06 21st Sunday after Pentecost

            Have you ever been lost?  I don’t mean what happens when you are trying to find your way through Highland’s Ranch, but I mean really lost?  I experienced it once when I was at Chaplain School.  We were doing land navigation and they gave us a map, that does not look like any map I had ever seen.  They gave us that and a compass and said good luck.  I knew what it was like to be lost.  Have you ever been lost?  It isn’t much fun.

            But being lost physically is not only way to be lost is it?  I mean there are other ways to be lost.  What do you think?  What are some other ways to be lost?  Mentally, emotionally, spiritually.  And just like being lost physically these are not fun experiences.  They are scary, they leave us feeling isolated and alone.  Sometimes we can even feel hopeless.  Being lost is no fun.

            Jeremiah speaks of a group of people who are lost.  They are the exiles from Israel.  That is the northern kingdom of Israel to be exact.  But to the stage set right for this story we need to go back in time.  Mt. Sinai, do you know what important event took place at this mountain?  It was here that God made a covenant, a promise, a deal with Moses and the Children of Israel.  They had just left Egypt and they ended up here.  And at the foot of this mountain, God made a promise to them.  He said, “I will be your God.  And you will be my people.  This is how my people will live.”  And he gave them the ten commandments.  There was another part to this deal.  As long as the people lived by the commandments they would stay in the land that God was going to give them, but if they did not keep those commandments… They would have to leave the land.

            Now jump almost a thousand years ahead.  The Children of Israel have now become two separate kingdoms.  The northern kingdom is Israel the southern kingdom is Judah.  And Neither has been doing a good job of keeping the commandments.  In fact they are worship other gods and doing all kinds of horrible things.  So the northern kingdom gets kicked out of the land.  The Assyrians come along.  You might know them better as the Ninevites from the story of Jonah.  They come in and remove the people from the northern kingdom and relocate them to different parts of their empire. 

            So now they live in different parts of the kingdom.  And a different peoples have been transferred by the Assyrians to their old home lands.  They are lost.  And it is not a good thing.  Their sin has brought about the judgment of God, and what happened is right and just.  But you know what.  God’s judgment is not his final word.  Not in this case.  No here the final word is a promise of restoration. 

Listen to these beautiful words, “This is what the Lord says:  ‘Sing with joy for Jacob; shout for the foremost of the nations.  Make your praises heard, and say, “Lord, save your people, the remnant of Israel.”  See, I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the ends of the earth.  Among them will be the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labor; a great throng will return.  They will come with weeping; they will pray as I bring them back.  I will lead them beside streams of water on a level path where they will not stumble, because I am Israel’s father, and Ephraim is my firstborn son.’”

This is some of the most beautiful imagery and poetry in all of Scripture.  The names Jacob, Israel, Ephraim, those are all references to this group of people.  The pictures of level paths and beside streams of water are comforting easy travels.  And God as their father, says that even though they received his judgment, they did lose his great love for them. 

In these beautiful words, our great God talks about welcoming back his people.  They don’t come find him, but he brings them back to himself.  They are words of grace, comfort, strength, and most importantly they are words of hope. 

Now let’s make another jump in time.  This time let’s go about two thousand seven hundred years.  Today.  You and me, here and now.  What is the connection that we share with the people who are called Jacob, Israel an Ephraim in our reading? 

We are sinners.  We too fail to keep God’s commandments.  And no matter how hard we try, we fail, we will fall short.  And like them we deserve God’s wrath.  But what happened?  We have been restored.  We are not separated from our God, but rather, he was welcomed us. 

Now this is very bad grammar, but it is good imagery, so please bear with me.  Consider the welcome mat.  What word is printed on it?  Welcome.  This is a nice sign for guests and visitors.  But it can also have some theological significance.  Because it can remind us that God has welcomed us.  Though we were separated from him by our sin; though we deserve nothing but death and separation from him; our God loved us so very much that he did not want to be separate from us, and so he welcomed us, and you can even see that in this word “welcome.”

The first two letters spell a word.  What is it?  “we.”  We are the recipients.  We do not, have not, cannot initiate anything, but rather our God, does, can and has initated it.  Now the second and third letters also spell a word.  What is it?  “el.”  Now it is a word, not an English word, but it is the Hebrew word for “God.”  Now what word do the remaining letters spell?  “come.”  So in this word we see this statement, reminder.  To  We, El Comes.  Or To We El has Come.  Now how does this work? 

Well allow me to take the analogy a little further.  In days past, when it was safe to keep such a thing out, what was most often stored under such a mat?  A key.  A key that would open the door to the home.  Well, under this mat there is also a key.  But this key is the key of David.  This is a cool image.  Because do you know what the Key of David is?  It is none other than Jesus.  We get this image from two sources.  One is the book of Revelation, where Jesus is described as holding the Key of David.  The second is from the hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” 

So to We El has Come, and he has come in the key of David.  That is God has come to us in Jesus.  Through his sinless life, his death on the cross and his resurrection three days latter, God has welcomed us into his family and we belong to him.  Not because we know the right things, or do the right things, and not even because we are good looking, but because of Jesus, for his sake, God welcomes us.  Isn’t that cool.  I love it.  To We, El has Come. 

Great.  Wonderful.  Awesome.  I love it.  End of story, right?  No.  Not really.  No.

Now what do we do?  Where do we go from here?  What is our role in the story?  Our piece of the puzzle, how do we fit?  It is our job now to be welcomers.  I’m not even sure that is a word, but it is now.  It is our Job to welcome people.  Now we can’t bring salvation to anyone, that only comes through Jesus, but what we can do is proclaim that good news.  To tell the world of how God has welcomed us through Jesus. 

What are some ways that we might do this?  Words of love and comfort.  Acts of service and sacrifice.  Because we who have been welcomed by our God.  We who have had El Come to us, we have his named placed upon his.  We bear his mark.  We represent him to this world.  And so we are to live our lives in a way that reflects that.  We are to love this world that he loves, so we care for it.  We are to love the people he loves, even if they are unloveable.  We are to speak his words even if it means being unpopular. 

Being God’s.  Being welcomed by him, does not mean that we just come to church once a week, or twice a month, or once a month.  But being welcomed by him changes how we do things, and where our priorities lie.  We do the things we do for our neighbors.  God does not need our good works, but our neighbors do.  And so we seek to welcome them. 

Can you begin to imagine how different things would be if we lived this way.  Now changing the world is big and intimidating, it is not to be neglected, but let’s narrow our focus a bit.  Imagine how life at Our Father would be if we lived with God’s welcome as our focus.  How might things be different? 

Well you know what?  We can do that.  It starts with us, here and now. Let’s be God’s welcomers.  Let’s be mindful that to We El has Come, and that we want to share that with the people around us.  To show that this place is different, because our God is here.  There are many opportunities to do that here, so let’s plug in and do it.

Now, if I may make a suggestion.  This worship gathering is one of my favorite times of the month.  I look forward to this with great anticipation.  And I know that it has touched your lives.  Plans are in the works to have this gathering meeting twice a month, beginning in January.  This gathering is a mission.  It is an opportunity to be a door to welcome people into God’s presence and into his family.  And I firmly believe that once this gathering happens more regularly that the opportunities to touch lives and be wlecomers will increase greatly. 

The team that plans this is a wonderful group of people.  We don’t just work together but we have become close friends, and we have grown from the time put into this worship gathering.  Please take some time to pray and consider if you would contribute to this gathering.  This is a great way to welcome.  Pray for this worship gathering and all those involved with it, that it would be a blessing.

To We El has Come.  In the person of Jesus, he has given us forgiveness, life and salvation.  May you always know the joy and comfort of having God’s welcome, and may you be strengthened in your welcoming of others.  Amen.