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LAKEWOOD UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST
2601 54th Avenue South  St. Petersburg, FL  33712 on the Gulf of Mexico
On land originally inhabited by the Tocabaga
727-867-7961

lakewooducc.org     

lakewooducc@gmail.com

Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells

It’s been a week.  With remembrances of the horrors of 9/11 and then the murder of a prominent political operative, there has been plenty of commentary to keep us up at night.

One of the most helpful things I have read this week was by another young political operative, Corbin Trent.  He says:

“We tell ourselves violence is never the answer while simultaneously accepting it as always the answer.  From our foreign policy to how we attempt to prevent crime to how we settle our traffic disputes, violence is always an answer for America.

“Charlie Kirk’s death is an atrocity. But it’s not a break in the pattern. It is the pattern.”  [“American Carnage:  The Violence We Accept and The Violence We Don’t,” Corbin Trent and America’s Undoing Sept. 11, 2025.]

This article was truth telling at its best,  reflecting who we truly are as a nation rather than who we think we are.

I read a book recently, a novel, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.  The story takes place in a small town in Poland near the border with the Czech Republic.  The main character is an adamant animal rights activist concerned about the deer and the foxes and other wildlife.  When several deaths occur in the town, she becomes a person of interest relating to these deaths.  I remember thinking, Why would they turn to her?  She has this obsession with animals and reverence for life.  Without giving too much away, let’s just say, people are strange and mental illness is real.  And I encourage you to read the book!   [By Olga Tokarczuk.]

We humans are constantly a crazy mix of high ideals and conflicting behavior.  Or, of low ideals and conflicting behavior.  Look at the religious scholars and Pharisees who are listening to Jesus’ teaching.  They are supposed to be people of high ideals representing the goodness of God.  The idea was that the Jewish people were to be compliant with God and this would create a community so compelling everyone would be drawn to it.  It would be irresistible.  The justice and compassion and peace incarnated in the community would captivate and attract.  And later, the Jesus followers, the Christian community, saw itself in the same light.  But what did we hear this morning:  “. . . the Pharisees and the religious scholars murmured, ‘This person welcomes sinners and eats with them.'”  Well, we remember Jesus as one who came to seek and save the lost.  

But there it is.  Our seemingly inborn judgmentalism rearing its ugly head this time against sinners and tax collectors.  This might be like saying a prominent religious authority was eating with undocumented workers and members of Greenpeace.  Or, depending on your vantage point, eating with MAGA members, anti-vaxers, and oil industry executives.  At one time we might have included among the despicable those who take advantage of others to get rich, but they do not seem to be on anyone’s naughty list anymore.

But notice, instead of confronting all of the many issues involved with what the religious leaders have to say, instead of commenting on our ridiculous human proclivity for self deception and hypocrisy, Jesus responds to this criticism, this murmuring, by talking not about humans but about God.  

And lost sheep.  One of 100.  Now there are 99.  But the shepherd searches.  The number 100 is symbolic of completeness.  So, to find the one sheep is to create wholeness, completeness.  Oneness.  And it is lost to most of us, but it would not have been lost to the first century listeners:  shepherds were not only lowly, but they were considered outcasts.  That was work for those who couldn’t find a legitimate way to be part of respectable society.  And the sheep is lost.  And the shepherd risks everything to find it.  This certainly would have grated on the ears of the religious leaders and yet Jesus was talking about God, the nature of God.  He was not correcting or directly disputing their comments.

Then the story of the woman and the coin.  Here again, an affront.  The Divine Feminine.  Jesus portrays God in feminine terms.  The great God, almighty, imaged from the underside of society, after all, women were at best second class, and at worst chattel.   And what is lost?  A coin.  Not a fortune.  A coin.  One of 10.  Again, 10 is symbolic of completeness, wholeness.  

In both stories, what has been excluded is included.  We see the comprehensive love of God.  No one forgotten or left out.  And the initiative is on the part of God, seeking completeness, wholeness.  Bringing together what has been divided.  The God figure in these stories is not a task master, not a vindictive judge, not a divine scorekeeper.  This portrayal of God undoubtedly disorients the religious authorities of the first century as well as the tax collectors and sinners.  This portrayal of God subverts ordinary thinking about God.  

We are presented with a God of grace and love.   What parent would walk away and leave a child behind?  This God is not swayed by politics or income. There is no criticizing or vilifying or othering in these stories.  There is no room for division or separation.  One love.  For one Creation.  Period.  Which means that each one of us is in.  And the people we love to hate are in.  And the people we are trying not to hate, they’re in.  And the people who disgust us.  They’re in.  The deplorables, whoever they may be?  They’re in.  And the people who have hurt us.  They’re in.  And the people who perpetuate violence.  They’re in.  We’re all in.  We need to be for there to be completeness. 

We will never have all the right answers to solve the world’s problems or even our own problems.  But we must keep working on those.  Jesus shows us that the most important thing is relationships.  And we are held tightly in the arms of Love.  No matter our thoughts, opinions, or beliefs.  Relationship is what brings us wholeness, completeness, oneness.  Jesus doesn’t argue the fine points of the law with the religious authorities who feel it is their obligation to uphold the law in order to maintain right relationship with God.  Jesus emphasizes God’s love of humanity and Creation, not God’s love of the law.  It’s the relationship, not the issue.  And God will stop at nothing to be in right relationship with us.  

Sandra Hoffmeister was a young woman when her father divulged to her that she had a half sister, half a world away in Australia.  That’s about all she knew until her father came to live with her in his later years.  Before his death,  he told her a bit more.  Through all those years, Sandra was wondering about this sister.  Who was she?  How could she find her?  Once the internet was a viable tool, she pursued trying to find this unknown sister.  She tried everything she could with every scrap of information she had.  She could not give up thinking about this sister and wanting to know her. 

Finally, through an ancestry site, a connection was made.  But then she considered how to approach this because she did not know if the sister knew about her birth father and she did not want to upset her relationship with the father who raised her.  Finally, Hoffmeister was able to contact her sister’s adult daughter.  And the sisters were joyfully reunited.  

An article about this reunion reports, 

“Hoffmeister says it’s amazing to look at photos of her sister and see so many similarities. 

‘We both like jewelry. We both like shoes. She loves dogs, I love dogs. She wore purple, and when she got married a second time, her dress was purple,’ Hoffmeister says. 

“Naturally, ‘Purple is my favorite color.'” [“Long-Lost Sisters on the Other Side of the World Reunite Decades Later, Thanks to DNA” by Susan Young, People, 1.2.25, https://people.com/long-lost-sisters-reunited-from-across-the-world-by-myheritage-dna-match-8763084%5D

Can we let ourselves be found, be fully claimed, be embraced by Divine Love?  Can we see what we have in common?  That we, too, are brothers and sisters born of one Love?  Then maybe we can make progress on caring for one another and for this precious planet.  Even if only Christians let ourselves be found by this searching love and grace, things might get better for everyone in this country and beyond.  Amen. 

A reasonable effort has been made to appropriately cite materials referenced in this sermon. For additional information, please contact Lakewood United Church of Christ.