“Lost and Found”

Luke 15:1-10

September 9, 2007

St. Paul UMC, Little Rock

Rev. John A. Fleming

Robert Fulghum has written some wonderful books that tell some of the experiences of his life. The titles of these books are almost as good as the stories inside of them. One of his books is entitled Uh-Oh. Another’s title is It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It. His most famous book is his first book. It’s title is All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. The title is based on his story of the same name and how important lessons were learned in his kindergarten class.

There is another story in that book that I would like to share with you to start our sermon. Robert tells that he was in his study late one fall Saturday evening as the sun began to set. He was writing. Near his window, some of the neighborhood children were in the middle of a game of Hide and Seek. No doubt you have played that game. Seeing the children sent Robert back thirty or more years when he used to play that game.

He writes that in his growing up years, there was always a kid who played the game with him and his neighborhood friends who hid so well that no one could find him. After a while, those back at home base would give up on the seeking. And sooner or later the kid who hid well would come back mad because his friends quit looking for him. His friends would say, “There’s hiding and there’s finding.” He would argue back, “It’s Hide and Seek, not Hide and Give Up.”

Robert remembered that as the kids in his neighborhood were playing the game. Just outside of his window is a kid hiding in a pile of leaves. He says that the kid has hidden well and will probably never be found. The author is sure that his friends over at home base are about to give up the search.

Robert thought about what he might do to change all of this. He thought about walking out the front door, going over to home base, and telling the boys where their friend was hiding. He tells that he thought about walking out his front door, with a box of matches in his hands and setting the pile of leaves on fire, in essence, smoking him out. Instead he decided that he would raise the window and yell at the top of his lungs, “GET FOUND, KID!” He did that and the pile of leaves shot straight up in the air. He heard the kid screaming at the top of his lungs as he ran all the way home. His feet may not have ever hit the ground.

Fulghum’s story goes a little deeper than a neighborhood game when he tells about a man he knew, a doctor, who found out he had terminal cancer. Since he was a doctor, he knew about dying. He didn’t want his family and friends to suffer through that with him, so he didn’t tell anyone about it. He kept his secret. After he died many talked about how brave he was. But privately his family and friends were that he didn’t trust their strength.

Robert Fulghum writes these words, “He hid too well. Getting found would have kept him in the game. Hide-and seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found.”

When I first read our scripture lesson for this morning taken from Luke’s famous fifteenth chapter, Fulghum’s hide and seek story came to my mind. At first glance that is what two of the three stories in the chapter seem to be about.

The first of the stories is about a shepherd and his flock. Jesus asks those who are listening, “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? Leaving the ninety-nine and going after the one doesn’t seem like sensible shepherding. Read the lesson carefully and you will see that he left the ninety-nine in the wilderness. In our Bibles, the wilderness is always a dangerous place. In the case of the ninety-nine, each and every one of them was vulnerable to the wolves, prone to wander themselves, and could have easily gotten into a bind.

And what about this one sheep, how did he get lost? The lesson doesn’t give us the impression that he was mad at the shepherd or upset with the rest of the flock. He was just interested in the business at hand, which was eating grass. He ate a little bit here and a little bit there. He eased around a hillside and slid into a valley and this went on for some time. The grass was good; it tasted good. And the sheep never thought to check on where his shepherd might be. But when the sun began to fall, he looked up and saw that he was all alone. And he was lost.

That is how it often happens. We stray from God the same way. We wander not because we’re mad at God or someone in our church. Most of us who wander do so because we’re distracted. The real problem though is that when we wander away from the church, we often wander away from God.

That’s how we get lost these days. Something happens and it highlights the darkness around us. Someone we love dies and we don’t know how in the world we can handle our grief. Or maybe one of our children gets in trouble and we don’t know what to do. Or a child goes away to college and suddenly the house seems very empty. And we look up and we ask, “Where am I?”

That is when the insensible shepherd comes around. He’s been looking for us for some time. And he heaves us up on his shoulders, just as if he were carrying a newly found child, and when he returns to the flock, he calls out to his friends and his neighbors and says, “Come and party with me. I’ve found my sheep!”

Who would do that? Who would go around looking for lost souls? I think I know this shepherd. His name is Jesus. He went out on the highways and the hillsides and down by the sea where people were. He found a Samaritan woman by Jacob’s well who was lost in five marriages. He found a tax collector, hiding up in a sycamore tree. He found a man blind since birth. Jesus taught a lesson about who was really blind that day. He even found a troubled soul who lived in the cemetery. He changed that man’s life. Jesus sought all of them out. He searched for them. He found them and he called out to the religious people of his day and said, “Come over here for a party. Look who just came home!”

But there was a problem. In fact that is why Jesus tells these three stories about being lost and being found. Luke tells us that the religious people sneered when they said, “This man, this Jesus, receives sinners and eats with them.” You can put that another way. You can say that Jesus partied with them. It reminds me that in another place in the Bible, Jesus’ critics come up with this line, “The disciples of John the Baptist fast often and say long prayers. But your disciples are always eating and drinking and partying.” Well that might be a paraphrase, but you get the idea.

And hearing this first story, the one about the sheep and the shepherd and the Pharisees and the scribes makes me wonder, “Who really was lost?” You might say that the scribes and the Pharisees were lost not in their sin, but in their righteousness. And if we are not careful, the same kind of thing can happen to us. After all, most of us play by the rules. We do the right thing and have for years. We’ve taken the word seriously when someone important to us said, “Stay out of trouble.” We did and we have. Many of us have been coming to church for so long that we wouldn’t know where else to be on a Sunday morning or a Wednesday night.

And in walks a sinner. I mean a real sinner and she sits next to us. It’s easy to forget where Jesus found his joy and his pleasure. He found it when the lost are found. He found it when the brokenhearted are healed. He found it when the alienated are reconciled. Jesus found it when the sick are made well and when those who were dead are alive again. Jesus found it when the oppressed are lifted up and when the prisoners are set free. And Jesus found it when those who those who were exalted are suddenly brought low.

The problem with the scribes and the Pharisees in Jesus’ day was that they could not see the joy on Jesus’ face when he, with a clinched fist, said, “Yes!” And up in heaven, the angels were going wild. How does Jesus put this, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents!”

So the first of our stories, the parable of the sheep and the shepherd speaks about a God who seeks and searches and finds. The second tells the story of a woman who loses a coin in her house. It was one of ten coins she had. Some say that it was worth a day’s wage. Other commentators say that it was part of her marriage dowry. Regardless of which it was, it was valuable. She tore up the house until she found it. She turned on the lights. She swept the floor. She rolled up the carpet. We’ve all lost something valuable to us and tore up the place until we found it. When she found the coin, she exclaimed to her neighbors, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.”

Let me ask you, have you ever been invited to a Just Found a Coin Party? No? Me neither. The point of the second story is the celebration, the party. And the question it asks of us is simply this, “Will you put on your party hat? Will you come to the party, or will you look at the one who has found something very valuable like they have lost their ever loving mind?”

Let me close with this. I started with the story that Robert Fulghum tells. Let me end with it, too. Robert says that he likes the hide and seek game, but that he likes another game better. The name of that game is Sardines. Have you ever played it? In Sardines the person who is it goes and hides and everyone goes looking for him. When you find him, you get in with him and hide there with him. Pretty soon everyone is hiding together, all stacked in a small space. You might say it looks like puppies in a pile. And pretty soon someone laughs and someone giggles and everyone gets found and there is a great party.

Maybe how we should be found is by the sound of laughter of those heaped together. Now that’s a party I’d like to attend. Let us pray.