“Acknowledging Our Lostness”
Isaiah 55: 6-9, Luke 15: 3-10
October 3, 1993
In another week, we will be celebrating Columbus Day. Unfortunately, I shall be in Connecticut next weekend and cannot be here to preach. So I’ll take advantage of your good nature and begin our thoughts with where I might have started next Sunday.
A week from Monday, many of us will be acknowledging the anniversary of when Christopher Columbus was discovered by the Native American people of the land. (I have a Native American friend who tells me that all our problems stem from the original inhabitants of this country having a very lax immigration policy!)
Anyway, returning to a week from Monday, the central theme of that day ought to be that Columbus was lost. He didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t know when he arrived. And he didn’t know where he had been when he reached home. The point I want to hold before you, as you think about the coming holiday, is that Columbus, when he came to America, was essentially lost. And we could conclude from all of this that being lost is not all that bad.
Our experience tells us just the contrary. The world says to avoid being lost at all costs. Seek to make life feel secure. The message from the world is to make your life feel homey.” “Homey” is where it feels safe and predictable. It’s where we feel protected and comfortable. It’s where we know where we are and know where we are going. It’s when the rules are quite dear and we feel that we belong. We’re at home.
Let’s be honest – we want to feel “at home” wherever we are. In the workplace, we want to feel “at home.” At home, we want to feel “at home.” And even in church, we want to feel at home. Last year, the greatest innovation introduced was the breakfast at 8:00. Not just because of the terrific food that the Crowley’s serve – although that’s there. And not just because of the opportunity it affords us to meet new friends around a table- although that’s certainly there, too. The breakfast is there because it gives off a smell throughout the “Church campus.” And that smell is associated with “home.” Visitors receive an instant subliminal message: “The church is like home.” (That’s called marketing the church – ain’t it grand?)
But back to the sermon. (I don’t want to give away too many of our secrets today.) There are some wonderful lines from a Christopher Fry play that go like this: Margaret: ‘Have you seen that poor Child, Alison? I think she must be lost.”
Nicholas: ‘Who isn’t? The best thing we can do is to make wherever we are lost look as much like home as we can. Now don’t be worried. She can’t be more lost than she was with us.”
“The best thing we can do is to make wherever we are lost look as much like home as we can.” We minimize our sense of lostness by ordering, managing, and fixing up our lives to appear as much like home as we can. I really believe that’s what the consumer mentality is all about. It’s not that we’re greedy – or even uncaring for the rest of the world. It’s simply that we’re desperately attempting to appear “not lost.”
I ran across a new item at the car wash the other day. It was a fake cellular phone. If you can’t afford to buy a cellular phone, at least you can appear to have it by carrying around this phone. But in the land of unreality, the bills pile up. If we have to keep making our lives appear to be with it -if we have to continue to cover up our lostness – someday we will have to wake up to our real situation.
There is a great line from a Romanian poet that reads: “I wanted to wake you up, but you are dreaming this merry nightmare so deeply.” Our merry nightmare that we dream is that we can fool ourselves into thinking we’re not lost. Or we can consume enough or carry around fake cellular phones so that it appears as if we are at home.
The biggest problem Jesus faced in New Testament times was to wake people up. The conflict he had with the Pharisees and other religious people stemmed not from their sins, their bad deeds, or their lack of ethical standards. Instead, it came from their many dreams, which made them feel they were at home with God. Reality would have told them they were lost like everyone else. In today’s terms, we might say their middle-class morality made them feel comfortable and kept them from being receptive to the Gospel. Jesus kept repeating again and again: ‘I have come for the lost, ‘ and I sincerely believe this is why so many religious people were never able to see and understand Jesus.
Good people – oops – I’m perpetuating the myth. Lost people – remember – the beginning point, the start of experiencing the Gospel of Jesus Christ – is acknowledging ‘lostness.” Often it takes a lifetime to admit to ourselves – let alone to anyone else – that we are lost and need to be found. I recall seeing a T-shirt a few years back, and it said: “Don’t follow me -Fm lost.” Maybe we all ought to wear one of those on a Sunday. At least it might be the beginning of honesty. Remember this, if nothing else from this sermon-if we can’t acknowledge that we’re lost, then we can’t be_ found.
The parables which we just read of the lost sheep and the lost coin, according to Fred Buechler are the “fairy tales” of the Gospel. They are pretty word pictures that begin with bad news. They begin with lostness. Then they demonstrate that if there is no lostness, there is no foundness. We could even go so far as to say they commend lostness as a necessary starting point for us all.
If the one sheep had had the good sense that the 99 others had – and not been adventurous, and gotten lost – there would have been no need for a rescue by the shepherd. And no joy when the animal had been found. If the coin had not slipped and rolled into some dark recess of the house, the housewife would not have gone crazy looking -nor would she have rung up the neighbors to share her joy when she recovered it.
So in a sense, the central characters of the story are the lost sheep and the lost coin. Without their lostness, the story would have no meaning. The problem today is that we hear a parable like that and we think we should identify with the shepherd, or the woman who searches for the coin. Not so – the parable is about us. We are the sheep – we are the coin. We are like Columbus, who, without being lost, never would have found America.
The great spiritual writers from Paul to Augustine have always taught that the essence of the religious life does not occur when we obey the rules. Nor does it happen by studying the Bible (however salutary that may be). The essence of the religious life starts by acknowledging your lostness. In practical terms, the great spiritual writers suggest that we be committed to truth-telling – owning up to being less than perfect, beginning with the fact that we haven’t got it all together – admitting our brokenness. It’s only then that you are open to being found.
In AA meetings, I’m told, the speaker begins by saying: ‘I’m so and so – and I’m a drunk.” Maybe we could start our church meetings, or our sermons by saying: ‘My name is Roger and I’m lost.”
Let it be, Lord – let it be.
Amen