Lost and Found
Lost and Found
If there’s a proof text for the Catechism’s summary of the Church’s mission statement, “to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ,” it’s today’s reading from 2nd Corinthians: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” (2 Co 5:18 NRSV). Restoration of unity and reconciliation are the same.
And not just our epistle, but the Gospel lesson as well are about restoration of unity, with God and each other In Christ. It’s not the Parable of the Prodigal Son in any other language but English. In other cultures, it’s the Parable of the Lost Son, which I prefer, but would add an “s” at the end to make it Lost Sons. Both sons are lost, alienated from God and each other. And to be restored to unity, to be reconciled with God and each other requires letting ourselves be found, first by God, and then each other.
Breaking down the Outline of Faith’s mission statement, the two reconciliations are paired together, restoration of unity with all other people, which is based upon reconciliation between each of us and God in Christ. As Paul puts it, “Christ was innocent of sin, and yet for our sake God made him one with human sinfulness, so that in him we might be made one with the righteousness of God.” (2 Co 5:21 Rev Eng Bible). Literally, Jesus became the final sin-offering to end all priestly sin-offerings. But to be made one with sin implies something deeper, identification with sin. Does this mean Jesus became sin?
The late Roman Catholic theologian Henri Nouwen saw that identification in our parable today. Twice the “Father,” who could be identified with God the Father, says of his younger son, “for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” Was not God the Son dead but now today is alive, Nouwen speculated? And did he not go wherever the Lost had lost themselves in order that they might find themselves in Him? So through and through has God the Son identified with us in our lostness, in our alienation, our sin, that God the Father cannot help but see his Son in each of us the lost and found (that last observation is mine not Nouwen’s).
We don’t have to go far to be lost; we don’t have to go anywhere. The older son didn’t. The younger son “came to himself.” It could also be said that he “came to his senses,” as other translations put it, since he wrongly thought that he could no longer be identified as a son but had to settle for being a hired hand. But as Michael Curry wrote when he was the Bishop of North Carolina, “He realizes the profound discontinuity between what he has become and who he truly is.” In his partial coming to himself, he has begun to be restored to unity with himself, which is the crucial first step to being reconciled with God and all people.
The older son, on the other hand, has no idea how lost he is. The younger son didn’t presume to be his Father’s son any longer. The older son never seemed to presume at all: “For all these years I have been working like a slave for you.” To which his Father could have snarked, “Excuse me, who died and made you a slave Son ‘o mine?” Being lost can mean thinking too much of ourselves, or too little. Either way, we are lost to God and each other, alienated from each other, and tempted to scapegoat, humiliate, and disgrace others to make us feel better about ourselves than the disgraced other. The older brother’s way of doing this was to presume that the young bother had squandered their father’s legacy in immoral living, when all we’re told is that it was “dissolute” or reckless or extravagant. Perhaps if the older brother could tar his younger with something disgraceful, it would make him that much better.
On the other hand, you could interpret the younger son’s script as nothing more than wheedling his way back onto his father’s property. Will he more fully appreciate what it truly means to be a son of his father? And what will the older son do when his father has died and the inheritance has finally passed to him? Will he still accept his younger as his brother, or will he kick him out of the family house and into the servants’ quarters? Or will both brothers finally hear their father saying to them, “My sons, you are with me always and all I have is yours?”
The Outline of Faith is clear that we do not accomplish our mission; only God the Father, Son, and Spirit can restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ. But we are called to “pursue” that mission of reconciliation within ourselves, with each other In the Church, and out there in the world where all people are to be found. Each of us must continue to examine ourselves to see where we still need to let God find us. We can do that with prayer, and in the words of the prayer book’s Exhortation on page 317, “go and open your grief to a discreet and understanding priest, and confess your sins, that you may receive the benefit of absolution, and spiritual counsel and advice; to the removal of scruple and doubt, the assurance of pardon, and the strengthening of your faith.”
We also pursue our mission with each other, getting to know each other better: our joys and our griefs, our hopes, and our anxieties, so that we can grow together in trust and love and unity of purpose. Finally, we purse our mission of reconciliation by discerning those our neighbors in spiritual and material need that we can help to discover the Father who is always watching them from far off, waiting for them to come to themselves and come back home.
There is, of course, much out there that we cannot control, those who think there isn’t enough love to go around, those whose wounded pride looks for scapegoats, those whose anger leads them to revel in disgracing others, all of whom haven’t come to themselves, and for whom the Father will never stop looking. But we can control ourselves. We can love each other. And we can help those who are ready to come to themselves, with God’s help.
4th Sunday In Lent
The Rev. David Kendrick
March 30, 2025