Grace to you and peace from God
our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Gospel
lesson, the parables of the lost.
These parables are easy to
understand. Jesus seeks out and finds the lost ones. But what do they look like
in today’s world?
Wayne was an elder of his church
and had been for a long time. Melinda was a member of the church, but hadn’t
been in church for a long time.[1]
When the new pastor arrived, at the first elder’s meeting, they went through
the membership list and gave a little information about each member, some more
than others. When it came to Melinda, though, the men couldn’t say too much.
Her kids had moved away and then her husband had passed about ten years earlier
– or was it fifteen? – and that was probably the last time she had been in
church. She lived over on that side of town, so no one really drove by that
often, and when they did the yard was overgrown and the house needed paint. In
fact, they weren’t even sure she still lived there. Then came the question:
“What should we do about her, Pastor?”
The pastor was young and he was
new, so he mumbled something that he hoped sounded pastoral about let’s pray
about it and talk about it again next meeting, all the while hoping no one
would mention Melinda again.
It wasn’t that he didn’t care for
Melinda and the others members who, like Melinda, had drifted away from the
church. It wasn’t that he doubted God’s love for her, or that she, at one time
at least, had confessed Christ as her Lord and Savior. He knew full well the
danger that the lost faced – that is the unstated danger in Jesus’ parable of
the Lost Sheep. The devil loves to get Christians off by themselves, cull them
from the herd so to speak, getting a sheep away from the watchful eye and care
of the under-shepherd pastor, making it easier to further weaken their faith,
making it easier for him to pick off Jesus’ little lamb and claim her as his
own victim. The pastor knew all of this, that the lost one was in danger of not
just being lost but being cut off from Jesus, losing faith and getting to a
point where faith ceased to exist – not just lost from a congregation, but lost
from Christ eternally. The pastor knew all of this.
The fact was that the pastor was
scared. Yes, he was scared. He was scared to approach Melinda. To him, she was
a stranger; to her, he would also be a stranger. No one else from church had
been successful in convincing her to come back to the church; why should he
expect anything different. For that matter, what was he supposed to say? He was
in high school the last time she was in church, that’s a lot of water under the
bridge. What if he was rejected by this woman? What if she told other people
about his miserable attempt to visit with her?
If he didn’t succeed at winning her back, what would the elders think?
What would the congregation think?
So, when Melinda’s name
occasionally came up in a meeting, the pastor listened, nodded wisely, and said
he planned to visit “one of these days.”
One afternoon, about a year
later, there was a knock on the office door and then Wayne stuck his head in
and asked if he could talk for a little bit. He sat down in an office chair
and, after a little bit of nervous chit-chat, he finally said, “Pastor, I
stopped to see Melinda today. Actually, I’ve been stopping by pretty regularly
to try and see her. I would knock, and when no one would answer, I would slide
a bulletin under her door and leave a recording of the service in her box.
Today, when I knocked, she answered the door. She recognized me and invited me
in. We talked about an hour, reminiscing and catching up. And she asked me to
give you a message. She asked that you please come see her as soon as possible,
to bring your communion kit, and that I come along. Tomorrow works for me, how
about you?”
The next afternoon, Melinda met Wayne
and the pastor at her door with a huge smile, and with a hug for each of the
men, she welcomed them into her home. Wayne and Melinda sat on opposite ends of
an old, plastic-covered sofa; the pastor sat in a rump-sprung rocking chair.
The conversation was warm, gentle, friendly and casual. Finally, Melinda looked at the pastor and
with an intensity in her voice asked, “Pastor, may we have the Lord’s Supper
together? It’s been oh, so long…” He prepared the Sacrament and the three began
the liturgy together. They spoke the common confession together, “Oh, Almighty
God, merciful Father, I a poor miserable sinner confess unto Thee…” When they
finished, before the pastor could speak, she held up her hand. “I’m not done,”
she said. “I confess that I have sinned against God and against my brothers and
sisters in Christ by staying away. I confess my anger and frustration that no
one came to see me when I was hurting. I confess my jealousy at all who
gathered every Sunday without me. I am sorry, I am so sorry.” She began to
weep. “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner.” The pastor stood, crossed the room,
and knelt in front of her, and placed his hands on her head. Calling her by
name, he spoke the words of absolution to her and repeated them as well for
Wayne. Taking the bread and the cup, he blessed them and gave them to Wayne and
Melinda, and then to himself. With a final benediction, the simple service was
complete. A short time later, as Wayne and the pastor prepared to leave, she
said she hoped the pastor would come again; the pastor promised he would be
back.
They drove in silence for a
little while, as if neither man wanted to break the holiness of the moment they
had shared with Melinda. Finally, the pastor spoke, commending Wayne for his
faithfulness as an elder, not giving up on the one who had been lost. But, the
pastor had to ask, why did he keep trying so hard to reach out to Melinda when,
it seemed, everyone else had written her off as lost? Wayne didn’t answer until
they parked at the church. “Let me tell you about my son, Nathan,” he said. Nathan
was baptized as a baby, went to Sunday school every week and was confirmed on
his 14th birthday. He was a good boy, a good son. Then, he got into
drugs and alcohol, fast cars and faster women. By the time he was 20, he told
his dad that he wanted nothing to do with his Dad’s “Jesus talk,” or his
religion anymore. By the time he was 22, he told his dad he didn’t want to see
him ever again. “That was 23 years ago,” Wayne said, “and I haven’t heard from
him since. So, every night I pray that the Lord doesn’t give up on my son and
that somewhere, somehow, He uses someone to search out and find my son so that
maybe I’ll see him in the resurrection. If I pray that the Lord sends someone
for my son, the least I can do is be that someone for somebody else.”
That afternoon, before I climbed
out of Wayne’s truck, we prayed together. We rejoiced that the lost had been
found and Melinda was being restored. And we prayed that Nathan might also be
found, that he might repent, and that he and his father might also be restored.
Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He
seeks out to rescue and redeem the lost, sinners who desperately realize how
much they need a Savior because they can’t save themselves. Jesus left
everything and everyone behind, to put Himself in harm’s way – in death’s way!
– so that what was lost can be saved and returned to the fold. The rescue
effort cost Him His life, but His perfect death and resurrection saves
repentant sinners and it opens the way for celebration to take place when the
entire body of Christ, in heaven and on earth, rejoices when a sinner returns. The
Shepherd carries the broken, binds him or her up with His loving mercy, and
carries the loved one back to the flock. There’s time out, no being ostracized
for a while to think about what a bad sheep he or she has been. The sheep is
welcomed back into full fellowship. What was lost is found.
The Lord uses many ways of
seeking and finding, of restoring and welcoming. Sometimes, yes, through direct
means. More often, He uses the church, the body of Christ and, like that woman
who seeks out the lost coin, the church seeks out the greatest treasure
entrusted to her: the lost sinner. That fall day, the Lord used a faithful layman
named Wayne to restore a wandering saint. The Lord used an unsure and uncertain
me to deliver that sure and certain Word of absolution and forgiveness, in Word
and Sacrament, to a burdened soul.
We – you and I - are part of the
body; we – you and I - are the church in this place. Look around; look at the
empty seats in the pews. Each empty spot is waiting for a lost soul - for some
who have been part of the body of Christ, for some who are not yet part of the
body of Christ - that is wandering and lost, in danger of being lost forever.
You and I – with our fears and anxieties, with our rough-around-the-edges style
and mannerisms, with imperfect words, yes; but, also with our Spirit-given care
and compassion, armed with prayer and with the light of the Word that shines
into the darkness, we will seek those who are lost and when they are found, we
will welcome them to the fold again. For the wounded, we will cover them with
the peace of Christ. For the broken, we will be a safe place to heal. For those
who have been adrift, we will hold on to them. We will speak truth, but we will
do so with compassion. We will show grace to those who hurt. We will show love
to those who are afraid. We will walk with the lonely. Why? Because we are the
body of Christ.
Searching for the lost doesn’t
always have a happy ending. In the years since first visiting Melinda, I’ve
been told to not come back, or even not to visit at all. I’ve even had people
curse God. But this did have a happy ending. It was a Sunday morning, a few
weeks later, when I heard a hubbub at the door of the sanctuary. There she was,
Melinda, pushing her walker, trying to get into the church but she couldn’t.
She was being welcomed back as a long-lost friend.
[1] This
is a conflation of two stories, both true, that have happened in my ministry. Except
for mine, the names are changed.
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