"Darkness Rising"
Polk City UMC
September 13, 1998
Mark Haverland




Luke 15:1-10
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." So he told them this parable: "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' 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. "Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When he has found it, she call together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."






We spent a quick four days over Labor Day visiting my father and Faith's mother in Florida. It was an important way to end the summer with a visit to the grandparents for Kate and a short get-away for all of us. The flight down took place in the evening, so we watched the sun set as we flew southward. The time and altitude of the flight gave gorgeous proof that one of our common expressions is very wrong. We tend to say that darkness or night falls over the land. It is quite clear that this is not the case. In fact, just the opposite happens, darkness rises from the earth as the sun set over the horizon.


The natural state of the earth is darkness. Light must come to us from outside. When the sun stops shining, we find ourselves in the dark.


I thought of this scene as I read the scripture for this morning. The shepherd and the woman with the lost coin, both abandon the light to seek in the darkness for what is missing. So it is that God has entered the darkness of our world, at some peril it seems, to find us and bring us home. One of the lessons of this scripture is the surprising one that God's work of salvation is hard work, even for God - and somewhat dangerous, even for God. We who are lost in the darkness are hard to find sometimes, and danger lurks for the seeker in the dark corners of our world. We worship a strange God who is saddened by our descent into the darkness of our world, accepts the risks of a journey and a task which is very difficult and risky, and rejoices at the success of his rescue. Are not all things easy for God? Is not the power of God such that God, unlike us, works all things effortlessly? The parables say, not so. God's work of salvation is a work of divine cost.


A movie playing at the Cobblestone, Return to Paradise, tells the story of two friends being asked to return to a tropical island to rescue a friend who has been sentenced to hang. The two friends bear some responsibility for the crime. If they return, they can save their friend from death, but each will have to spend three years in jail. If only one goes back, he will spend six years in jail. If neither goes, their friend will be executed. The dilemma of the movie is their choice to return or not to return to the darkness to save their friend. Is not this the choice we often make when it comes to rescuing our neighbor? Will we have the courage to rick a journey into darkness to find the one who is lost?


"Lost." Jesus seldom called people 'sinners.' He called them "lost." Sometimes they are lost like sheep, not from viciousness or deliberate choice but from weak will and heedlessness. Sometimes they are lost like coins, not from their own guilt but from another's fault or the mischances of life. Sometimes they are lost like the prodical son through calculated self-will. The word of God breathes pity more than condemnation, and it reveals God's vulnerability and loneliness when we abandon him and get lost in the darkness of our world.


One lesson we should clearly draw from these parables of lost sheep and coin is to remember what it feels like to be lost. We saw a vivid illustration of panic on a visit to Busch Gardens last Sunday. We gave Kate a much deserved and desired break from all the old people we were visiting by spending the afternoon at the neat African theme park in Tampa. As we joined the crowd streaming out of the dolphin pavilion after the show, a small boy of about four or five I would guess got separated from his father. His fright and panic were heart rending as he raced back and forth in short burst crying out for his father, not knowing if Dad was in front of him or behind. His fear he was hopelessly lost and completely helpless in the crowd of strangers was all too evident on his tear streaked face. All of us fear abandonment, and many experience it, even as adults - but few of us demonstrate the utter terror of the experience as that young boy did right in front of us. I was helpless to intervene, because I too did not know which direction salvation lay. But a very wise woman, whom I never did see, but heard very clearly, calmed the boy from the crowd. She called out to him, "Wait, someone is calling for you. Someone is looking for you. Listen, someone is calling your name." I don't think Dad was calling his name, but we all knew he couldn't be far away since we were still just a few feet from the stands on the ramp leading down to the ground. The words "Someone is looking for you" had a magical effect on the small boy. Instead of being afraid he would never find his father, he realized that someone was looking for him. They had not abandoned him. He was wanted, needed, desired. He was the object of a search. What a brilliant woman to realize the comfort of knowing that someone else wants to find us.


Our task as Christians is to let people know that God wants to find us. God is seeking us out. God is lonely and afraid that he won't find us. We don't need to race around frantic and panic stricken trying to find God. If we would just stand still for a while, maybe God could find us.


One day two thieves walked into an unlocked house while the people who lived there were out somewhere. They stole the floor model TV set and were carrying it down the street. A policeman in a squad car spotted them, pulled up to the curb and stopped. As he got out and walked toward the two culprits, who realized they had been caught red handed, one of the crooks said to him, "Boy, am I glad to see you. I'm so tired of carrying this thing I'm about to drop." The policeman, of course, did not have much choice but to arrest them. The two of them were, of course, found guilty. Before sentencing them, the judge asked them if they had anything they wanted to say. "Yes sir, your honor, there is," one of them said. "Do you think you could give me some of that mercy instead of that there justice?"
Whether the human judge choose justice or mercy, our heavenly judge always chooses mercy. We know this because the Bible tells us so.
For forty years God led the Israelites through the wilderness after liberating them from Pharaoh. For forty years God saw that they had food and water in that harsh region. For forty years God stuck with them. Then, as soon as they got close to their destination, while Moses was up on the mountain getting from God the terms of God's partnership with the Israelites, they turned their backs on God and gave their allegiance to another god. God felt so betrayed that he made up his mind to wipe them out. But Moses chided God into remembering his love for Israel and his promises to them. And God's heart melted, and he decided to give them yet another chance. It's enough to make anybody with a sense of justice throw up his hands in bewilderment.
Saul of Tarsus did everything he could to stamp out Christianity. He actually held the coats of the anti-Christian zealots who stoned to death the first Christian martyr, Stephen. Did God strike Saul down as Saul deserved? Hardly. God went after him, turned him around and made him one of the top leaders in the church. How would you have felt if you had been a faithful Christian feeling Saul's wrath and then seen God accept him as one of the shining lights in the church? You would probably have felt like throwing your hat on the ground in disgust.


How would we feel if we were one of ninety-nine sheep who stayed with the shepherd where we were supposed to and did what we where supposed to and then watched him leave all of us at the mercy of God only knows what kind of wild animals or sheep rustlers to go looking for the one stupid and irresponsible member of the flock who wandered off and got himself lost? We would feel like we were not getting what we deserved and that the lost one was not getting what he jolly well deserved either.


What if we were a coin tucked safely along with others into a woman's purse? What if one clumsy coin got itself dropped and rolled under a piece of furniture? What if the woman spent all day looking for it and then, when she found it, spent us and some of the other coins on the party she threw to celebrate finding of the lost one? We would feel like she had her priorities in the wrong order, that's how we would feel...even though, without us and the other coins which had not gotten lost, she would have been destitute and unable to give a party to celebrate the finding of the lost one.


What if some Senator stands up on the Senate floor this week and says our President needs some mercy now? Let us now in our thankfulness that we do not get what we deserve, not insist that the President get what he deserves. He has done a bad thing, but God, and we, can find even this lost soul in the darkness of our world if we would risk the search. I'm afraid we would feel betrayed and denied our sense of justice by such words, even though they are likely the words Jesus would speak if asked to comment on the recent behavior of our President.


It makes me incredibly sad to realize that we live in a sinful world in which we find deep satisfaction in seeing that people get the bad things which they deserve and in seeing that they do not get good things which they do not deserve. When we turn from God and get lost in our world, the darkness rises to surround and cover us.


On the night we arrived in Florida, the tail end of hurricane Earl was lashing out at our beach front. A large tree fell over into the picnic area right next to our motel. Before the day was over, a gang of prisoners from the local jail, I suppose, dressed in white and black stripes was busy cleaning up the site. I remembered the debate in the legislature over re-instituting such so-called chain gangs. I remember being afraid that the intended humiliation would be even more destructive of the prisoners attitudes. From what I read, however, the prisoners who get to work on these work crews, even though they have to dress funny, appreciate the opportunity to do something constructive and positive. Certainly the ones we watched from our balcony seemed to enjoy the chance for honest work and to be actively engaged in a valuable task. It's ironic that what many saw as giving prisoners the additional punishment of humiliating hard labor turned out to be an opportunity to find someone who was lost. The attempt to give someone the bad things which they deserved turned out to be a good thing which they did not deserve.


I ran across this story in my reading this past week. A man had an enemy. An angel came and offered the man anything for which he might wish. There was, however, one condition: whatever he wished would be given twofold to his enemy. He thought and thought. He thought about wishing for a bag of gold, but he rejected that when he realized his enemy would get two bags. He thought about wishing for a farm with livestock, but he rejected that because his enemy would get one twice as large. He thought and thought until the angel finally demanded a decision. What was it going to be? Was his enemy going to be a recipient of grace or was he going to get what he deserved. Finally, the man looked at the angel and said, "Here is my wishmake me blind in one eye."


A world made up of sinful people, each determined that the others shall get only what they deserve, spirals downward into darkness.


The good news which it is my joy to preach and in which we rejoice as a community of faith is that God stopped this downward spiral by coming among us and giving us more than we deserve. Paul puts it this way in Romans 5, "While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good (i.e., deserving) person someone might actually dare to die. But God proved his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us." (Romans 5:68 NRSV)


Here is the way the writer of Psalm 103 puts it:
The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For he knows how we are made; he remembers that we are dust.


By breaking into the darkness of our tit for tat world and giving us more than we deserve, God has made it possible for us to break out of this dark and graceless world by beginning to give others more than they deserve, too.


The sad thing about the spirit of retribution which determines the attitude that many of us have toward criminals and toward people who let us down is that it darkens our own lives and darkens the life of the world. That is why Jesus urged us so strongly to move beyond giving people what they deserve to giving them more than they deserve: "You have heard that it was said, `An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you...if any one would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if any one forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles." (Mt 5:3842)


In Jesus Christ God has come looking for us like a shepherd looking for a lost sheep or a woman looking for a lost coin and has given us in his providence and grace more than we have deserved. Let us, therefore, in the words of a traditional charge taken from the letters of Paul and Peter:
Go out into the world in peace; have courage; hold on to what is good; return no one evil for evil; strengthen the fainthearted; support the weak, and help the suffering; honor all people; love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.