Reverend Ref +

YEAR C - PENTECOST 15 - PROPER 19

What is our mission? What is our purpose as a church? In the next several months, the vestry and I will be working on that, trying to determine where we want to go. But it's something we all need to think about. What is our mission? Is it to maintain the status quo? Is it to be God's gatekeepers and ensure that only proper people are allowed into church? Or is it to help facilitate repentance and an ingathering of those outside -- outside the family, outside the flock, outside the experience of God's love? Is it to welcome and invite the outsider? Common sense should give you the answer.

But it's not that simple; or, as a beloved seminary professor says daily, "It's more complicated than that." It's complicated because ideally we should live like Jesus -- welcoming the outcast, inviting the sinner, sharing meals with those who are different from us. And we know that. But practically . . . in reality . . . we tend to live like Pharisees.

As Christians, and especially as Episcopalians I think, we have developed rules and regulations and criteria for what it means to be a Christian. Some of those are important, such as baptism, communion, tithing and evangelism to name a few. Others are less so, such as proper attire, proper careers, right family situations, or comparing "we" who are in against "those" who are out. Like the Pharisees, we get caught up in the latter. We get caught up in enforcing rules of our own making. We get caught up in proper interpretations.

What this does, I think, is it sucks all the joy out of being a Christian. We become clinical, removed, making sure that all our 't's are crossed and our 'i's dotted. And we want to be sure that if WE are working that hard to get it right, then so should everyone else. Our expectations are that everyone looks like us, thinks like us, behaves like us.

God's expectations, though, are different. God expects us to recognize that we don't have all the answers, that many of our fellow humans are lost and that God is happy when the lost are found.

And speaking of being lost, is there any greater feeling of joy or happiness to a person than when they have found something that was lost. I'm sure that we've all lost a wallet, purse or keys at one time or another in our lives. Two weeks before we were to move from Evanston to here, my daughter lost her set of keys to the apartment building, the apartment and her bike lock. After the move, and after shipping her off to Spokane for two weeks to visit a friend, she found them in her suitcase about a week after she got home. Let me tell you, she was a happy camper. I usually lose things when I decide to put something in a safe place instead of its usual place. I can't tell you how many things have been lost and then found since moving here.

But people also lose more important things than wallets and keys. Like children. The Smart family comes to mind. So does the family from Missoula who had their 3 year old son wander off into the woods for three days. Look at the back of milk cartons, or the missing children flyers in your mail.

People get lost for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they simply wander away, sometimes they are purposefully taken, sometimes they run away. And when they are found, truly found, there is much rejoicing. Parents, spouses, siblings are all happy to have the lost person back in the fold.

Initially it doesn't matter if they return dirty or changed or half-naked. The only thing that matters is that they have returned. Over the long-term, yes, people care and they work to clean them up. And hopefully, between the efforts of both sides, wholeness and health are restored.

So it is with God. But in this view, God is the parent and the adults are the children. In this view, God is searching and hoping for the return of those children. The reason for the separation is ultimately the same. Sometimes people simply wander away, sometimes the spiritual forces and cares of this world kidnap and overwhelm a person, sometimes people are abused by the church and intentionally run away. Now it is God who is in the position of having lost something precious. And God does what any of us would do if our children were lost -- he puts together a search party.

That search party, in case you were wondering, is the church. That search party is us. It is our job to help find the lost. It is our job to help those "outside" move "inside." It is our job to help people become healthy and whole again.

That means it doesn't matter in what condition we find them. It doesn't matter if they are dirty, or different, or half-naked, or wearing the "wrong" clothes. We need to find them and celebrate at their return. The clean up will come over time. Over time the love we show them, the instruction we give them, and the community we share with them will help to heal them and allow them to return to God's family. What's initially important is that those who were lost have been found, and we should rejoice in that.

So, what's our mission? Listen again to what Jesus is saying in today's gospel. Our mission isn't upkeep. Our mission isn't to teach proper Episcopal etiquette. Our mission isn't even evangelism. Our mission, if you listen to what Jesus is saying, our mission is Search and Rescue.