Finding Value in Lost Cause?
Efrain Agosto, Ph.D.
Interim Dean
September 17, 2007
Scripture Reading: 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 people 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 she has found it, she calls 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.
Reflection: “Finding Value in Lost Causes”
Introduction
I believe in finding value in lost causes. I was tempted to search far and wide for an appropriate text for this morning’s reflection, but time was at a premium. I mean, wouldn’t you want to make a good impression in the first chapel of the year, when you have just started a new role at the seminary? However, I have found it helpful just to take a deep breath and see what the lectionary reading for worship in many Christian circles would bring. In this case, it brought this text from one of the more interesting chapters in all the New Testament, the chapter in the Gospel of Luke about lost things, or “lost causes.” In Luke 15, we found the well known parables about the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son, also known as the prodigal, or runaway, son. With a son and a daughter in college and lots of money going that way, although not a whole inheritance because there isn’t any, I think about prodigal son text sometimes, hoping my children don’t squander their opportunities.
However, the lost son is not the focus of this past Sunday’s lectionary readings. Rather, it is those first ten verses of the chapter, with the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin.
The Doubters
Like any good parable, one could take these stories from various angles, from the perspective of the various characters in the story. The author of the gospel himself starts not with the shepherd, the woman or the lost items, but rather with religious leaders who are wondering about Jesus’ “table fellowship” – who ate with whom - because it determined so much about fidelity to the traditions (15:1-2). In one sense, one could understand their concerns. If someone doesn’t watch for stringent discipline around time-honored traditions, by allowing persons who don’t really understand them to partake of them, those traditions held dearly might be endangered. Whether in this ancient community or in any other, ancient or modern, we might hear echoed the warning, “Somebody has to keep an eye out for communal purity, or else the community itself might disappear.” It just makes good, logical sense.
The Challenge
However, Jesus challenges his observers with another option for how to look at these traditions and his community’s engagement with them. Where is the cutting edge, where is the excitement, where is the possibility of transformation, both for those outside the tradition, and even for the insiders? Jesus asks, “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 people who need no repentance.”
Notice how many times “joy” or “rejoice” appears in this passage. Sometimes the joy in life comes in taking risks on behalf of those whom nobody else will pay attention to. Most of us can perhaps identify ourselves well with those who decide to stay home and not go looking for the lost sheep. I know I would. However, it is often when you stick your neck on the line, when you see in someone, a lost cause perhaps, the possibility of transformation and new beginnings, that oftentimes the joys and excitement of life take place. At the faculty retreat, Ben Watts led us in a reflection on building and crossing bridges, and the next day I took a walk across a covered bridge near the retreat center. I thought I had room for me and any cars that came rambling by, but then a big truck wanted its own the space and I had to climb up a wooden plank that ran along the sides of the bridge in order to let the truck get by. In my own morning reflection at the retreat I shared that sometimes building and crossing bridges, going the extra mile, like we do here at Hartford Seminary, across faiths, traditions and oceans even, often entail risks, in terms of time, energy and finances. Why go for the missing sheep, when we can just stay here comfortable with our own? Why expand our table fellowship across race, gender, ethnicity, religion and nationality, when things are so much easier with what we already got. I submit to you this morning we do it, not so much for the so-called other, we do it because of what it does for us, because there is joy, excitement and true learning when we can go the extra mile, outside of our comfort zone, and open up the possibilities of who can sit at the table.
The Women and the Coin
Jesus adds a second parable to make this point - the woman who seeks out the lost coin. “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 she has found it, she calls 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.”
There is a phrase I learned from a foundation executive many years ago when we were applying for a grant. “What is the ‘value added’ to the community if we fund that project,” he asked? I don’t know what exactly he meant, but what is the “value added”, I ask myself, in this woman expending all that time and energy to find one coin when she has others, especially when she probably spent a coin, or at least the equivalent of some of it, when she called together her friends to celebrate her find? Well, she valued that specific coin. There was value added in the coin itself; it had its own intrinsic value beyond each of the other coins. As Jesus says, making the analogy, there is a value in each and every individual, a child of God, regardless of how many other children are in the fold. That one, like the little girl saving the starfish from suffocating on the beach shore, is valuable in and of itself. You know that story, the little girl coming upon all the starfish upon the beach and begins to throw each one back, until man says, “There are too many; what difference can you possibly make?” The little girl thinks about it, but continues, and as she throws the starfish back in the water, proclaims, “It makes a difference to that one!” Soon others, including the doubting Thomas, join her and the starfish are all safely back in the water. It made a difference to that one. “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Attention to even the smallest sheep or the smallest coin, lost and quite possibly forgotten by others, makes a difference to that one, and that’s why the shepherd and the woman go after them.
How about us?
Are there lost causes in our lives, our work, or our ministry that needs some attention, given its overarching value, regardless of how they fall in the larger scheme of things? Isn’t every single individual valuable in the sight of God, regardless of where they fall in the lamentable hierarchies of life? I think so. I’m sure you do too. I think every one of us has a role to play in this great school, for example, whether we are administrators, faculty, staff or students. I think most definitely each and every one of ours students is worth our attention, whether we are staff or faculty, to ensure that their needs as learners and as religious leaders in the making, are being addressed. And I am also sure that each of you, in whatever capacity, you serve is valuable cog in the human machinery that is Hartford Seminary. So if one of us is hurting we reach out; if just one of us needs a helping hand to get he job done, we reach out.
The Little Rock Nine
I was fascinated by the Courant article this past Saturday about the 50th anniversary of the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Here were nine young people, all of whom only wanted the best education possible for themselves. However, many in the school and the community just couldn’t fathom it, because of the color of their skin. That particular article featured one of the Little Rock Nine, as they came to be known, who today is a successful author. What would have happened if the majority rule had prevailed over the hopes and dreams of this young woman, as well as the other 8 individuals? What would have happened if the federal government, and the soldiers who were assigned to protect the nine young people, like the one also featured in the article, would not have done stuck their necks out and done their duty? There would have been no value added there, and some very sad people instead. Yet the diamonds in the rough were allowed to flourish, with the help of those willing to take a risk and put their necks on the line. Today that published author, and the former soldier who protected her, are happy, joyful people indeed.
Conclusion
My dear friends I believe in finding value in lost causes, because those so-called lost causes can add value to our lives. Look at all the joy and excitement that finding and making connections to the lost sheep and the lost coin brought to the searchers. As the adage says, it is not always about the destination, but about the journey. The effort in reaching out to those in need, those that appear to be lost causes, but really are not, can be half the battle in bringing joy and fulfillment to our lives. My pastor, the Rev. Edwin Ayala, pointed out in his sermon yesterday about philanthropy in this country that it depends so much on regular individuals, not just rich corporations or foundations. Giving depends on the human desire, and indeed joy, to respond to the needs of people. I hope we can join together this year in committing ourselves at Hartford Seminary to finding and advocating for the lost causes in our community and our world, to continue to make our table fellowship large and open. May God help to do so and to do it well. Amen.
