17 Pentecost/Proper 19/Ordinary 24 Year C Sept. 11, 2016
Rally Sunday
15th Anniversary of 9/11/2001
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
Exodus 32: 7-14 + Psalm 51: 1-10 + 1 Timothy 1: 12-17
Luke 15: 1-10
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
It’s a new school year and I know that at least some of you here this morning found yourselves in a new school building this year. A few of you have just started high school, which I find pretty hard to believe and I’m sure your parents feel the same way. And whether or not you were in a new school building you were certainly in a new classroom. New routines to learn. New faces. New lockers. New ways to get where you need to be. It’s not hard to feel a little lost in the first days of school, no matter who you are or how old you might be.
I remember my second day of seminary, when I was considerably younger than I am today, but considerably older than the last time I’d been a student. I had one of the dreaded 8:00 am classes….so in addition to feeling lost in the world of the academy, it was an early morning for graduate school level learning. When that class session completed, on that sunny Tuesday morning, we were dismissed to go to the daily chapel service in the stunning Gloria Dei worship center at Trinity Lutheran Seminary. The tone as we entered was somber, different from just the day before when we’d celebrated our matriculation and worshipped the God who had called us and promised to be with us.
The President of the seminary, a former pastor and bishop stood and said that in light of the events of the morning, which were still unfolding, classes were cancelled for the day, but we were encouraged to remain on campus for safety reasons. I had no idea what he was talking about, but followed the student body to the lounge where we watched the events of that September 11th morning unfolding in real time on television.
At that moment I felt more lost than perhaps ever before.
Those who track statistics have noted that seminary enrollment has declined at a fairly steady pace since that year. Somehow, it would seem, that once we’d move past the shock of the day, and then moved through the time of extreme care for one another, which seemed like a blissful response to the terror, we became a nation and a people who no longer quite knew what we could trust. After all, we imagined in the watches of the night….what kind of God would DO this or at the very least, what kind of God would ALLOW this to happen? And from there, we became lost in a game of blaming the other….looking out only for ourselves….and fearing anyone and anything that was different from us.
The stories that we heard in the Gospel reading for today are stories that Jesus tells. That’s why we called today “Rabbi” Rally Sunday…Jesus was a teacher, a Rabbi, and this morning we have listened to and considered two of the stories he told the religious leaders who were criticizing Jesus for showing wide love for all people.
They are familiar stories to many people….the shepherd who is out tending the flock of precisely 100 sheep and finds one of them is missing. Immediately the ninety nine others are left in the pasture while the shepherd goes out and searches for the sheep. And the householder who has ten pieces of silver, and having lost one of them, sweeps the house diligently until that one piece of silver is found…probably in the couch cushions, next to the remote and a couple of paper clips.
What once was lost is now found….that seems to be the focus of the stories from Jesus the Rabbi this morning.
But how do we hold together the stories told centuries ago with the story from fifteen years ago? Stories of 2996 souls lost to fear fueled terrorism.
I’m reminded of Welles Crowther, who, while I was sitting in my 8am seminary class and you were doing whatever it was you were doing that morning, was going to work at the World Trade Center. When the second tower went down, the one where his office was, he led people from his office out to safety and then he went back in again, to lead more people out. And he went back in again and again. News stories about him call him “the man in the red bandana” because of the red bandana that he tied around his face to shield it from the smoke and dust. People who were lost in those buildings, uncertain about how or where to find a way to safety were led there that day by someone who was not going to rest until every person he could find was brought to safety. He perished in the midst of the task.
But many who were lost were found.
So often we identify with the lost sheep in the story. It’s an easy leap, for who among us doesn’t feel lost from time to time? Life is often hard and we walk through many dangers, toils, and snares…. and before we know it we feel lost. Or maybe it isn’t that life is particularly hard for you just now, but maybe life is just not what you’d hoped for. Maybe the job is less than challenging. Maybe the relationship seems stale. Maybe your daughter is a disappointment because of her politics. Maybe retirement feels more like an empty stretch of time instead of an adventure. Maybe it’s just the sameness of each day that leads you to feeling lost. Wretched. Blind to possibility.
No wonder we identify with the lost sheep….who among us doesn’t want the Good Shepherd to come and sweep us up from out of that lost ness and put us on his shoulders and invite her friends and neighbors in and say “Rejoice with me! I’ve found the lost one!”
But here’s the detail that we miss. The shepherd and the householder are not anything like heroic figures in Jesus’ day or in our own. Being a shepherd is one of the lowliest professions one might imagine….and in Jesus day shepherds were probably men…maybe the youngest of the brothers who couldn’t find work doing anything else. A menial job indeed, only slightly better than that of being a woman who stayed at home to keep the house. And yet…it is these two professions that Jesus chooses to lift up. This is the God who is searching for us. This is the God who will risk everything, even leaving behind all other responsibilities to go and look for us. This is the God who will sweep all night long if she has to to find us there hidden in the debris of our lives. And in turn, we are the ordinary ones God will use to continue to search out the lost in the world. Those who are lost to homelessness, those who are lost to poverty, those who are lost to fear of the other. We are the ordinary ones to whom God has entrusted the most extraordinary story: that the love of God in Jesus Christ is wide and strong, and unrelenting. To be sure, there will be days….likely many of them, when we will be the lost ones. When we will be the ones waiting to be found and astonished at the celebration follows when we are.
And this is that celebration! This bread and wine, this gathering together to sing and celebrate! For the blind now see. God is our shield and portion as long as life endures. The lost are found and there is much rejoicing! Thanks be to God and let the church say…Amen!