September 14, 2025: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard.  Amen.

This has been a most difficult week, and not because there is no joy in Metville – as Mets fans watch our team self-destruct.  If only that was the most difficult news this week.  Sadly, it is not.

Once again, violence has struck at a school – this time, Evergreen High School in Colorado, by Desmond Holly, a 16 year old white supremacist who was a student there.

That news was overshadowed by the assassination of political activist and far right podcaster, Charlie Kirk.  The motive of the young man who appears to have committed this heinous act remains unclear, but Lordy the entire internet want to tell you why he did it before they even identified him as a suspect.  He is just the latest in a string of attacks on political figures, including the murder of Minnesota Democratic State Senator Hortman and her husband, along with the shooting of  Minnesota US Senator Hoffman and his wife, Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Shapiro’s home set on fire, multiple attempts on the Republican President, another against Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh, and the brutal beating of Democratic Speaker Pelosi’s husband.  All of this in the last two years alone.

But sadly, this latest apparent political violence and school shooting wasn’t the only news this week.

Our President ordered a missile strike against a boat from Venezuela, killing all eleven on board alleging it was a drug smuggling craft headed for US shores.  Yet, this is also not normal, as we usually arrest and prosecute these types of individuals, not kill them out right.  Add to that, it has come to light that the boat was actually turning around.  The nautical equivalent of shooting someone in the back.

South Korean engineers, who were in Georgia to set up the new US based EV battery plant, were arrested and detained by our government.  While later released, this has caused an international quagmire with one of our strategic allies – all in the name of ridding our country of non-white immigrants.

Israel & Russia continue to kill thousands of civilians, including little children, every day.

And if that were not enough, we remembered those who were killed on 9/11- an act of horrific violence, and those who later died from exposure to carcinogens associated with the debris.

I mean – seriously – all of this in this past week alone! 

And, there was likely more that went unnoticed, or unmentioned in the news.  That’s the way of things today in our country.  In fact, when we hear news like this, it doesn’t shock us anymore.  We are saddened, we grieve, but we are no longer surprised.

Lordy, what a time in which we live in where death – violent death – has become a regular part of our daily lives.  Where empathy for those who are suffering is based not on our common humanity, but on whether we agree with them, like them, look like them, or love our guns more.  I mean, even Mr. Kirk once said, “I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”  Rational?  God-given rights to weapons?  Seriously?  And this man claimed to follow Jesus?  Lord help us.

We are pained by the words of some of those in the public sphere, we are brokenhearted by the death of innocent children, we mourn the mounting loss of life all around us, we are horrified by the cruelty against those whom God called us to welcome – strangers in our land, and we are saturated with the vitriol that overshadows all of it.

Perhaps we can understand the words of the psalmist this morning, who wrote “The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” All are corrupt and commit abominable acts; there is none who does any good. The Lord looks down from heaven upon us all, to see if there is any who is wise, if there is one who seeks after God.”  Or to put it another way, God is doing a face palm right now and wondering if maybe this human experiment is beyond repair.

As for the rest of us, the violence, the outright cruelty, and the lack of equitable compassion by some who seem to care only when the victims are people they like or agree with, all of it, well – it can make you feel swirling and lost. 

And that’s why the gospel today is so timely.

In the gospel, Jesus tells us that a shepherd, having lost one of his 100 sheep, leaves the 99 in search of the lost, and rejoices once the sheep is found.  Jesus then continues and tells the story of the woman with 10 coins, who realizing one is lost, searches the house until she finds it, and then rejoices with her friends over finding it.  Jesus is giving us another analogy for the how the kin-dom of God works. Now, generally, who do we think Jesus was talking about as the shepherd?  God, right?  So, as I like to note each time this comes up – if the shepherd is God (or Jesus)… then the woman is…?

This twin set of shepherd and woman searching for something lost is both a masculine and a feminine image for God.  Kinda cool when you think about it, and makes sense, given that we are all created in God’s image.  But while that isn’t the underlying message I want to focus on today, I will always point it out, because of our continued patriarchy in the church, as a reminder that God is not a boy’s name. 

And here’s the thing we should not miss in these two parables too – the sheep who was lost didn’t go looking for the shepherd.  That coin didn’t pop out of the sofa cushions and say “look, here I am!’  If only that would happen when we are trying to find the remote, right?  And, neither sheep nor coin did anything to merit, nor help, God to find them. 

These parables are a reminder to us, especially in these difficult times, that we are so very precious to God – every single one of us.  When we feel we are lost, when we cannot seem to find our way home, God will search us out and bring us joyfully into her loving arms.  In that moment – all of heaven rejoices.  This is what God is doing right now in these times too – seeking us out – hoping we will feel that sense of belonging to something that will give us life, grace, love, and hope.  And this should tell us something – something about God, yes, but also about ourselves, and about everyone else too.  Something the people Jesus is addressing had forgotten.

The thing is, Jesus isn’t telling this parable to his disciples.  He is responding to the grumbling of the Pharisees and scribes who didn’t like the company Jesus was keeping.  They saw him eating with tax collectors and sinners, and said “This guy welcomes THOSE people.  Heck, he even eats with them!”  That is when Jesus offers these twin parables.

Now, sadly – Christians in the past have sometimes used this to say “don’t worry all you sinners out there…we will welcome you too,” as though somehow the sinners were always people outside of the church, or were “gasp” not Christian at all so therefore lost!  The thing is, does that sound like Jesus to you?  The Jesus who told us to love one another as he loved us, while washing the feet of Judas, who he knew would betray him, and Peter who he knew would deny him at his most difficult hour, not once, but three times?  The same Jesus who is dines with those others would reject, which prompted the whole back and forth with the temple leaders in the first place? 

The lost are not always outside the walls of the church, to be sure.

I am reminded of something the late monastic and theologian Thomas Merton once wrote.  And a reminder that Merton was an international figure in his day, whose views on the Vietnam war and social justice rankled many in government, so much so that his death, said to be by accidental electrocution while in Bankok, has been a source of alternate theories of political assassination, which, whether true or not, certainly is timely today.  Merton wrote, “It is my belief, that we should not be too sure of having found Christ in ourselves until we have found him also in that part of humanity that is most remote from our own.”

“…we should not be too sure of having found Christ in ourselves until we have found him also in that part of humanity that is most remote from our own.”

Today, our nation and the world are all faced with the choice those Pharisees and scribes had – to grumble at people being included in the love and grace of God – people that do not vote, or love, or speak, or act, or look like us – the so called “those people.”  We can choose not to see Jesus in them.

Or we can rejoice that there is such unconditional love as found in the embrace of God – not because anyone deserves it, or because anyone is more holy than another, or for any other reason, but that they exist.

In other words, we can grumble that God’s love is unconditional or we can model it, rejoicing as we find those who feel lost, are pushed aside, are oppressed – and love them as Christ loved us.

Yet, do we not see what a false choice this is?  Do we not know what can happen when people choose to grumble?  When those who may feel lost themselves encounter even more rejection?  When people push others to a place of darkness, bitterness, despair, and hopelessness?  It is a breeding ground for violence – both by the ones rejecting, and the ones rejected.  No good can come of that.  But love, grace, and hope?  That is the door to peace, wholeness, and joy for everyone.

We must all choose a different path – one that leads to a life of joy rather than bitterness, love rather than hate, life rather than death – not just for ourselves or those we like, but for all people. 

For followers of Jesus, we have no choice at all – we must welcome in those others cast aside.  We must try to see the Jesus in them as much as we find him in our hearts and in the Eucharist.

And if you think about it, what is better for anyone or for society – to sit around getting angry about how some people are being included, or to act, to do something positive, to go out and celebrate a world where no one feels left out.  One zaps us of our own joy, strength, and life.  The other is life giving to us and to all we serve in Christ’s name. 

Still, we know this isn’t easy.  Lord knows, one only needs to read the words of Charlie Kirk to understand how much it takes for some, who have been so deeply wounded by his hateful rhetoric, to express empathy for him and his family.  Yet I saw so many do this, and that is the path to healing – for themselves, and for the world. 

So when we find it difficult to include, to welcome, to seek, or to be found, we need to come here.  Come here to abide with one another, and with Christ Jesus.  Our liturgy and worship space provides a transcendent experience, moving us beyond the confines of the day to day, and reaching to places deep within us that we didn’t even know needed healing.  And one of the ways this does this for my soul, and for many of you as well I suspect, is through music.  Think about it – that’s what is meant by whistling in the dark – music strengthens us in times of fear and despair.

Today, we celebrate the choir and their hard work to bring that music to us each time we gather.  The Anglican Choral tradition is truly awe inspiring, and our choir, under Ryan’s direction, is a gift of grace to our parish.  When I hear them sing, it feels like heaven is rejoicing indeed, just as that woman with the coin invited everyone to celebrate.  We are truly blessed.

And if we let it, if we allow the music we sing and hear each Sunday to enter deep within, it will resonate in our souls when we leave to serve Jesus in the least, the last, the lonely, and the lost.  It will be the melody of our acts of love and grace, that will bring healing and joy to this pained world.

And so I leave you with this from our opening hymn today from the hymn written by the Rev. F. Pratt Green, as it speaks directly to the way the music of our faith can be a source of strength for our mission and ministry in difficult times:

“When in our music God is glorified, And adoration leaves no room for pride, It is as though the whole creation cried: Alleluia!

How often, making music, we have found, A new dimension in the world of sound, As worship moved us to a more profound Alleluia!

So has the Church, in liturgy and song, In faith and love, through centuries of wrong, Borne witness to the truth in every tongue: Alleluia!

And did not Jesus sing a Psalm that night, when utmost evil strove against the light? Then let us sing, for whom he won the fight: Alleluia!

Let every instrument be tuned for praise!

Let all rejoice who have a voice to raise!

And may God give us faith to sing always:

Alleluia!

For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible):

Sermon Podcast

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox            

Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge

September 14, 2025

Pentecost 14 – Year C

1st Reading – Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28

Psalm 14

2nd Reading – 1 Timothy 1:12-17

Gospel – Luke 15:1-10

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