus longs to gather into one. A world that many people are working to improve…and yet, clearly, our work together with God is not yet complete. 

After the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight last Sunday, we were moved by the way that life stopped for grief. Five Ethiopian TV channels broadcast flickering candles and a message of mourning for at least 36 hours. We arrived at and then left an Ethiopian restaurant that usually features traditional Ethiopian music and dancing but was cancelled that night out of respect for those who died. Our driver pointed out so that we could notice how quiet the city was… music, not playing. All were subdued as messages of grief came in from leaders throughout the world.
At least one response during this season is to stop whatever we are doing and grieve with God and with all who mourn, for all who have lost loved ones too soon, for all that we are powerless to change…

Another response, as we witness violent hate that takes life away in a moment, that divides on purpose to cause more fear, conflict… that is unwilling to be gathered together as one human family… is to persist in following Jesus’ vision, to courageously go forward in life together, even when it may put us personally at risk… As the UN World Food Program director David Beasley noted, “As we mourn, let us reflect that each of these World Food Program colleagues were willing to travel and work far from their homes and loved ones to help make the world a better place to live. That was their calling…”[1]

Our diverse world, in all its diversity, is a world that God created and deeply loves… and Jesus calls us to persist in our callings in this season—maybe it is to stop, to mourn, to cry out as Jesus did… maybe it is to keep moving forward courageously, rejecting any fear of death… but as we pause or as we persist, Jesus calls, gathers, covers us in loving protection, sheltering and feeding us so that we have all we need.

Let us pray… (with this prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book)

Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver, Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe! The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world! Your heavenly will be done by all created beings! Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us. In times of temptation and testing, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us. From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
now and forever. Amen.                                     -The Lord’s Prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book

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[1]Tracy Wilkinson, “United Nations mourns 21 employees killed in Ethiopian Airlines plane crash,” The San Diego Union-Tribune, Saturday, March 16, 2019.