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The Eternal Lost and Found Department

The Very Reverend Harry Prtichett
The Cathedral of St. Philip
18 March 2007

Luke gathers together in his gospel at one place three stories of Jesus -- the parable the Lost Sheep – the parable of the Lost Coin – and the parable of the Lost Son, otherwise known as the Prodigal Son. They follow each other – one—two—three.  All these parables enhance and elaborate the theme of lostness, each in its own way enlarging the dimensions of what it means to be lost and to be found and to celebrate with joy.  All of these parables tell us profound things about the nature of God, the “Heart of All That Is.”

The first is the short parable of the lost sheep.  Perhaps it describes a sort of distracted lostness. The sheep just gets distracted with other concerns and simply nibbles his life away from the flock and the shepherd.  You know how that is—the children to carpool, the project to complete, the deal to close, the groceries to buy, the meeting to plan, the class to teach, the case to try, the sermon to prepare, – et cetera , et cetera.  And gradually before you know it, your contemplation and consideration of the deep things that matter in life – the agenda of God, perhaps, has disappeared.  You are at a loss as to what has happened to them and to you. You may have nibbled your life away with the necessary, but mundane and routine chores of living, and you wake up at three o’clock in the morning one day feeling shaky and lost. But the good shepherd of this parable is out to find you, searching every crag and crevice to free you from the tangled underbrush of your life.

And the second story is the less known parable of the lost coin.  It is very much like the first one. The lead character is a very persistent housewife who tears up the whole house looking for a lost coin which had most probably fallen from her headdress that women of that day received from their husbands on the day of their wedding. She searched every nook and cranny in what seems like desperate determination to find something that was special to her.  It was hers. She wanted it back.
Now how long does she look for the precious coin? Until the batteries in the flashlight burn out?  Until her husband says, “Honey, don’t worry about it.  I’ll get you another one tomorrow?”  Until her hand get too blistered to sweep anymore?  No! No!  She hunts for the coin until it is retrieved.  The point seems to be that God’s search for the lost is finished only when the lost are found and not one moment earlier.

Now think about this.  In these parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin it is absolutely clear that neither the finding of the sheep nor the coin comes from within either of them as some kind of repentance. It would be foolish to suggest that the dumb sheep or the inert coin themselves did anything  Maybe that is an important dimension of what it means to be lost in these parables.  The entire rescuing activity is done by the shepherd and the woman. You see, there’s no hint of merit as the foundation or motivation for the finding of the sheep or the coin. There is not one iota of deserving-ness. There is no giving of reward based on performance. That would be ludicrous in these parables.  It is by sheer unadulterated grace alone.  Maybe repentance in this light is simply coming to recognize the source of being found—the agent of the assertive love–and saying yes to it with effusive gratitude–and then accepting the pure joy of the rescuing itself so much so that you can’t help but change.

And finally in this collection of the “lost” parables is the story that has the most fame in literature and art and biblical theology. And that is the story of the lost son—usually known as the prodigal son. This famous parable needs to be heard, I believe, in the context of the previous two parables as Luke, the gospel writer, meant from the beginning.  Perhaps this one describes the rather dramatic lostness which results from wrong or ill-advised or questionable decisions you have made – as in this story, getting your inheritance early and spending it all in hard and loose living and ending up in a pig-pen with nothing but dry corn husks and empty dreams.  At those times, you know for sure that you are lost.  The loss you experience is very intense and critical. Something is definitely called for – a new decision, a new behavior.  “I’ll go to my father and will say, “Dad, I’m sorry. I was wrong. Treat me as your hired servant.  Just let me come home.” And as you remember, the loving father of the lost son sees you coming from afar and before you have said anything gets out the best robe and plans a party  The father receives you back with extravagant, non-rational hospitality, neither demanding or even waiting for your explanation.  The welcoming father puts on the party clothes—calls out the band and the beer and the barbeque and has a blast!  There is an explosion of joy that you are home and all has been reconciled.  And this assertive graciousness is even extended to your resentful and whiney brother when the father goes outside to find him and does not wait for him to come back in the house. “My son”, he declares, “ You are always with me!”

Now , you might say that according to this collection of parables, the beginning point of experiencing the Christian gospel is knowing loss or being lost.  And I believe it often takes a lifetime – is even then – to admit to ourselves or anyone else that we know loss--that we are lost—that we need and want to be found by that beyond ourselves, larger than our selves, more coherent that our lives.  Such awareness comes hard because the appearance of respectability, control and independence rules the world and even the church, and those assumptions have nothing to do with admitting loss or lostness.

Ironically, and this has been true for me again and again and true with people I know, we tend to deny the lostness that could be the means of our being found.

In my experience, loss is really at the bottom of most of our uneasiness and our anxiety and our depression about every thing from simple change, (like moving to a new town or a new job) to the ultimate loss as in death.

For example….An old friend sits before me talking about his stress and his distress.  I notice that his gray hair is thinning and that his skin seems stretched and that his body seems tight and that his Brooks Brothers clothes seem a little more rumpled than before.   He’s shaking slightly and when I ask him why, he laughs crookedly that it’s because I don’t allow him to smoke in my house. But as he talks on and on about all that is wrong with the world and all the people we had known  in common who are dying or dead, I begin to sense that he is deeply mourning the loss of his old assumptions.  That he is experiencing grief over getting old and what he assumed would happen to him when he grew up just did not occur.  He has lost his sense of buoyancy or hope in the future because his old world and indeed his old church have died, but he has denied it so long that he cannot seem to move forward.  All of us know something, I think, about that kind of loss.
A young man in his early forties confesses to his family that in recent months he has sunk into a pool of losses because he has become dependant on the designer drug cocaine… lost savings, lost house, lost trust, loss of innocence by all his family.  He knows he must make new decisions, get help with this demon disease.  But I know the road home to a joyful celebration is long and hard and he may never get there.  But he has decided to head toward home.  The loving God is waiting.  And that is hopeful, in spite of all that is lost forever.  We all know something about that kind of loss.

And also this week marks for our beloved nation four years of losses in war – in lives, in international respect, in national trust of our leaders.  We have lost our way as a nation, but as I read the morning paper, it seems to me that illusions abound and denials confuse and conflict continues to destroy.  And I feel lost about what can be done.

Several week ago a young woman in her forties talks to me about the recurrence of her cancer.  She speaks with realism and with faith. The doctor has told her that she has only six or eight months of life left. She’s somewhat of a poet, I think, as she goes on with clear and powerful images.  She talks with out tears until she begins to describe the things she will miss – the daffodils next spring – the family 4th of July outing in the hot sweat of summer—choosing her daughter’s wedding dress – spoiling her grandchildren–growing gray and creaky with her beloved husband.  “I grieve,” she says, “the loss of my future.”  And she is right and she has lost – and we all know about being lost.
When my mother died a dozen years ago, I did not feel despair or even sadness.  But I kept being overcome by a sense of loss–of being bereft–left—abandoned–alone. Occasionally that feeling would burst forth as anger; because, of course anger is easier for me to do– its easier for me to feel – it’s more available to me. You see, loss seems more like a “little-boy feeling”—it seems childish – it even seems selfish and inappropriate for an older man like me who is suppose to be wise and who has indeed been so wonderfully blessed. Occasionally, I’d notice that this feeling of loss came out in a sort of a sigh that was almost a whine.  I woke up in the middle of the night a couple of months later, and in the darkness I almost cried out loud, “I want my mama.”  No matter that she died quietly and peaceably.  No matter that she lived an unusually full and happy life. No matter that everybody, literally everybody, loved her deeply. No matter.  She was gone, and I am a little boy who has lost his mama, and even though I realize this sounds very dramatic and sentimental for that moment and during those times, I am lost.

Yes, we all know about loss—we all know that life moves from one place to another place and every time when the old is gone and the new is here, we feel dislocated, alone, and lost. Again, please note in the parables of the persistent housewife and the pursuing shepherd there in no injunction for us to do anything.  I almost wish there were.

No, we can not do anything or make anything happen.  But we can believe.  We can have the great faith that God wants us, even seeks us. And as we learn in the third parable of the lost son, we can turn and head toward home.  We can have the courageous faith that a hospitable God is waiting, even planning a holy party on our behalf.  What a radical, audacious and even childlike image!  “But my brothers and sister, it is the heart of the message of Jesus! Amen.

The Very Reverend Harry Pritchett

Comments? Contact Dean Pritchett at: hpritchett@stphilipscathedral.org

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