I Am Found

Last month, I had breakfast over at the Corner Café, a place I have enjoyed many times. I greeted staff as I walked in, and they greeted me. However, it was not until I was getting ready to leave that I was fully known. Coming to the counter, the woman behind the counter looked straight at me and exclaimed with recognition: You are Peter’s mom! Lest, we forget. It is often the voice of others that God uses to remind us of our vocations.
This week, we continue in our series of messages about I am. We are looking at vocation and calling, who we are in relation to who God is and has called us to be. We looked last week at how God made us, fearfully and wonderfully. This week, we transition to how I live that out – what is God calling me to do? When we ask the question, Who am I? Who is God?, part of the question that we are asking is what should I do? If I know who I am, what should I be doing?
This is question of vocation and calling. For some this is easy and others impossibly hard, and for yet others, a moving and shifting target over time. There are always some for whom the question of finding vocation is easy. For the child who played school, one understands how they became a teacher and are fulfilled as children learn to read, write, and become empowered with education. For the individual always wanted to care for and heal illness, one celebrates the calling as doctor to care well for their community. But for many, vocation or life’s calling, is not so clear or easily discerned. In fact, many feel lost in trying to discover, what is God asking them to do with their life?
We work with our youth and in our youth to discern our callings. However, even when we think we have figured it all out – we get lost or something changes. Sometimes, events change our callings, our vocations. On this fifteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, here is a story of changed vocation, of being found. Vaughn Allex was a ticket agent for American Airlines in Dulles and by all accounts, proud of his role in helping others to travel. On Sept. 11, 2001, two men arrived at the ticket counter late for American Airlines Flight 77 out of Dulles International Airport. This was before the days of the Transportation Security Administration, when airport security was quite different from what it is today. At the time, Vaughn followed procedure and checked them through1. It was the next day that he came to realize that he had checked into two terrorists who crashed the plan into the pentagon. As others began to realize it, they would not speak to him. They began to blame him, and he blamed himself. He felt like there was no place for him in the world. His experience of loss was not the same as family whose loved one was killed, but the feeling of being lost was overwhelming.
Across years and with the assistance of discernment and his wife, Allex was able to ‘come out of a shadow, back in the light.’ (His words from a recent interview.) He retired from the airline and now works for Department of Homeland Security, providing logistical support to federal air marshals. He found hope and purpose in a new vocation that intentionally provides security where he felt he had failed. Seeking and being sought. Redemption.
Jesus tells the parable of the woman looking for the lost coin, the shepherd searching for the lost sheep. Did you catch that these wonderful stories of being found come out of criticism? Those gathered around Jesus, those with power did not like his habits of associating with those people. It was these critiques that Jesus addresses as he uses these two parables to describe God. God is deeply concerned with all people, sinners included. God’s heart is find all! When we lose a cell phone, we tear apart the house until we hear its ringtone. When we lose a wedding ring, we shake every piece of clothing and blanket until the pling on the floor is heard. How much more does God search for us??
When we are lost, God does not stop until we are found. For some of us, we have been found before the darkness of night ever settled in. For others, we have been lost across years. The one thing we cannot change is that we have all been lost and again, we will all be lost. We are in fact, repeatedly lost. But God has not stopped looking for us. God will never stop searching for us, calling out and sweeping the floors wildly in search of one lost sheep, one lost coin, one lost you! We are repeatedly found!
As we gather to worship this morning, a team from West Grove is down in Crisfield, Maryland on the Eastern shore doing some risk reduction mission work in relation and response to Superstorm Sandy. I was down with them on Friday and much of yesterday. Many stories will come up from this experience, but for today, I want to tell you the story of one man in Crisfield. He works at the United Methodist Volunteers in Mission site through which we worked. He mainly grew up in Crisfield and from the age of 14 developed talents as a carpenter. He told me the story of the early years in which he would find himself balancing two things: carpentry and drinking. He thought he had balanced them pretty well for the first 45 some-odd years of his life, until one day as he pulled up to the bar. He experienced the presence of God in the trunk with him asking when he was going to follow him!
He told me I didn’t know what my drinking buddies would think, my wife of 24 years, or my young daughter. The dad, the husband, the man they knew was going to change. It took a few years for it all to settle out and his wife and daughter to know Jesus and a few years more for the meaningful work of restoring homes and lives. It took years to get lost and years to be found. Seeking and being sought. Redemption!
Do you know what it is to be lost? Do you know what it is to be without purpose or meaning?
For each of us who is lost in fear.
For each of us who is lost in anxiety.
For each of us who is lost in worry.
For each of us who is lost in addiction.
For each of us who are lost in grief.
For each of us who is lost in numbing the pain of life, by not engaging those around us.
For each of us who is lost without purpose, looking for vocation and meaning.
It is for us that Christ searches. It is for us that Jesus does not stop looking. It is for us that God is always hunting until we are found! We give thanks to God for each time we are found and uncover that God has made us fearfully and wonderfully and found us for a purpose.
We have been sought are not off the hook. We who have been found are not on permanent holiday. We, too, have the looking and searching, to do. We who feel lost can be found. Nothing is beyond God. We who have run away. We who have gotten lost right where we started.
Like many of you, I had never forgotten that I was Peter’s mom, or Felicity’s or Alisabeth’s for that matter. However, there are times in which being found is not merely about knowledge, it is about value and encouragement. When life changes, when we are lost, when we are not exactly sure we will ever be found and find meaningful work and purpose, God has never stopped looking for us. God has never stopped offering beautiful opportunities for us to fit who God has made us to be. God has never stopped finding us. The Good Shepherd and Diligent Housewife, God has found us!
This is the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, thanks be to God , Amen.

1 http://www.npr.org/2016/09/09/493133084/on-sept-11-he-checked-hijackers-onto-flight-77-its-haunted-him-ever-since

New Testament Lessons: 1 Timothy 1:2-7
To Timothy, my loyal child in the faith:
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
I urge you, as I did when I was on my way to Macedonia, to remain in Ephesus so that you may instruct certain people not to teach any different doctrine, and not to occupy themselves with myths and endless genealogies that promote speculations rather than the divine training[a] that is known by faith.  But the aim of such instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith. Some people have deviated from these and turned to meaningless talk, desiring to be teachers of the law, without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make assertions.

Gospel Lessons: Luke 15:1-10
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.  And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

So he told them this parable:  “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?  When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.  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.’  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.

“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?  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.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Meditations For Your Week
Sunday, September 11 ~ Saturday, September 17

Sunday: “But the aim of such instruction is love that comes from a pure heart, a good conscience, and sincere faith.” 1 Timothy 1:5. God’s instruction for us is always good, always up-lifting, and always urging us onto perfection. Where is God instructing you? Through who are you learning about God’s ways?

Monday: “And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Luke 15: 2. Jesus raised eyebrows by connecting not just with the desirables, but all of the people of God. How are you connecting with all of the people of God?

Tuesday: “When he has found the sheep, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.” Luke 15: 5. Leaving the 99 does not endanger them, it does secure the 100th. Prayerfully consider the times that you have felt left as times that God’s presence has not left you, but rather sought another as well.

Wednesday: “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.’” Luke 15: 6. Show and tell is begun at a young age. How are you showing and telling the good things that God has done for you?

Thursday: “Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?” Luke 15: 8. We do not have a timeline on this parable. What if it took the woman days or weeks? Where are you searching even if it takes a long time?

Friday: “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.” Luke 15: 9. Where is God calling you to celebrate the lost being found and prayers being answered?

Saturday: “Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” Luke 15: 10. God’s joy over repentance is stronger than anger over sin.