Abstract
All lost, to prayers, to prayers, all lost.
These are the words of the mariners in Act 1 Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s Tempest as a ship breaks up and goes down, lost to the murky depths.
In Luke’s Gospel we read that: ‘the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost’ (Lk. 19.10).
We also read Jesus’ challenge: ‘For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?’ (Lk. 9.25).
We all know what it means to be lost. Perhaps you harbour a childhood memory of being lost in a supermarket or on a hike? Or as a parent, perhaps you remember when a child of yours vanished out of sight, and panic welled up until such time as the lost one was found?
To be lost is to be disorientated. It’s to fail in attentiveness. It’s to lose sight of a person, object or destination. To lose or be lost gives rise to anxiety, regret, and in retrospect, shame.
We can speak metaphorically of a person losing their mind or their life, of a team losing a match, or a church or nation losing its way.
In 1933 Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave a sermon at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin. This is the same year that Adolf Hitler become Chancellor, a concentration camp was opened at Dachau, laws were passed legalising eugenic sterilisation, and all non-Aryans were forced out of the civil service, and from holding certain positions in the state-affiliated Church.
Bonhoeffer was convinced that the state, and much of the church, had lost its way. Both were abandoning their vocation in the thrall of fascism. The state was persecuting citizens it was obliged to protect, and the church, bitterly divided but largely quiescent in the face of the state’s racist and ablest agenda, had lost sight of the Gospel.
Taking as his text Exodus chapter 32, Bonhoeffer challenged the congregation to consider what the episode of the Golden Calf might mean for them at that moment. In effect, there were two models of Church on the table. One was that of Aaron, which he called the ‘worldly church’ and the other was the ‘church of faith’ represented by Moses.
The worldly church is a lost church, according to Bonhoeffer. It’s led by Aaron who crumpled under popular pressure. He took a role in sculpting the Golden Calf and turned a blind eye as the recently freed Hebrew slaves turned their hearts from the one, true and living God, toward an object that mirrored their own desires.
The worldly church has all the trappings of religious piety, but has made God a pliable object to suit its own ends. Such a church takes its cue from the impatient Hebrews in the desert. It’s impatient with the slow work of God’s Kingdom, always tempted to latch on to worldly brute power or the latest marketing gimmick to make itself feel relevant and successful. Such a church yields to temptation; it has no root, it makes sacrifices at altars not of the Lord. Such a church is truly lost.
By contrast ‘the Church of faith’ represented by Moses, emerges from these temptations purged and refocused. The Golden Calf lies shattered as the faithful hear again the voice from the burning bush, the voice from Mt. Sinai, the voice from within sheer silence, and voice from within the whirlwind: ‘I am the Lord your God’. This church listens again to the voice of the one who says: ‘I have come to seek and to save the lost, follow me.’
We should not overlook the fact that rescuing the people of God from their waywardness and delusions comes at a cost. Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazis shortly before the War ended. Moses stood in the breech; that painful chasm of alienation between God and his people, pleading with God to spare them despite their faithlessness. And in this, Moses anticipates Christ, who stood in the breech of sin pleading for an end to the worship of violence, money, and power; pleading from the cross with arms outstretched, urging us to give up worthless idols and to know and love the one, true and living God.
In the reading from Luke’s gospel, we encounter stories told by Jesus as a way of explaining his ministry to his critics. These critics are alarmed that Jesus keeps company with tax collectors, who are seen as collaborators with an occupying foreign power, as well as those rendered untouchable because of ritual or sexual misdemeanour. Jesus replies by speaking of a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. Each story contains scenes of joy as the lost are recovered. Jesus is one who seeks and saves the lost. He can also take up the mantle of a firebrand prophet, telling puffed-up religious elites that they occupy the worst of all possible worlds: they are lost but their pride does not allow them to see it!
As we think about the Gospel reading in light of the Old Testament reading, it might pay to consider the ways in which we, and the churches we belong to, might be lost. Have we become impatient, wandering far from the one, true and living God, dazzled and distracted by idols? We may not be constructing golden calves, but there is more than one way to fail in following Christ, and more than one way to delude ourselves. Individuals and churches can grow impatient with the slow, transformative work of the gospel. Instead, we can seek more rapid forms of gratification that meet definitions of success laid down by cultural influencers, which take us to off the narrow road of discipleship and true worship.
There are two questions to ask ourselves as a way of testing whether we are lost or found in God’s eyes.
The first question is whether our lives and our churches are cross-shaped. Are we with Christ, suffering and serving in love and for love? Are we seeking out the lost? Do we have the honesty and humility to confess the ways in which we are lost?
And secondly: are our lives and our churches characterised by joy? Do we have the joy of the widow who finds her coin, the joy of the shepherd who finds his sheep, the joy of the father whose prodigal son returns, and the joy of heaven over the one sinner who repents? To be found by God, to be freed by Christ from sin, and to know the love of the Spirit; this is the wellspring of a Godly and resilient joy.
Amazing grace (how sweet the sound) that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.