“To Find Joy”
September 14, 2025
Rev. Rebecca Migliore
Last week, Jesus had a jolting message for all those who might follow him (the great crowds and the disciples as well.) There is a cost to discipleship, he proclaims. You might just have to give something up. It is a choice that has consequences. This week we might expect more on this difficult subject. Jesus, what kinds of things might we have to give up? But there is no sermonizing to follow. Instead we have moved into the 15th chapter of Luke, known for its three parables (the lost sheep, the lost coin, and [what we call the “prodigal”] or lost Son).
Many of us remember these favorite stories. The little lost sheep. The owner leaving the 99 other sheep behind to go looking for the one! The joy at finding it! Or the woman who has lost a coin (1/10 of all she has—so pretty important). Her frenzy in sweeping up the floor, and looking in every corner, until “Aha” the lost coin is found. The joy in finding it!
We often focus on that lostness (and maybe that’s why the stories were grouped together in the gospel writer’s mind). We quickly think that this is about us. We imagine ourselves as the lost. We are the sheep that has gone astray. We are the coin that has dropped into a crack. But Jesus has good news! What a comfort that God (like a good shepherd, like a good housewife) searches diligently, leaving everything else, until God finds us! It’s heartwarming, and pretty passive on our part. We don’t have to do much (because really what can a sheep or a coin do?). It is God who is the searcher. God the One who looks. And we are the ones who are found! Hurrah!
Ah, but parables are tricky. You turn them this way and that and new ideas shine forth. What if these stories aren’t about us being found, but about us being the searchers? Jesus is responding to the religious leaders who are criticizing what Jesus is doing--eating with “those sinners”!
The religious of his time (and could it also be the religious of our time?) seem to be constantly on the look-out for failures and mistakes and the minute we do something wrong. And since the religious are God’s envoys in this world, it gives one a picture of God as the great Judge, always finding our faults, always tut-tutting about our weaknesses and our missteps. The frowning God. The God who is constantly shaking God’s head. The God who says, “What foolish, ungrateful, wrong-footed people!”
Instead of having an academic Biblical discussion about this topic (which I’m sure Jesus was perfectly capable of doing), Jesus decides to tell some parables--in common language, understandable to everyone—to show his idea of God. In them, we see that the Searcher (God) seeking diligently, insistently, to the exclusion of everything else, for those who are lost. The Actor in these parables, acts out of love, of worry, of care. And there is a certainty in these stories. But it isn’t about the “badness” of the lost. It is about God’s intention for them. The lost cannot stay lost, the lost must be found.
Jesus answers the criticism of his eating with tax collectors and sinners with a wink and a nod. Maybe, he suggests, you don’t know God as well as you think. Maybe we are to take our cue from that rich shepherd (he does have 100 sheep after all), or that common woman keeping house. Maybe we are the ones who need to find the lost and the least--leaving all else behind (in imitation of the One who first looked for us).
Jesus lifts up the image of a searcher, being aware of what is lost, and trying to help it be found. In the background, I’m pretty sure everyone was thinking, “Is Jesus talking about God? And if so, am I supposed to be like that too?”
Is this what it means to be the hands and feet and heart of God in the world? Is this how we mirror in our own lives what we know of God in our world? Might that even be a “cost” of discipleship? That we are intrinsically linked to others, that others, especially “lost” others, intrude into our lives—messing up our neatly constructed schedules?
Is this part of what we have to learn? That we have to stop acting like those “religious” people? That we have to “give up” feeling superior. That we are supposed to give of our time, and our talent, and our treasure to be part of the “lost seekers.” Is part of the “cost” of following Jesus, of learning more about God, that we have to let go of our judgements of others and be more active in welcoming all to the table?
But we haven’t quite finished with these parables. They don’t stop with the lost being found. (And notice there is no dressing down. No yelling at the sheep. No quiet banging the coin on the table to “punish” its getting lost). After the finding, there is joy. Not just the private joy of finding something, but a public joy, the “call all your neighbors and friends and relations” joy. The “I’m having a party because what was lost is found” Joy. The expensive party to end all parties type of joy! The exuberant, over the top, incredible joy—(over a sheep, over a coin, we hear some grumble in the background).
You see, Jesus isn’t done showing us what God is like. God is not only the Searcher—God is not only the One who finds all lost things (and people)--God is the One who expresses Joy. Joy at the lost being found. Joy at those who were outside but are now inside. Joy at those who had turned away but are now turned towards God. Joy at all those people who the religious people seemed to have turned their noses up at. This isn’t an angry God, a frowning God but a God of Joy. The host/hostess of the party.
Emily Dickinson imagines such joy in a poem called ‘Tis so much joy! (Here is a segment of it).
‘Tis so much joy! ‘Tis so much joy!
If I should fail, what poverty…
And if I gain,—oh, gun at sea,
Oh, bells that in the steeples be,
At first repeat it slow!
For heaven is a different thing
Conjectured, and waked sudden in,
And might o’erwhelm me so!
I was taken by that phrase, “for heaven is a different thing conjectured, and waked sudden in…” Whatever our picture of heaven, Emily slyly suggests that it might be different from what it truly is. What if we “waked sudden in” heaven? What would it look like? Be like? Might it have this aspect of joy that Jesus is trying to make us picture. Joy, not just for ourselves, but joy for everyone who is in our company. Joy as a participant in the work of God. Joy because we are tasked with trying to put a small piece of God’s puzzle of Shalom into its rightful place. That is what joy is.
And that joy cannot be destroyed by the things that are going on in our world. And there are certainly many disturbing things going on! How could I be talking about joy in the face of an assassination of a young father, husband, and yes, right-wing activist. Or the continuation of privation and horror in Gaza. Or the continual gun violence in our country. Or the pictures of armed military in our streets. How can I talk about joy as we remember Sept. 11th, 2001, a sad day that will always live in our minds and hearts. How can we contemplate joy with the hate speech that fills our screens?
That is one of the marvels of being a human. We can feel more than one thing at a time. We can be horrified at gun violence (of any kind), and devasted by the continuing horror of war and genocide, and breathe a sigh for all the lives lost in an instant, and feel trepidation at what is happening in our country, even as we feel joy in God’s grace and mercy towards us, and our being nudged to “go and do likewise.”
All the horrible stuff—and we could spend all our time naming it all—all of that is why we have so much work to do. All of that is why we gather together to gain strength for the struggle. All of that is our world turned away from what God intended—what Shalom is all about. What gives us strength to go into the fray? To continue to search and invite and pray and act? It is our trust in God’s goodness, in God’s intention for creation (Shalom), and in God’s unbelievable choice to be in relationship with us—face to face—in the person of Jesus. That brings joy.
Joy as a radical response to all the muck and mire. Joy as a defiant stance in the face of those who want to bring misery. Joy as a participation in the Way of God. I know we didn’t read the rest of Luke’s chapter 15 (the story of the Prodigal Son)—but I can’t think of joy without thinking of Jesus’ image of the father welcoming his lost son back home. This father was waiting, had been on the look-out, for as much time as the child had been gone. And when a speck shows on the horizon, the father can wait no longer. He runs, at break-neck speed, to get to his son. He can’t be still another moment. He has to have his child back in his arms. He is so filled with joy that it spills out in all directions. Bring new clothes and a ring. Kill the fatted calf. Let’s have a feast! Joy! “My son who was dead is alive again; he was lost but is found!”
Let us not be the older son, lurking around the outskirts of the Father’s party. No, may we listen and hear the good news of the gospel. We are found. We are to be Finders. And, most of all, we are to find ourselves “waked sudden in” the arms of our God—surrounded by Joy.
May it be so. Alleluia, Amen.