Jeremiah 4:11-12; Luke 15:1-10

As I have reflected and meditated on the lessons for this week, I looked at the lesson from Jeremiah and came up with two words: total despair. Although the text is set in a larger context that finds the prophet still believing that the people may repent and that Yahweh's judgment may be averted, the mood of the verses appointed for this day seems completely negative.

This passage is a poem of unique power, wrought with exquisite finesse. In the cycle of poems which includes it, it stands clear like the prime jewel in a ring of lustrous splendors. It is the peak point of feeling, where the soul of the panic-stricken victim is overwhelmed with the onslaught, and his consciousness floods, and his little cosmos of false securities, projected so stubbornly upon his narrow world, topples over into disorder, rampage, and ruin. Truly there is a sense of loss. "I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void; and to the heavens, and they had no light. I looked on the mountains, and lo, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro. I looked, and lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the air had fled. I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the Lord, before his fierce anger" (vs. 23-26).

Paul Tillich in the title sermon of his book, "The Shaking of the Foundations," in which he brings this passage from Jeremiah into conjunction with two passages from Isaiah, writes: "There was a time when we could listen to such words without much feeling and understanding. There were decades and even centuries when we did not take them seriously. Those days are gone. Today we must take them seriously. For they described with visionary power what the majority of human beings in our period have experienced, and what, perhaps in a not too distant future, all persons will experience abundantly: 'The foundations of the earth do shake.'"

For us it is no longer "merely a poetic metaphor" to say that the "earth is split in pieces". It is an ugly fact. We know where the splits are; we can name them; we can point to them on a map whether in Europe, Africa, Asia or the Middle East. We can also point to the shaking of the foundations in our own land.

How did the "New York Times" say it in yesterday's lead editorial entitled "Shame at the White House.?" "Until it was measured by Kenneth Starr, no citizen -- indeed, perhaps no member of his own family -- could have grasped the completeness of President Clinton's mendacity or the magnitude of his recklessness. Whatever the outcome of the resignation and impeachment debates, the independent counsel report by Mr. Starr is devastating in one respect, and its historic mark will be permanent. A President who had hoped to be remembered for the grandeur of his social legislation will instead be remembered for the tawdriness of his tastes and conduct and for the disrespect with which he treated a dwelling that is a revered symbol of Presidential dignity."

All the foundations of personal, natural and cultural life have been shaken. Whenever either the poetic or the prophetic consciousness I forced so absolutely into the time's concussion as Jeremiah knew it and as our more sensitive contemporary voices know it, "only two alternatives remain---despair, which is the certainty of eternal destruction, or faith, which is the certainty of eternal salvation." And that wonderful sense of being "found" after being lost is seen as Jeremiah says :" The whole land shall be a desolation; yet I will not make a full end." A note of mercy; a note of grace; a note of being found again by God. God again gives the chance of being moved from "lost" to "found."

How eloquently that theme is developed in the gospel for today. Jesus offers these moving parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin to reinforce what we have heard from the prophet Jeremiah that the lost will be found , supported and nurtured by a loving God.

What do these two stories, of the last sheep and the lost coin, depict for us. The first and most obvious element common to both parables is the compassionate concern of a searching God. The Call to Worship said it well: "God will not let your foot be moved, God who keeps you will not slumber. Behold God who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper, the Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night. God will keep you from all evil; God will keep your life. God will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forever more." (Psalm 121)

The details heighten the importance and intensity of the story. The shepherd risks temporarily abandoning the ninety-nine sheep in the wilderness, and when he finds the straying sheep "he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices" (15:5). A gospel hymn of the 19^th. Century frames this story well: "There were ninety and nine that safely lay in the shelter of the fold; but one was out in the hills away, far off from the gates of gold. Away in the mountains dark and drear; away from the tender shepherd's care." The focus of this hymn was to bring in that lost soul even as our Lord brought back the lost sheep.

The woman is described as lighting a lamp and taking broom in hand in her attempt to recover her missing coin. Neither the shepherd nor the woman has a moment's hesitation as to what to do; neither forsakes the search until the sheep or the coin is found.

God is like that, the stories say, meticulously pursuing confused and rebellious creatures. Another thing that occurs to me about these two stories is the striking image that heaven delights in the recovery of the lost. So overcome are the shepherd and the woman with the success of their search that they call their friends and neighbors to come for a party. Neither wants to celebrate alone. As biblical commentators note, the expense of the entertainment may have been more than the value of either the sheep or the coin, but that possibility only adds to the extravagance and joy of the occasion.

The lost is found and for that we can only be grateful. True evangelism, the seeking of the lost, shares an angel gladness. One soul coming home to God brings joy in earth and heaven, a better joy than when "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons (and daughters) of God shouted for joy" (Job 38:7).

Lost and Found. Could any words more thrillingly tell the compassion and love of God? God cannot rejoice alone; God needs to share God's grief and joy with men and women and angels. Our only true joy is that which comes from God by God's sharing, the joy of finding the lost. At long last there can be no other joy than God's joy, any more than there can be light on earth without the rays of the sun. Are there any words in the Gospel more filled than these with morning light?

"How uplifted the heart trusting Thee, O Infinite God…

O trees, wave before God, proclaim God's glorious might!

Praise God, all nations, and join the heav'nly host.

Praise God, ye people, and swell the glorious song.

Resound, ye suns, on your pathway of light; join the heav'nly choir.

The glorious splendor of all the heav'ns and earth ne'er can praise God enough.

Got it is whom we praise."

When we are lost; we will be found by God.