Exodus 32:7-14

1 Timothy 1:12-17

Luke 15:1-10

Back in January I lost my favorite ring. This was not just any ring. It was a star sapphire ring which my father wore. He had purchased it in Thailand when he and my mother were visiting my brother, who was serving there in the Peace Corps during the early 1970s. I suppose this ring had monetary value, but to tell you the truth I have no idea how much money it is worth.

When my father died, shortly after Christmas in 1983 my mother gave each of her three sons a ring that he had owned. She took me into the nave of the church where my father had been a pastor for almost 25 years and showed me how the lights from the chandeliers above reflected like a star in that ring.

When I couldn’t find the ring I was devastated. I looked everywhere. In my back pack, around the house, in the car. I wrote to my daughter whom we had just visited in Chicago. Did I leave it in her apartment or at the building we were cleaning on the previous Saturday? No. Nothing materialized. I gave up the intensive search, but every once in a while a new idea would pop into my head and I would rummage through another drawer or look in another corner.

Then came Easter weekend. This was a time of mixed feelings, because even in the middle of Easter joy, our family was mourning the miscarriage of our daughter Jenny’s twin girls. The Saturday before Easter we had gathered in this church for a memorial service.

That night, after our Easter Vigil Service, I began to set our my clothes for the next day, Easter Sunday. I rummaged for a shirt in one of my dresser drawers, and then I heard a clunk. It was the ring! Apparently it had fallen from the top of my dresser into the open drawer, way back in January. And I never knew it.

Wow! I felt just like the woman whom we read about this morning, the woman who searched everywhere, and finally found the lost coin. What a wondrous feeling. I was happy. And, so also, I hope, the ring was happy to once again be on my finger.

On this, the third anniversary of the 9-11 tragedy I also remember how other people searched and searched for loved ones lost in the collapse of the twin towers. In those first days and weeks there were times of exultation and joy at finding someone who was presumed dead. But as time went along, hopes dimmed. A year after this event Karen and I took the commuter train into New York’s Grand Central Station. There was still a poster board there plastered with signs and pictures. Some were still searching for a loved one. Others were simply memorializing a loved one lost in one of the most horrible events our nation will ever experience.

Today, with the effects of terrorism still touching the lives of innocent people in Russia, Indonesia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Palestine, and countless other locations, we remember our loss of innocence on that day three years ago.

In the midst of our shock and pain three years ago, at least one good reaction took place. People came together. Politicians put aside their bickering and sang a patriotic song on the capital steps. From all parts of the globe came an outpouring of grief and sympathy. In our grief and anger we were one.

Such is not the case today. Neither our nation nor our world is agreed on how best to combat terrorism and even more importantly establish a world where justice and peace prevail to such an extent that terrorism has no spawning grounds. Political campaigns this year seem particularly virulent. To tell you the truth, I was glad I was out of the country for one political convention and sad that I had to return in the middle of another. Whatever we had in the midst of our terrible loss three years ago, we have lost completely. We are now as lost as any lost, dumb sheep, or any small coin ------ or any star sapphire ring. We need to be found, and carried and treasured, just as that sheep was carried on its master’s shoulders, just as that coin was wrapped in its owners hands, just as my ring was worn with joy and thankfulness.

Think of some of the images we have seen after tragedies like those on September 11th three years ago --- or several years before that in Oklahoma City after the bombing of the Federal Building. I am struck by the image of Firefighters walking up steps in the second twin tower, just as office workers were climbing down. I remember the picture of an Oklahoma rescue worker holding a dust-covered little child. Today we might think of those who are staying behind on the Florida Keys to make sure that stragglers are cared for, even as the eye of the hurricane draws closer.

As we recall these kinds of images and give thanks for bravery of civil servants such as those police officers and firefighters and emergency personnel we remember the parables told by our Lord about the God who is compared to those workers in zealousness and love.

But we miss the point of Jesus’ parables if we get too caught up in sentimentality and nostalgia, because Jesus was telling these parables to warn against those who become too self-righteous and too bitter in their own sense of goodness and their thirst for revenge.

Typically, we want mercy for ourselves and justice for others, but these two parables of the lost sheep and lost coin challenge us to celebrate with God because God has been merciful not only to us but to others also, even to those we would not otherwise have accepted into our fellowship.

A Jewish story tells of the good fortune of a hardworking farmer. The Lord appeared to this farmer and granted him three wishes, but the with the condition that whatever the Lord did for the farmer would be given double to his neighbor. The farmer, scarcely believing his good fortune, wished for a hundred cattle. Immediately he received a hundred cattle, and he was overjoyed until he saw that his neighbor had two hundred. So he wished for a hundred acres of land, and again he was filled with joy until he saw that his neighbor had two hundred acres of land. Rather than celebrating God’s goodness, the farmer could not escape feeling jealous and slighted because his neighbor had received more than he. Finally, he stated his third wish: that God would strike him blind in one eye. And God wept.

The parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin expose the grudging spirit that prevents us from receiving God’s mercy. Only those who can celebrate God’s grace to others can experience that mercy themselves.

Actually we have received much ---- beyond measure. When I was among the orphans of Ndzevane, Swaziland and then witnessed children with their bowls at a well on a dirt road in Krobo, Ghana, I realized how much physical stuff we have. But when I worshipped with the Zionist folks in Manzini, Swaziland and later with the Presbyterians on Independence Square in Accra, Ghana I realized how much spiritual stuff they have.

Perhaps God will figure out a way for us to share our physical riches with them and for them to share their spiritual riches with us ----- and all of us will see with both eyes wide open --- and rejoice for one another.