Lectionary reading: Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time - September 12, 2010: Luke 15:1-10

When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.'

LOST & FOUND by Larry Patten

In preaching, keep it simple. Right?

The layfolk, waiting before the preacher plunges into the morning’s message, are sprawled across the hard pews or soft chairs. They’ve been through a lot since last Sunday. One has a kid that just started school and a fellow student is already bullying the youngster. Another’s boss asked her to handle a new project and it’s already tough to get home by six or not work on Saturdays. It’s the third month in a row a guy who came late to worship has had to choose between paying the mortgage or the car insurance.

Keep it simple. They are tired; they are worried. They may appear calm in their cushy seats, but humans are clever about disguising doubts, failures and shame.

Keep it simple. Maybe other pastors have preached on a fine Sunday morning to a congregation desiring to grapple with the nuances of justification by faith or to examine demythologization, but that hasn’t been my experience.

I’ll wager this with you incandescent preachers and teachers and scholars that make me look like a worn-out fifteen-watt bulb: I can come up with one simple title that’ll be appropriate for all of Jesus’ parables and most of his ministry . . . Lost and Found.

I’m sure you’ll immediately show me how foolish I am. This parable or that healing could never be entitled Lost and Found. So, maybe I’ll lose the bet. However, in keeping Jesus’ message simple, I’ll still trumpet Lost and Found. From baptism to cross, from manger to tomb, from Mary’s first meeting with Gabriel to another Mary mistaking Jesus for a gardener, I’ll proclaim Lost and Found.

Lost. About five years ago, on the last morning of a backpack, with a smile on my face and clutching a plastic trowel and a slim roll of toilet paper (what do you think my plans were?), I took a few wrong steps and made several dull-witted decisions, and became lost. Confused. Bewildered in the wild. Tall trees surrounded me like I’d been plopped into the middle of a green maze. All I knew was that I’d stumbled through the forest and arrived at a tiny lake—an oversized bathtub, really—that certainly wasn’t my lake. I recalled that the topographical map tucked safely in my backpack described a lower, middle, and upper lake for the area. We’d camped at the middle one. Was I at the upper or lower lake? Or none of the above? Eventually I explored the inlet and outlet streams, searching for a connection. After an hour, I stumbled upon the correct outlet stream and returned . . . home. Oh, how I rejoiced. Oh, how my fellow hikers rejoiced with me.

Lost. Three years ago I walked away from serving a congregation. I was exhausted. Administrative and personnel details dominated the schedule and my family mostly got leftover time. I also wanted to write, to create a novel “today” rather than postponing it for the ever elusive “tomorrow.” Bold or deluded or both, I claimed a familiar J.R.R. Tolkien quotation as the mantra for my new writing ministry: Not all those who wander are lost. I placed it on the special stationary used to woo publishers. Tolkien’s declaration appeared as a coda on each e-mail sent to literary agents with samples of my writing.

Brave me, I wished to proclaim. I might wander from church and denominational responsibilities, but I’m not lost! I’m still engaged in ministry. However, three years after turning in the key to a sanctuary, and with enough rejections to wallpaper the bathroom, I wonder about my wandering. Maybe I’m not a good enough writer. Or I’m a good enough writer with bad luck. What a mistake I’ve made. The pool of money in my pension has become a stagnant puddle. Mr. Freedom To Write keeps dating Ms. Wrong Decisions (or her uppity sisters).

Lost. On the backpack, I experienced physical anguish. My heart raced and, even though a cool morning, the literal sweat of dread clung to my cheeks. As I write, worry and doubt shadow me. Every rejection is personal, as if some stranger elbowed me while I strolled innocently by; each revision of a novel seems more like painting over old clichés rather than brushing a page with transformational language.

Lost.

And yet there’s that other word at the end of Jesus’ parable and within each healing and miracle. Found. And, except on my worst days, my forest-as-maze and writing-is-futile days, I proclaim and claim the Gospel of Found.

I don’t preach much anymore. But I know what I’d say next Sunday. Indeed, every Sunday. For I know what the pew bound folks think. They think they’re lost. Abandoned. Trapped. Anxious. Overwhelmed. Under appreciated. So I’d tell ‘em, with my thudding heart and my self-doubts, I know you feel lost. I know that.

But God, and Jesus revels in this delightful truth, desires you found. Tell your spouse about being fired. Don’t be silent. Support your child who struggles against the bully. Don’t wait till tomorrow. Seek help to sort through the crushing bills. Don’t isolate yourself. Write the next sentence and trust it’ll be the one that leads to new life for author and for reader.

Keep it simple. All of us feel lost. But choose to seek the life-giving outlet streams; follow the path where found beckons.

in Peace,

Larry Patten

(Written on August 31, 2010)

Why AND YET?

As a conjunction, and yet connects two parts of a sentence or thought. When “and yet” appears, it bridges the two "parts" to declare more is coming.

I always use the phrase And Yet in my weekly reflections to remember that with God, there is always "more." I believe, in God's Realm of Love, that even the worst news is never the last news.