September 11, 2022
Scripture: Luke 15:1-10
This fall, thousands of families took part in the annual ritual of dropping a child off for their first year of college. My husband John and I were among the throng, dealing with all the complicated logistics and more complicated emotions that go along with this milestone event. At her convocation address, the president of our daughter’s college remarked on the importance of three little words, especially when you’re in a new place. The words are: “You are here.”
“You are here.” To me these words almost have the power of an incantation. As someone who is always getting lost, someone who might not be able to find her way home most days if it weren’t for the newfangled miracle we call the global-positioning system, I adore seeing those words. “You are here.” Saying them out loud is like a talisman—you are here, you are not lost, you have nothing to fear. You are here. Now breathe and relax and figure out where you want to go next.
In my (rather copious) experience there are two different ways to be lost. One is an enjoyable kind of lost. You wander off the beaten path, you meander a bit, you see things you’ve never seen before. This is a pleasurable kind of lost-ness. It has some parameters around it and includes a sense of volition, of choice. You’re not utterly without bearings or landmarks; you know, for instance, that as long as you can see the river you can find your way to the road and eventually you’ll end up back at the campsite where you started.
The other kind of lost is not pleasant at all but instead tends to be panic-inducing. It’s the “I’ve taken so many wrong turns I can’t even figure out how to backtrack” kind of lost; it’s the “my cell phone battery is dead and my car is almost out of gas and it’s really dark out here” kind of lost. When you’re deep in the woods without water or a compass, being lost is not only not fun, it can be downright dangerous. And then when someone finds you and tells you where and maybe even shows you how to get back to where you want to be—that is a blessing and a relief and a gift all rolled into one.
I’m inclined to think that the sheep and the coin in today’s Gospel parables are there to remind us about that second kind of being lost, the scary kind. A coin can’t go out for a stroll, obviously, and it’s not safe in the wilderness for a sheep to be meandering on its own. The sense of urgency with which the shepherd and the housemaker both search out their lost objects certainly suggests that these incidents are far from trivial. In these stories there is something about the one who is lost that matters tremendously to the one who is doing the searching, matters enough to risk an awful lot to get out there and do whatever it takes to find them.
Think back to your own experience. What happens when you find something you’ve lost? You feel joy, relief, gratitude, and maybe a little regret at how silly you were to lose the thing in the first place. What happens when you are lost and someone helps you find your way back? You probably also feel joy, relief, gratitude, and maybe a little regret at how you got lost in the first place. It takes a lot of energy to find lost things or lost people, and what makes that energy worth it, according to the Gospel, is joy. The joy of angels, the joy in heaven, the joy that God feels when God is able to hold us close and whisper, “You are here. You are not lost. Breathe.”
As Christians, one way we commemorate and acknowledge the joy of being found is through the sacrament of Baptism. Rowan Williams, following on the Apostle Paul, talks about Baptism as us choosing to be in the neighborhood where Jesus has also chosen to be, choosing to participate in the life and death of Jesus. As Williams puts it,
That surely is one of the most extraordinary mysteries of being Christian. We are in the middle of two things that seem quite contradictory: in the middle of the heart of God, the ecstatic joy of [the Trinity], and in the middle of a world of threat, suffering, sin, and pain. And because Jesus has taken his stand right in the middle of those two realities, that is where we take ours. As he says, “Where I am, there will my servant be also.”¹
In other words, when Jesus says, “You are here” he is also saying that he will always be there with us. Baptism places us exactly where we are created and called to be. In Baptism, we promise to follow Jesus, to trust that as long as we go where he is leading us we can never really be lost.
So what do the words “You are here” mean in the context of the Church of St. Martin in the year 2022? It seems important to simply acknowledge that this is a complicated and transitional period we’re in, so being here might mean being physically present, or it might mean being here online, and either one is perfectly okay. It has been two and a half years, or 30 months, since March of 2020, when we first had to close our doors and shut down all in-person operations due to the lockdown.
Given that I arrived here in September of 2017, that means that exactly half of my tenure here at St. Martin’s has been in the midst of or under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic. I’m not sure I have anything terribly profound to say about that right now, but surely it is a significant thing to bear in mind as we move forward into whatever new work God is giving us to do.
For better and for worse, the “here” of St. Martin’s is not the same as it was two and a half years ago. The world is not the same. We are not the same. Many of us have adjusted our lives to spending more time at home, more time engaged with screens, more time connecting virtually or with a very small number of people. It took a lot to adapt to the realities of the pandemic, and it continues to take a lot to adapt to the new realities that are unfolding.
Knowing when and how to change our patterns, what to go back to and what not to go back to, what is working well as is and what needs to change, is really, really hard. It takes patience, discernment, and courage; it takes creativity and collaboration. It can’t be done in isolation or without compassion and consideration for the most vulnerable and marginalized in our community. This is work we must all put our shoulders to, because we all have something important to contribute.
It’s all a lot to contemplate, to take in. And yet, here we are. You are here and, more even than that, we are here. We are here in our very human messiness and muddle, and also here as a baptized and baptizing community, held in the heart of God. We are here learning together, serving together, eating together, laughing and even weeping together. At our best, we are here not as a gathering of individuals, but as a true community, rooted in faith and growing in hope, and yes, reaching out in love to those who are not here, who have not yet found their place in God’s Beloved Community.
In closing, I just want to say that I am so glad you are here, and so glad to be here with you. Let’s enjoy being here together, enjoy the blessing that this community is, and never forget that our purpose in being here is to bring that blessing and joy out into the world. Amen.
¹Williams, Being Christian: Bible, Baptism, Eucharist, Prayer (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014)
