"Seeking and Finding"

(Jer 4:11-12, 22-28; Ps 14; Luke 15:1-10) JG White

10:30 am, Sun, Sept 14, 2025, FBC Amherst

Four weeks ago, Makayla saw a strange sight here, on Monday morning. A small, elderly person, sitting in the Vestry, gloved, was picking through a little garbage can. “What is going on?” our summer student asked me. I went out to see, and an amazing story of losing and finding unfolded. 

It was Treva, a faithful friend of ours from Trinity-St. Stephen’s United Church. She had been right here on Sunday morning, as usual for one month of the summer. Later that Sunday, she discovered her precious engagement ring was missing, gone from her finger! Valuable not just for the diamonds in it, but as a family heirloom that had come, I think she said, from her mother-in-law. She had hunted at home for it. Not there. 

So, first thing Monday morning, she returned to First Baptist. She knew she had visited our bathroom, and washed her hands, so she came prepared with gloves. It was a blessing that Shauna was off that week, for the garbage had not been emptied, nor the carpets vacuumed. So Treva emptied out all the crumpled paper towels in the bin, and searched the floors everywhere she had been the day before. Nothing. So her search continued.

Indeed, it did continue, for a couple days later a family member phoned us here to say, ‘The ring is found!’ It was at her home. Who knows what searching and searching she did. Maybe others helped her. At last, the large, old, diamond, engagement ring turned up… in a compost bag. 

So we understand the feelings behind the little parable Jesus told, of a woman who lost one of her ten coins. She lights the lights, sweeps and sweeps, until she finds it. Then she rejoices. And all her friends hear about it too, and are glad. 

Apparently, Jesus, so long ago, felt just as glad to find, and spend time with, tax collectors. These were basically Jewish traitors, for they collected money for the Roman Empire, and were also known for making money by over-charging people. And Jesus had found - and was even eating with! - ‘sinners.’ What a generic word. I wonder what kind of wrongdoers they were, that particular day when Jesus spoke of seeking a lost sheep, and a lost coin. 

Jesus, as we discover in the Gospels, was an expert at finding people, people of all sorts. Are you an expert at finding anything? I am an expert at finding things. I can search again and again. And then wait a while. Or a week. Or whatever. And the missing thing finally does turn up. Truly, I am an expert at finding because I am so good at losing things! I can be an ‘absent-minded professor.’ Last Sunday I had a bulletin for myself with a few notes in it. Where did I leave it five minutes before the service began? I don’t know. I had to get a new one before I came up to the pulpit. 

This is nothing like Jesus the Christ. He does not forget one of His lost sheep, keeps seeking a lost coin. And these parables He told are about God as the seeker, and people as the lost item. It is not so much that we are seekers of God, of the truth, of salvation. The Saving God is the seeker of those in need. Certainly, in these stories.

The rejoicing of the woman with her friends, this joy is in sharp contrast to the eye rolling the religious experts did when they saw who Jesus was with, that day. He was with the wrong people. 

No, He had found the right people. Do you wonder how much joy and hope they gained, as Jesus found them? 

Have you felt found by God? Were you pleased? Felt relieved? Overcome? Accepted? Joyful? Forgiven? Reconciled? Safe? There can be times when a person feels guilty, ashamed, caught red handed, when God seems near and all-knowing. We know so much of the God of judgment. Old prophet Jeremiah had so much preaching to do to a troubled nation that was due for destruction. We heard some of the early words this morning. The Hebrews get called foolish, stupid, evil-doers. Yet it is those same people whom God simply cannot reject forever. Even here in chapter four God’s word is, “The whole land shall be a desolation: yet I will not make a full end.” The whole nation was lost, but it will be found.

My moments of sensing the Spirit found me have not been very dramatic. However we realized God notices us, we have met up with the Seeking God. Like the woman who sweeps and shines a light until what is lost is found. And then there is joy! Divine joy! 

Perhaps you can name times when you were on Jesus’ team, helping find someone, even someone who was not seeking a blessing. You may know what it is to join the rejoicing of heaven for someone whose life gets to rebound, no matter what it looks like to the outside world. And you can know how God’s love and purpose reach beyond all the boundaries we humans set up. Who gets found and gets to belong? Any and everyone.

Let me fill the second half of the sermon with a story that the late Tony Campolo was famous for telling. Tony was a sociologist, a Baptist minister, an author, and a well-travelled preacher and speaker. In his book The Kingdom of God Is a Party, Tony Campolo relates an experience he had late one night in Hawaii.

Up a side street I found a little place that was still open. I went in, took a seat on one of the stools at the counter, and waited to be served. This was one of those sleazy places that deserves the name, "greasy spoon." The fat guy behind the counter came over and asked me, "What d'ya want?"

I said I wanted a cup of coffee and a donut. As I sat there munching on my donut and sipping my coffee at 3:30 in the morning, the door of the diner suddenly swung open and, to my discomfort, in marched eight or nine provocative and boisterous prostitutes.

It was a small place, and they sat on either side of me. Their talk was loud and crude. I felt completely out of place and was just about to make my getaway when I overheard the woman beside me say, "Tomorrow's my birthday. I'm going to be 39."

Her "friend" responded in a nasty tone, "So what do you want from me? A birthday party? What do you want? Ya want me to get you a cake and sing 'Happy Birthday'?"

"Come on," said the woman sitting next to me. "Why do you have to be so mean? I was just telling you, that's all… I've never had a birthday party in my whole life. Why should I have one now?"

When I heard that, I made a decision. I sat and waited until the women had left. Then I called over the guy behind the counter, and I asked him, "Do they come in here every night?"

"Yeah!" he answered.

"The one right next to me, does she come here every night?"

"Yeah!" he said. "That's Agnes. Yeah, she comes in here every night. Why d'ya wanta know?"

"Because I heard her say that tomorrow is her birthday," I told him. "What do you say you and I do something about that? What do you think about us throwing a birthday party for her—right here—tomorrow night?"

A cute smile slowly crossed his chubby cheeks, and he answered with measured delight, "That's great! I like it! That's a great idea!" Calling to his wife, who did the cooking in the back room, he shouted, "Hey! Come out here! This guy's got a great idea. 

At 2:30 the next morning, I was back at the diner. I had picked up some crepe-paper decorations at the store and had made a sign out of big pieces of cardboard that read, "Happy Birthday, Agnes!" I decorated the diner from one end to the other. I had that diner looking good.

The woman who did the cooking must have gotten the word out on the street, because by 3:15 every prostitute in Honolulu was in the place. It was wall-to-wall prostitutes and me!

At 3:30 on the dot, the door of the diner swung open, and in came Agnes and her friend. I had everybody ready (after all, I was kind of the M.C. of the affair) and when they came in we all screamed, "Happy birthday!"

Never have I seen a person so flabbergasted, so stunned, so shaken. Her mouth fell open. Her legs seemed to buckle a bit. Her friend grabbed her arm to steady her. As she was led to sit on one of the stools along the counter, we all sang "Happy Birthday"' to her. Then, when the birthday cake with all the candles on it was carried out, she lost it and just openly cried.

Agnes looked down at the cake. Then without taking her eyes off it, she slowly and softly said, "Look, Harry, is it all right with you if I, I mean is it okay if I kind of, what I want to ask you is, is it O.K. if I keep the cake a little while? I mean, is it all right if we don't eat it right away?"

Harry shrugged and answered, "Sure! It's O.K. If you want to keep the cake, keep the cake. Take it home, if you want to."

"Can I?" she asked. Then, looking at me, she said, "I live just down the street a couple of doors. I want to take the cake home, okay? I'll be right back. Honest!"

She got off the stool, picked up the cake, and carrying it like it was the Holy Grail, walked slowly toward the door. As we all just stood there motionless, she left.

When the door closed, there was a stunned silence in the place. Not knowing what else to do, I broke the silence by saying, "What do you say we pray?"

I prayed for Agnes. I prayed for her salvation. I prayed that her life would be changed and that God would be good to her. When I finished, Harry leaned over the counter and with a trace of hostility in his voice, he said, "Hey! You never told me you were a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to?" In one of those moments when just the right words came, I answered, "I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for whores at 3:30 in the morning."

Harry waited a moment and then almost sneered as he answered, "No you don't. There's no church like that. If there was, I'd join it. I'd join a church like that!"

Tony Campolo concluded, Well, that's the kind of church that Jesus came to create!