Sermon All Will Be Well Week 3

Pastoral Welcome

Call to Worship

L: God calls to the lost, the least, and all who long for home;

P: God calls when we wander from the path chosen for us

and waste the gifts we have been given.

L: God calls and welcomes us back to worship this day;

let us celebrate and rejoice in God’s presence forever;

All: let us worship God together.God calls to the lost, the least, and all who long for home

Pastoral Prayer

Lord God, we so often don’t know what a day will bring. We wake up not knowing if this will be for us a day of celebration or a day of lament only you do. We enter into this new yea we give up control. We give up control of being in charge of all of the details. We give up control of our future, and we ask that in every moment of this next year that we would be faithful to you. Help us to worship you and to see you in this present moment. We know that so often the present moment is all that we know for sure. We give up our control of the past as well. We remember the joys and the pains that the last year brought us, and with your spirit we walk boldly into this day.

Lord in your mercy; Hear our prayer

We pray for those siting on hospital beds, surgery rooms, and in Doctors offices facing set back in health

We remember your ministry of healing and restoring,

In the midst of our own journeys where such healing and restoration seems difficult to find.

Open our eyes to the redemption that you offer to us

Lord in your mercy; Hear our prayer

Lord God we lift up in praise and in thanksgiving the many celebrations in our church communities. We lift up celebrations of birthdays, anniversaries, we praise you for the gift of experiencing new love, and for the wonder that we so often feel being a part of your creation.

Lord in your mercy; Hear our prayer

As we seek to be a confessing and repenting church

We confess before you this morning:

We have been unworthy servants.

We have misused and abused the creation.

We have wounded one another by divisions everywhere.

We have often failed to take decisive action

against environmental destruction, poverty, racism,

caste-ism, war and genocide.

We are not only victims but also perpetrators of violence.

In all this, we have fallen short as disciples of Jesus Christ

who in his incarnation came to save us and teach us how to love.

Forgive us, God, and teach us to forgive one another.

Lord in your mercy: Hear our prayer

Grant us compassion and humility in our relationships.

Release the gifts You have given to each one,

so that in us and through us,

Your kingdom might come and Your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

We offer in this moment of silence all of those things to your care.

Lord in your mercy: Hear our prayer

We think about the local, state, and national leaders. God we think about the leaders in our church and denomination, and we think about the leaders in our own personal lives.

Almighty God,

grant them wisdom,

insight,

patience,

dedication,

integrity,

open-mindedness,

and humility,

that each may be equipped

to honour the trust placed in them.

Lord in your mercy: Hear our prayer

And now we pray in one voice either from reading off the screen or from memory the prayer that you taught us. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.Amen.

Celebration 50 year members

4 - 50 year members

We know that we also have members at all three sites of our church that

Announcements

- CAT results

488 results it shows us that people care about the future of our church

People care about the mission of God

People care about being a welcoming place for our neighbors

Announcing Offering

Sermon

Have you ever been physically lost?

Those other folks getting lost on Pike’s Peak

14er

I was tired and out of shape

just barely got to the lodge

out of breathe, heard that some hikers were lost

search party went out

The joy I felt seeing over the crest of the hill them bringing back those folks was unreal

We

When you loose something, especially something important, it is on the top of your mind

If you have ever lost your keys, you know this. There might 100 other things that are of most importance but you lost your keys so that is all that you can think about

The moments where you have something and you loose it, that thing becomes the center of attention.

There is a stark difference between the grief of loosing something or someone forever, verses the inconvenience of misplacing things

Pandemic relations

Throughout the last year we have seemed to loose a lot of things

Some of those things might be gone forever

And some of those things might be stuff that we adopt back if our numbers improve

What we have lived through has been tremendous loss

As a faith community at our three site church as well as at this campus we have loss dearly beloved members of our church who have gone on to glory

We have lost in some way our sense of routine and day-to-day safety

We have seemed to have loss some worship practices, and small group practices, the way that we are able to be in relationship with the community around us has shifted really considerably

All Will Be Well

How is all well in the midst of loss?

We started out talking about

WK 1 - God can be trusted

Wk 2 - That God loves you so all will be well

Present tense

and I think you will find our scripture today to make a lot of sense to people who are experiencing lostness so this is our passage....

Scripture

Luke 15:1–7 NRSV

1 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” 3 So he told them this parable: 4 “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? 5 When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

Scripture breakdown

The world of Shepards

Economics they would be shepherding a communal flock

That’s why the whole community would celebrate

It was really their necks that were on the line they had to be accountable

When it says loose - that can be unaware of location, but it can also mean to destroy, or to have something disappear. In other words it’s not like they are saying a shepherd temporarily misplaced a sheep, this is saying that a sheep is MIA.

The theme that Jesus is associating with sinners

He pushes back again who is righteous and who is not.

The question we are left with is does Jesus love the 99 more, or does Jesus love the 1 more?

The answer of course, is yes, Jesus loves them both

Go back to that feeling of loosing something

loosing your kid in the store

misplacing phone wallet or keys

It becomes the center of your attention

Urgency is very different from importance

pre-marital activity

The lost sheep is urgent and important

The lost sheep is urgent because it is hurting

There is pain actively being caused to the lost sheep

Every second counts

Preferential option for the poor

God is a God of the lost

because seeking and offering love to the lost is urgent

It is not more or less important, but it is more urgent

Christs actions of love are prioritizing those that have been most hurt, those that have been most attacked, those that carry the biggest wounds. The lost sheep

Seeking the lost is neither safe nor comfortable

When Jesus "leaves the 99" that word is more like neglect, or abandons the 99. That is a really hard lesson for the 99 to hear.

Sometimes it feels like Jesus abandons you

Sometimes it feels like your church abandons you for the “new” people

If we are wanting to prioritize the lost we do need to give up our comfort

likely this felt like, why is Jesus abandoning me for others? Why is my comfort and security being put at risk so that others can hear the good news?

We can sometimes get into a dichotomy of seeing God’s salvation as only good news for some

God of the powerful

God of the powerless

What is being questioned here is EXACTLY that notion

“What if church was a place where everyone was safe, but no one was comfortable?” - Rachel Held Evens

There are 3 parables in a row about lost things. Jesus is talking about the things that we value and what is most important to us. The shepherd values the health and safety of his flock; the woman values the hard-earned money she has scraped up to support her family; the parent values the happiness and well-being of their children. God is like the shepherd/woman/parent who goes into search mode when one goes missing.

Because Jesus does not abandon us, all will be well.

Communal celebration that will happen

Jesus comes again and again. That’s the way we learn and grow in what Julian calls the “muddle of our life.” We need to learn to stand up to the wolf/evil that threatens us, and pray for God to reveal himself and fill us with the sweetness of his presence.

That same sheep is probably going to wander off again sometime in the future. Jesus already knows that.

Jesus is searching for us

like the sheep we can do all sorts of self-destructive behaviors

A lost sheep that is able to bleat out in distress often will not do so out of fear. Instead it will curl up and lie down in the brush, hiding from predators. It is so fearful that it cannot help in its own rescue. The sheep is immobilized and the shepherd must bear the full brunt of bringing it home. How easily the children of God wander away and become so lost, so filled with regret that they are unable to undo their mistakes.

The “righteous people” don’t get outcasted either

They get to join the celebration

They are blessed as well

It is easy to read this and see how God doesn’t abandon the 1 sheep, and perhaps even easier to imagine that we could be that one.

But God doesn’t abandon the rest either.

They were safe all along

There was nothing urgent happening

Instead the lost and lonely returning back becomes a joy for all

We are always doing that

Maybe you feel close to the flock and close to others, or maybe you feel that through your own actions you have strayed, in either case know that God does not abandon you.

Benediction

As you go out from this place know that there is not a single place that you could go this next week that would put you outside of the reach of Gods love. Know that no matter how far distanced you feel from others that reconciliation is still possible. Go now in God’s blessing and transformed through God’s peace.