Have you played hide-and-seek?  Have you ever played as an adult with your kids or grandkids?

I have played hid-and-seek a lot over the years and witnessed many games with my kids playing with their cousins and something I have noticed is that the whole point of the game seems to vary depending on the age of the kids.  The older kids want to hide well and not be found until last.  This is probably how we would describe the point of the game.  For the younger kids, and I don’t think it is just because they are less patient, the point of the game seems to be being found.  I remember one of my nephews would yell out “here I am” as soon as you walked into the room, he was hiding in.  Or if you took too long to find him or would yell out “here I am”.  Younger kids want to be found, they want to be reunited and there is such joy for them in being found. 

Being really lost is not fun.  Nor is losing something important to you. 

In today’s reading we hear 2 parables.  There are actually three parables that go together: the parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin and the parable of the prodigal son or the lost son.  Earlier this year, back during Lent, I preached on the three parables with the emphasis being on the last of the parables, the lost son.  This week I am going to focus on the first 2 parables.

The two parables we hear share a basic structure.  

1. One is lost from a much larger group,
2. the protagonist goes to great lengths to seek out the lost item,
3. when found friends are invited for a celebration.

Traditionally we understand God to be the protagonist, the one who seeks the lost and who rejoices over the lost being found.  We get the image of God not giving up, of being willing to venture into dangerous places in order to find the one that is lost.  The image of God who is going to expend huge energy turning the place upside down to find the one that is lost.

These stories elicit rather interesting adjectives when it comes to God, perhaps ones we do not use as often as we should or desire—relentless, stubborn, insistent, tireless.  This is at once good news and scary for some would prefer to stay hidden.  For some think, just like a game of hide-and-seek, that the point is not to be found.  Some people wish to be lost or left alone, if not forever, at least for the time being. A kind of “lostness” that is even a mode of self-protection. “Just leave me alone. Let me be. I’m fine.”  Because being found is both frightening and enlightening. Exposure makes us wonder if we are worthy of finding. Worthy of the kind of celebration narrated in Luke.

What if the point of the parable is not just to remind people that God is the relentless divine seeker, finding the lost.  The prevenient mercy that just keeps on searching.  What if it is to remind us that we are called into this mission.

The parable was told in response to the grumbling of those who criticised Jesus welcoming sinners and eating with them.

Humanity keeps creating division.  We keep picking groups of people and saying they are unworthy, they are not welcome, they are below us – sometimes even – they are sub-human.  Yet we are all made in the image of God.  We are all God’s children.

So if this is a reminder that we can participate in this mission of God’s and if we are to participate well in the mission we need to understand a couple of things about the ways of the Kingdom or Culture of God.

The first of these is how we understand repentance.  The common understanding of repentance is being contrite and remorseful.  There is an expectation behaviour will change.  In Hebrew it means to turn around.  This may also imply changing one’s mind and changing behaviour.  When the Prophets called for repentance, it was a call for a change in attitude and behaviour but underlying all that was a calling to being in right relationship with God.  So, what if we were to understand repentance not as being sorry for our moral failures or making changes to our behaviour but being found.  For given the examples of the sheep and coin did they know they were lost?  Did they know they needed to be found?  Did they need to ship up and start behaving?  When the sheep or lost coin is found, no comment is made on any sinful behaviour.  They were simply restored to right relationship – restored to being part of the whole.

The second thing we need to understand about the culture of God is that it is non-hierarchical and non-transactional.  I couple of weeks ago I said that God does not buy into the quid pro quo of our culture.  God does not subscribe to the idea “there is no such thing as a free lunch” – loaves and fishes.  The culture of God is non-transactional.  In the parables it seems the cost of the party outweighs the value of the thing lost.  Or maybe the point id God sees each of us as priceless. 

So what does it mean for us today around 2,000 years after Jesus told these stories?  What does it mean for us here on this land now called Australia?  What does restoration to right relationships mean for us and our indigenous brothers and sisters? For 60,000 years Aboriginal peoples lived in connection with the land, connected to country in right relationship with country.  Will we be part of enabling this right relationship to be restored?

Last, week I introduced the Franciscan way of thinking in which all creation is kin – all creation is family, brothers and sisters.  This is also an Aboriginal way of thinking and being.  We, all of creation, are brothers and sisters.

In the Disney movie Pocahontas, there is a song called Colours of the Wind. 

Let me share some of the lyrics with you.

You think I'm an ignorant savage
And you've been so many places
I guess it must be so
But still I cannot see
If the savage one is me
How can there be so much that you don't know
You don't know

You think you own whatever land you land on
The Earth is just a dead thing you can claim
But I know every rock and tree and creature
Has a life, has a spirit, has a name

You think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You'll learn things you never knew, you never knew

Have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon
Or asked the grinning bobcat why he grinned
Can you sing with all the voices of the mountain
Can you paint with all the colours of the wind

Come run the hidden pine trails of the forest
Come taste the sun sweet berries of the Earth
Come roll in all the riches all around you
And for once, never wonder what they're worth

The rainstorm and the river are my brothers
The heron and the otter are my friends
And we are all connected to each other
In a circle, in a hoop that never ends

How high does the sycamore grow?
If you cut it down, then you'll never know

And you'll never hear the wolf cry to the blue corn moon
For whether we are white or copper skinned
We need to sing with all the voices of the mountain
We need to paint with all the colours of the wind

The gospel reading tells us God who will stop at nothing to prevent even one sheep from a hundred being lost, let alone one species or one in every hundred species. But these stories too can be willfully distorted by empires of greed and prosperity theologies that would retell them as justification for never giving up on every possible percentage point of profit.

The irony and generosity of Jesus’s point is lost. When Jesus said, surely you would all leave the 99 behind in the wilderness and go search and search until you found the one lost sheep, the expected response is one of awkward embarrassment, because no we wouldn’t. Sensible business ethics does not leave the 99 unguarded in the wilderness to go off searching for the one. Common sense cuts its losses and makes do the remaining 99. That’s the decision the human race has made, species after species, eco-system after eco-system. No point worrying about the one we’ve lost, and letting that interfere with getting on with business with the ones we’ve still got.

But, says Jesus, that is not what God is like. That is not how the culture of heaven works. 

There are many parts of the diverse family of God that are lost and that are being destroyed.  There is much that needs to be restored to right relationship.  You have been invited to play a part in the restoration and the joyful celebration each time one is found, and restored.