Hi everyone,

Welcome to worship for this 14th Sunday after Pentecost, which lands on September 14th, 2025.

The bulletin for this service can be found here. You can use the bulletin to follow along with the service or the words you need to know will also appear on your screen, and the sermon text can be found on this page below the video.

If you’d like an enhanced worship experience online, you are invited to have a lit candle in your space for most of the service and extinguish it near the end after the sending hymn. You are also welcome to participate in communion by having something small to eat and drink prepared and ready for the appropriate time in the service. Further instruction will be given then.

May God’s expansive and steadfast love find you wherever you may be, this day and always!

By the gift of your Spirit, O God, may your truth be revealed, your wisdom heard, and your love felt by all, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

So these parables that we get for today shouldn’t be strangers to anyone.  Not because they’re super popular on their own, mind you, but because they are part of the same series of parables from Jesus that includes one of the most famous ones ever told: the Prodigal Son.  And while we don’t get that parable today, these three are usually interpreted together as having the same message.  In that, there was something or some one who changed their status from good to bad, from safe and secure to not so much, from found to lost.  But then there was some sort of reconciliation and the lost whatever it was is welcomed back with open arms and there is a celebration of some kind to that effect.

So often we think that the lesson in these stories is for us to repent from our lostness and turn back to God, who will graciously welcome us back for being the true repentant sinners that we are.  We’re taught that this is what we must do, how we get back into God’s good books, the formula for salvation, right?

Yeah except… I don’t exactly buy it.  Not because I’m this rabble rouser that likes to rouse up rabble, but from what I understand from scripture and traditional Lutheran theology, salvation is not up to us… not for us or anyone else.  It is 100% God’s gift alone by God’s own action, apart from anything we do or don’t do.  The offer of forgiveness is not beholden to our repentant hearts or lack thereof.  Grace by its very definition, cannot have any conditions attached to it.  That is just what salvation means to me.

Of course, I’m not saying that our salvation doesn’t change us or move and motivate us to be better, I’m just saying that those things aren’t precursors for what we are offered and receive as God’s beloved people in the world.  Like think about it, while the prodigal son, who again wasn’t included in today’s slew of parables, might have seemed to turn around in his ways to ask for forgiveness, he actually didn’t. According to the story he had no intention on repenting, reconciling, or being restored.  He just wanted a job.  He was content to stay as lost as he was.  But it was his father who forgave him without being asked to, welcomed him without obligation, and loved him without condition. 

Likewise with the other parables that we actually did get today.  The lost sheep didn’t ping the shepherd’s phone with the coordinates of their exact location and say sorry for wandering off, nor did the lost coin send an S.O.S. to its owner for it to be found and vow never to get lost again.  No, the respective sentient beings in these stories took the initiative to find, to recover, and to bring back into the collection and community where the formerly lost belonged.

See, these stories aren’t as much about the lost being found, but more about the guardians and caretakers going out of their way to find.  These parables aren’t about what we need to do in order to be saved, but about what God does to save us.  These lessons don’t teach us how to avoid being lost, but they teach us about God’s meticulous care and compassion in seeing us, knowing us, and reminding us that while we might feel lost from time to time, we are never forgotten.

And honestly, I don’t think this message could have come at a better time.  I mean, hasn’t the world felt really lost for the past while?  It’s like we’ve our way, we’ve lost ourselves, we’ve lost what it means to be collegial, considerate, and capable of any kind of relationship whatsoever.  And perhaps worst yet, it feels like we’ve lost respect for each other and especially for those who are different from us.  Instead of trying to work it out or learning to agree to disagree, there has just been more division, more finger pointing, more hatred on all sides.

And this is so concerning to me.

Sure, we might say that the world was never all that great to begin with, you know with the whole history of human war thing, but in the past few years it felt like any ground we’ve gained toward living peaceably with each other has been tossed out the window. 

You probably heard that this past week a prominent and outspoken personality in the States was shot and killed while having a public debate at a university.  The victim was very strong in their beliefs, opinions, and stance particularly in the political scope.  And I admit that he often rubbed me the wrong way because we couldn’t be further apart in our views and paradigms.  But that doesn’t mean that I wished him dead.  In fact, I totally did not.

But that doesn’t stop those on his side from accusing me and others who are not on his side in doing so.  Before any evidence at all, people were blaming and pointing fingers, loudly voicing their assumptions as though they were truth, and even writing and monetizing songs explicitly saying whose fault this is… again, without any evidence whatsoever.  And even now that the alleged shooter was found and didn’t exactly fit the mold of what they were saying, they continued with false narratives and rhetoric to justify their harsh and almost deadly feelings and intentions.

And that is what I see time and again, not just around this particular event but around the so many political deaths and threats and violence that just keeps happening.  It’s like people can’t stop pitting themselves against each other.  They can’t stop vilifying and dehumanizing those that don’t agree with them.  They can’t stop stewing in their anger and hate and directing it toward everyone else… but themselves.

And it’s awful.

What happened to us?  Why are we so divided?  How can we be so… lost?

I know, we all have ideas in our heads on who to blame.  And that’s the problem.  It’s always them.  Them on the other side of us, them who see things differently and don’t agree with us, them who don’t hold the same creed, opinion, and culture as us.  Like we have a say in their salvation. 

And I admit, I wish I do too.

But then texts like today’s, these parables remind me that it’s not their fault as much as we want it to be.  The coin didn’t decide to be lost, the sheep didn’t know better, the younger son only did what he thought was best for him and his future.  Ok, maybe that was his fault, but c’mon can you blame him?

And when I remember that the state of being lost isn’t a conscious choice and decision, I have to remember how being found is one.  But not ours, mind you, but God’s. 

See as Jesus teaches us with these parables, the point isn’t that we’re lost.  That just and will happen from time to time, that is just a part of life.  But the point is, the lesson here, the gracious promise from God is that the lost won’t stay lost.  The outcast won’t stay excluded.  The hated can and still will be loved.  We learn that God sees us, knows us, and saves us with a grace that could pick out a single coin out of ten or a sheep out of a hundred or a sinner like us out of an infinite amount of them.  And God chooses to find us, welcome us, and throw a party for us.

I know, this might not sound like good news, because honestly we kind of like hating on those we think are lost and hope they stay that way.  But we have to remember and believe that God’s grace can cover even those that we hate, because God’s grace covers us, who they hate.  God’s grace can and has to be able to cover the lines we draw, go over the walls we build, and traverse over the chasms we dig and widen between us.  God’s grace can and will find us, restore us, and rejoin us together in this same body of Christ that extends to all forgiveness, reconciliation, and salvation.

This reminds me of a quote that I heard from someone but can’t seem to find the source for, but it said something like “we pray to learn to love those we don’t like, and if we can’t, we pray that God can love them for us.”

Friends, this is my prayer for us today.  This is my plea for us as we carry on through this tumultuous landscape filled with tripwires and landmines.  This is my sure and certain hope in the resurrection, that no matter how gone our goodness and righteousness seem, no matter how far away our ability to get along feels like, no matter how lost we as a whole human race are, may we remember that God will find us, God will love us, and God will celebrate our salvation because we are just that loved.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.