The Missing

This sermon was heard at The Federated Church in Weatherford, Oklahoma on Sunday September 11, 2016, the Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
Psalm 14
1Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

There are certain Sundays pastors look forward to preaching, and certain Sundays we don’t. They vary from pastor to pastor of course. As for me, I believe this is the first time I have ever preached on September 11th. It’s not that I’ve avoided it in the past, and I might be wrong. If I did the sermon wasn’t memorable. This year is different for some reason.

Fifteen years ago I was sitting in a seminary classroom learning the Hebrew alphabet. At 9:30ish there was a commotion in the hall, but I thought nothing of it. Some classes let out at that time. It was louder than usual, and Prof. Rev. Dr. Kathryn Roberts did not take interruptions lightly, she took them personally. So I focused on the board instead of the distraction.

I went down to Financial Aid after class. That was when I first found out about what had happened in New York City. None of the computers at the seminary were powerful enough or fast enough to process video, except for the server room of course. So Financial Aid Director Glenna Balch and I listened on the radio. I told her this must have been what listening to “War of the Worlds” felt like, except this was really happening. Then I rushed back to our apartment where I found Marie in shock.

In New York City people started putting up signs almost immediately. There were flyers with people’s pictures everywhere asking “Have you seen…?” followed by somebody’s name. Pictures from people hoping, begging that someone might have seen someone else. Had a piece of news. Maybe a friend of a friend or something.

First responders, police, firemen, EMT’s, nurses, all sorts of people came out of the woodwork to make things better. They became helpers. Some became heroes. Some became fallen heroes. Some were looking for loved ones. Everybody was looking because it was the right thing to do.

The last missing person, Michelle Guzman McMillan became a survivor when she was pulled from the rubble at about 12:30 pm on September 12. That was more than 27 hours after the North Tower fell. Her office was in that tower on the 64th floor.

But I don’t have to tell a Sooner about any of this. A little over six years earlier, Oklahoma City had its own disaster at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. On April 19, 1995, a Ryder truck loaded up with fertilizer and diesel was dropped off and detonated in front of the Murrah building blowing the front third off of the building killing 168 people, 19 of whom were children under the age of six and wounding 800 more.

At 9:03 am, the first of over 1,800 911 calls were received by the OKC Emergency Medical Services Authority, but by that time, EMSA ambulances, police, and firefighters were already headed to the scene, because they heard the blast. People who had witnessed or heard the blast arrived to assist the victims and emergency workers soon after. Within 23 minutes of the bombing, the State Emergency Operations Center was set up, with representatives from the state departments of public safety, human services, military, health, and education. Assisting the them were agencies like the National Weather Service, the Air Force, the Civil Air Patrol, and the American Red Cross to find the lost, tend the wounded and recover the dead. Immediate assistance also came from 465 members of the Oklahoma National Guard, who arrived within the hour to provide security, and from members of the Department of Civil Emergency Management because heroes need heroes too.

The summer of 2002, the summer after 9/11, Marie and I stopped at the Oklahoma City National Memorial traveling from Austin to Kansas City. I’m getting choked up, forgive me. Two things left me raw, emotionally raw from the visit. The first was the 168 chairs on the lawn, each one bearing the name of one of the victims ripped from this life. Of course there was a special punch in the stomach for the 19 child sized chairs. The other was the chain link fence that still bore the flyers with people’s pictures everywhere asking “Have you seen…?” followed by somebody’s name. Pictures from people hoping, begging that someone might have seen someone else. Had a piece of news. Maybe a friend of a friend or something.

Brandy Ligon was the last person to go from missing to found from the Murrah building bombing. She was fifteen at the time. She was in the nursery and could hear children crying after the bombing. Of course she heard children stop crying too. She was saved thirteen hours after being listed among the lost.

This is the week when we read that a shepherd will leave the 99 to find the one lost sheep to return it to the flock. This is the week when we read that a woman will sweep her house until she has blisters on her fingers if it means finding a tenth of her wealth. Both then will call everyone they know to celebrate because what was missing, is now found.

Most pastors at this point in the sermon take apart the parable to make sense of it. I have preached this passage before and that’s what I did, but not this year. The usual lesson we take from this is that we are called to seek the lost to make life whole again.

But after considering 9/11 and 4/19, it hardly makes me think we will ever really feel whole again, not this side of glory.

This year I stopped reading the passage after verse two, “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’”
So why did I stop here?

These readings are about the missing, the lost. These two short parables preface the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke’s gospel, a story of a wayward son, but even more so, the story of a Father who longs for his son’s return.

These parables, the two we read today and the parable of the Prodigal, are about the missing which is found. So instead of saying we are called to seek the lost, which is surely true, let me say this instead, in Christ, we are never missing.

In Christ we are never missing.

So often, the Pharisees of this world look at those they call “sinners,” and call them the lost. They have left the fold. They are weak. They are soiled. They are unclean. They are broken. They allow themselves to be used. They point and ask “Where is God?” and the answer is found right here. God in Christ is right there, at the table, breaking bread with them.

I often talk about of our baptismal identity because baptism is the sacramental symbol that shows how Christ joins us. Being celebrated once, unless we make a real effort to remember our baptism, its importance wanes, and I want us to stem that tide, so I remind us to remember our baptism.

Today we look at the other sacrament we celebrate, the Lord’s Supper. Jesus feeds his disciples, his children, the missing and the lost of this world because we are all missing and lost. The Apostle Paul knew this, maybe a bit melodramatically he shares this with Timothy. For all of the good that Paul has done and for the status he holds, he knows that he has done horrible things and is a man of sin, not grace. Paul also knows and shares that salvation comes through grace alone, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. He writes, “The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”

This grace comes not because of who Paul is or anything he did, but because of who Jesus is and what he does. Who is Jesus and what does he do? He is Immanuel, God with us, who comes and he sits with sinners, breaks bread and shares a meal. Through the Lord’s Supper, a meal only he can invite us to take and eat, we continue to share this meal.

In a few minutes, we will hear from Ashlyn Dillon who will tell us about her African mission trip last summer. This was not her first trip, and maybe not her last. The recurring theme I hear from missionaries is that when they return, their faith is stronger. I’m sure there are many reasons this could be, but I have a guess… I bet they sat down, shared a meal together, and discovered that in Jesus Christ, they weren’t among the missing anymore.

Amen.