Lost Coin, Lost Sheep, Lost from God...

As an older millennial, it often feels like my whole life has been marked by “unprecedented times.” Columbine happened when I was in middle school. I came back from a 9th grade camping trip to a world changed by 9/11. I graduated college during the Great Recession. I was teaching my first class of 7–9 year olds when Sandy Hook happened. I’ve watched as countless Black and brown lives were wrongfully taken, as America reckons with racism and classism. Then came COVID.

All along, a variety of political violence has occurred, in word and in action, that seem to permeate our culture more and more. And within the last few weeks, there have been even more: multiple school shootings in Minnesota and Colorado; the death of Charlie Kirk, a young conservative leader; threats to HBCUs throughout the country—all of which add to a culture of growing and active divisiveness and fear. It can all feel incredibly overwhelming.

Today’s Gospel offers us two parables, one familiar—the parable of the lost sheep—and one less so—the parable of the lost coin. These parables are shared with the crowd, made up of disciples, regular folks, but also tax collectors and sinners. Among them are also the Pharisees and the scribes, whose grumblings of “This fellow, Jesus, welcomes sinners and eats with them” are the catalyst for Jesus sharing these two particular parables.

In the first story, a shepherd leaves ninety-nine sheep to rescue the one who has strayed. When it’s found, there is rejoicing—not just privately, but with the whole community. In the second story, a woman loses one of her ten silver coins. She lights a lamp, sweeps her house, and searches carefully until she finds it. When she does, she calls her friends to celebrate.

This week, I found myself asking: what does it mean to be lost from God? At the beginning of this week, I had a very different sermon in the works. But the violent death of Charlie Kirk—and the second time this has happened this summer after the murder of Mark and Melissa Hortman in Minnesota—shifted my thinking.

Charlie Kirk’s Christianity was very different from mine. He said harmful things about gay and transgender people. He seemed to harbor resentment toward Black and brown people, fueled by anger at DEI and affirmative action. He likely would not have affirmed my ordination as a woman. He dismissed empathy as a made-up buzzword. And he believed gun deaths were an acceptable price for gun rights.

I would likely have considered him “lost” from the God, or at least far from the God that I know and follow.

And yet, I noticed that some people I often agree with responded to his death in ways that troubled me—forgetting he had a family who loved him. Forgetting that he too was a child of God. Forgetting to recognize another’s belonging, particularly when we disagree, when it is easier to dehumanize. But forgetting someone’s belonging is also a kind of being lost.

To be lost from God is to be easily swayed by the vengeance, violence, trauma, and fear of the world in such a way that we believe those are the only tools with which to combat the injustice of this world. And there is no side of the political spectrum that will keep anyone safe from being lost in this way. In the divisive world in which we live, we are often tempted to cast the other side as the problem, but in God’s economy, no one is disposable.

It is a tragedy for anyone to die in violent, unnecessary ways. Which means that God searches for those we disagree with. God searches for Charlie Kirk. God searches for victims of his rhetoric. And God searches for each one of us when we turn away in frustration or self-righteousness. She pursues all who are lost.

We often hear these parables and assume that the one who is lost was an outsider. That assumption influences the way we think about who the lost sheep or lost coin might be—someone the church hasn’t welcomed fully, someone we personally disagree with, someone whose faith looks different than ours.

But at the beginning of the parable, this lost one is part of the fold, part of the treasure. The one who is lost—be it you, me, someone we vehemently disagree with, someone hurt by the church for being who God created them to be—still belongs with and to God. And while this might be challenging to consider, this is good news.

The God revealed in the parable of the lost coin is a God who searches diligently for each treasured belonging. She uses the resources of oil and light to illuminate the home; she sweeps dust from every corner; she searches on her hands and knees with care; and when the coin is found, she throws a party to celebrate its return.

This is who God is for us. What a gift to have a God who cares so deeply for each of us. If we hope for that kind of God for ourselves when we’ve fallen away, we cannot withhold that same hope for others, even those we resist calling beloved.

Of course, the world can feel too divided, too violent, too fearful for this to be possible. But notice: the woman in the parable does nothing extraordinary. Her holiness is in the ordinary work—sweeping, lighting the room, searching with care. These are also the ways God tends to us when we are lost. And they are practices we can take up with and for one another. Ordinary work, infused with extraordinary love.

Those in our book group may recall what Rev. Lizzie McManus Dail writes in God Did Not Make Us To Hate Us: “God can feel far away, or impossible to grasp. And when we cannot feel that love, when the despair is too much, when we are full of rage that God would let this happen… our task is maybe not to love God in some big, holy, sky-reaching praise but to love the people God gave us right here. Love them imperfectly, inevitably. But love them. Love ourselves. And let this love ground us.” These words remind us to draw nearer to one another in the ordinary, especially when the weight of the world feels overwhelming.

In these days when violence feels relentless and division inevitable, it is easy to believe the world is too far gone, or that some people are beyond God’s reach. But the parable reminds us: the coin was never outside the woman’s household. It was always hers, always treasured. So too with us. So too with our neighbors—even the ones we struggle to love.

Our call is to allow ourselves to be found and carried by the God who searches for us with tenderness. And then, in response, to join her in the ordinary, holy work she is already doing—sweeping out the dust, lighting lamps where there is shadow, and searching with care for those who are lost to fear, despair, or division.

And when even one is found—when peace is restored, when reconciliation begins, when someone tastes mercy again—heaven itself rejoices.

So may we go from here held by the God who searches for us, refuses to let us go, and calls us to join in the seeking love that will not rest until all are gathered in. Amen.