FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ATLANTA, GEORGIA

Sermon by Dr. George Bryant Wirth

 

Father’s Day

June 17, 2007

 

CHRIST AT THE CENTER:

LOST AND FOUND

 

Scripture:  Luke 15

 

INTRODUCTION

 

This Father’s Day sermon was born two months ago on a Sunday night as I returned home from LaGuardia Airport in New York.  It had been a great joy and an honor for me to preach earlier that morning at the Stony Brook School out on Long Island where I graduated back in the spring of 1965.

 

But because of the nor-easter, the worst in fifty years, that blew into that region over the weekend, Barbara, our daughter Aly and I left immediately after the worship service with the hope that we could beat the storm and catch our plane back to Atlanta.  We made it to the Delta ticket counter just in time and checked our luggage quickly en route to the gate…so quickly, in fact, that I did not notice the mistake which was made at that moment.

 

Saying goodbye to our daughter who lives in Harlem, we rushed to the plane and boarded, out of breath, but safe and sound and bound for home.  It was not a smooth flight, so I prayed fervently, drank a glass of chardonnay, and we were glad to finally touch down on the Hartsfield-Jackson runway.

 

The only problem was that, after what seemed like an eternity of watching the baggage carousel go around and around, my two pieces of luggage containing my favorite black robe and gray suit and purple tie, together with other personal items that were important to me and irreplaceable, did not come through the chute.

 

During the next hour, hunkered down in the lost and found department, I was told that my bags had been improperly tagged at LaGuardia and sent to the wrong destination.  The Delta employees were helpful and somewhat hopeful that my lost luggage would be returned, and they gave me an 800 number to call…which I did early the next morning…and then I went out there again on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday to see if any progress was being made.  Finally, my new friends said to me, “Go home Reverend – we will deliver the bags to you.”

 

And on Friday, that’s exactly what happened.  A courier named Mike came to the church office with the luggage, apologized for the inconvenience, and with Martha Olson as my witness, I hugged that man and thanked him.  He smiled and replied, “Reverend, what was lost is found.”  Without hesitation, I looked back at him and said, “Mike, that will preach!”, and so this sermon was born.

 

I

 

According to the 15th chapter of Luke, Jesus was on His way toward Jerusalem when He ran into the storms of resistance from some religious leaders, who criticized Him for spending time with “tax collectors and sinners.”  So Jesus confronted them with three stories – we call them parables – all focused on the theme of being “Lost and Found.”

 

The first was about a shepherd who lost one of his sheep and left behind the flock of ninety-nine to find the stray that had gotten away.  When he brought it home, there was great rejoicing among his neighbors, for that which had been lost was found.  And looking those religious leaders right in the eye, Jesus said, Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance (verse 7).

 

In the same vein, the second story tells about a woman who had ten silver coins and lost one of them.  She turned the house upside down until the coin was found and then asked her friends to join in the celebration.  Again, Jesus said Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents (verse 10), and by then, I think those self-righteous men were flushed in the face with anger and embarrassment.

 

But Jesus pressed the point with one final story about a prodigal son who wandered off into the far country, a loving father who hitched up his robe and ran down the road to welcome him home, and an older brother who was resentful and bitter while the party was going on.  The father went out to invite the sulking son to come in, but he wouldn’t do it.  So the father said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.  But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found (verses 31-31).

 

II

 

Now, there are more layers to these stories than we have time to unpack today.  Suffice it to say that anyone who has lost something of value and then found it, knows the sense of relief and joy which Jesus was talking about.

 

After telling my lost luggage story to a member of the congregation, he gave me this cartoon with which I instantly identified.  It depicts the first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina and three befuddled characters are standing around the old bi-plane on the beach.  The caption reads: “Immediately after Orville Wright’s historic 12-second flight, his luggage could not be found.”

 

The truth is, finding something we have lost can and will bring us a sense of relief and great joy.  But the point of these parables is not our possessions.  The real point, at a deeper level, is about people who think they have God all sewn up in their hip pockets, when what they actually need is to unlock their closed minds and hearts and allow the grace of God to come into their lives.

 

The real point of these parables, at an even deeper level, is about the people we love who sometimes lose their way, people we have lost through death or divorce or some form of separation which now needs to find some kind of reconciliation; people, as Kevin said in his children’s moment, who are leaving this church family - people we love – Ernie, Trisha, Charles and Eve.  This parable is about people like ourselves who often feel lost, or left behind or alone – and that takes us down to the deepest level of these parables, which are ultimately about all of the people in this world whom God loves with a love that will never let us go, an unconditional and eternal love with an open heart and outstretched arms, waiting and wanting and actively working to welcome us home.

 

God knows that’s what we need.  But for so many of us, these lost and found parables seem too good to be true.  Some of us have tried to earn God’s love through good works and helping others, only to discover that it’s not enough.  Some of us have attempted to keep all of the Biblical rules and spiritual laws, only to find that we’ve come up short.  And how many of us have wandered off into the far country like the prodigal son, thinking that the things we’ve done or left undone have burned the bridges that once connected us to God.

 

And that, my friends, is when it can happen – when we’ve tried everything and fallen flat on our faces, the grace of God comes through, like a father running down the road to embrace his son and welcome him home, saying “I love you.”

 

III

 

That’s what happened to Henri Nouwen back in 1986.  He was teaching at Harvard, writing books about the Christian life and lecturing around the world.  But his own world was falling apart as he struggled with physical exhaustion and spiritual emptiness, while he was living on the edge of emotional depression.

 

Fr. Nouwen had heard about a Rembrandt painting, “The Return of the Prodigal Son,” that hung in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.  And almost in despair, he went there and sat in front of that masterpiece for a week.  The transforming power of that famous painting, and the parable told by Jesus about a young man who was lost and then was found, gave Henri Nouwen the hope and faith and courage he needed to go on instead of giving up.

 

He resigned from Harvard and moved to Toronto as he became chaplain of the L’Arche Community, Daybreak, where he was accepted by and ministered to the severely disabled people there who became his family.  And over the next six years, he wrote a book which was published in 1992, entitled “The Return of the Prodigal: A Meditation on Fathers, Brothers and Sons.”  He was careful in this book to include mothers, sisters and daughters as he took the parable from the 15th chapter of Luke and re-told the story in light of Rembrandt’s painting.

 

That summer, Fred Rogers and I visited Fr. Nouwen in Toronto, and spent a week with him in prayer, meditation and open conversation about the book and the parable and what it all meant in our lives.  As we were leaving, Henri gave us both a copy of the painting which now hangs on the wall of the pastor’s study here, and a copy of his book, which he inscribed and which I will treasure forever, including these lines which mean more to me than I could every say:

 

“Here is the God I want to believe in: a Father, who, from the beginning of creation, has stretched out his arms in merciful blessing, never forcing himself on anyone, but always waiting; never letting his arms drop down in despair, but always hoping that his children will return so that he can speak words of love to them.  God’s only desire is to bless and say You are my beloved, and on you my favor rests.”

 

I have told you most of that story before, but there’s something more which I have not shared from this pulpit.  That Christmas, December of 1992, I gave my own father a copy of this book and inscribed it with these words:

 

“To Dad,

          With love from a prodigal son, eldest brother and now a father.  My visit with Henri Nouwen and Fred Rogers last July was very special…and so are you.

                                                          Gratefully,

                                                              George”

 

Four years later, on the 21st of September, 1996, Henri Nouwen died of heart failure.  And the following year, on the same day, the 21st of September, 1997, my father died from the same disease – congestive heart failure.

 

Not long after, as my sisters were going through our father’s library, they found the Henri Nouwen book which I had given to him and returned it to me.  As I looked through the pages, I discovered one in particular that was underlined and had obviously been read over and over again many times.  This is what it said:

 

          “For most of my life, I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God.  I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life…I have failed many times, but always tried again…

          Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me…God is looking in the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home…

          Wouldn’t it be good to increase God’s joy by letting God find me and carry me home and celebrate my return with the angels?  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to make God smile by giving God the chance to find me and love me…?”  (Pages 100-101)

 

CONCLUSION

 

As I read those words with tears in my eyes ten years ago, I realized as never before that my father and Henri Nouwen and all of us as fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers in God’s great family of faith have one thing in common.  Do you know what it is?  Once we were lost, but now we’ve been found through the love, forgiveness, and amazing grace of Jesus Christ.

 

Lost and found, my friends.  Lost and found!  Such is the amazing grace of God, and all we have to do is to believe it and receive it – and that will preach!

 

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

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