“A sense of reverence and awe in the Presence of God cannot be learned, cannot be taught.

Without awe, people turn to doctrine.

Without reverence people turn to rules.     

Doctrine and rules can be taught and learned.

…. Reverence and awe are born in the people’s hearts.

(The Art of Pastoring: Contemplative Reflections, p.72)

Is that what is the matter with our world?  Yesterday many of us remembered 9-11: a day in which reverence and awe seemed so far away.  A day in which hatred and evil seemed to rule.  It continues to stand as a day in which regard for human life and value seemed to fade with each new account of a crashed airplane.

Who are we?  We human beings. What has become of us that we are capable of such acts?  I ask such a question and yet I wonder how Jesus would have reacted?

In our scripture lesson for today Jesus was seen eating with the wrong crowd.  He was eating with those who were extorting taxes from the common folk and those who were known sinners to the religious leaders. It is from this model that we are all welcome here, because we choose to welcome all as we have been welcomed.  We sincerely attempt  to  live  what  is  printed  in  our bulletin:  “All who come to worship God are always welcomed here.”  Our scripture lesson says the religious leaders began to grumble about Jesus’ sitting at table with such folks.

So Jesus tells a parable.  It’s a favorite of many artists who depict Jesus walking along a mountain path with a sheep slung over his shoulders, carrying it back to the fold where it could rejoin the other 99 sheep that were safely inside the corral.  After leaving the sheep securely with the others, he calls his friends and neighbors and celebrates that he has found that one sheep that was lost.

And then Jesus proceeds to tell another story.  This time about a woman.  A woman who inadvertently lost an expensive coin and proceeded to leave nothing unturned until she found it.  She runs the vacuum sweeper until she hears it clink and then retrieves it.  (or something like that!)  Anyway, when she finds it, she calls her neighbors and tells them the good news.  She found that silver dollar that was worth 236 thousand dollars!  Everyone was excited and filled with joy.  This is exactly what is like when one sinner  repents!  There is more joy in heaven when that happens than when all the ninety-nine are comfortably doing their thing.  Why would that be?  Isn’t the math wrong here? 

Jesus likens the sinners to the lost sheep or lost coin.  It is important for us to note that the sheep or coin didn’t turn into something else – they were still sheep and a coin.  Yet when we talk about sinners we sometimes think they are something other than they were.  But sin is NOT the final word or the main theme of Jesus’ teaching.  The important teaching of Jesus  is that we are created in the image of God.  Sin does not alter that fact!  Sin is NOT our natural state.  It is our natural state to be in the image of God.  Sin is when we turn from our natural state and try to be that which we are not.  It means departing from the norm or to take the wrong road.  We are still Image bearers, but we need to get rerouted.

The other day I was calling on a family, and I was so sure I knew the way that I didn’t listen closely to the instructions I was given, and I didn’t do my usual check for directions, and I was so confident that I didn’t write down the family’s phone number as I normally do (in case I get lost).  Anyway, I couldn’t find them, and to make a long story shorter, I missed them by just two blocks.  I was right about a lot of things, but missed by a little – which left me lost.

Unfortunately, there is a parallel to this.  A few years ago my interim ministry was coming along wonderfully.  I had had several successful experiences in differing kinds of churches.  And I remember feeling pretty confident that things were really going my way.  I got to trusting my judgement and my decision making.  I felt that when the current position was ending that I would fall into another and probably even in  a better opportunity.  I felt I deserved it.  After all, I had done some pretty good work in a couple of difficult situations.  My sense of awe and reverence for the Divine Presence became dull and almost lost.  When that interim period ended, I was without a position for four months and finally had to accept a part time position in a situation I really didn’t want.  It was a wake up call for me.  God got my attention I have had a reconnection with Awe and Reverence in my life, at a level I have never had before.   

I share this episode in my life to acknowledge that we all can miss the path or take a wrong road.  It is not as dramatic as the news event mentioned earlier.  Nevertheless, it is serious.  When we sin we have not lost the core of who we are, we are still image bearers of the Divine, but we are not where we need to be.  Just like I was only two blocks away when attempting to visit that family, close is not achieving what we are created to be.

Our call to worship this morning from Psalm 139 reminds us that God searches us and knows us even better than we know ourselves.  Today we would rather write this in the opposite direction: O Lord, I have searched you and known you!  We work so hard at trying to name God, to get a hold of the Divine that sometimes we forget that it is more important to be known by God.  And while the thought of being known so thoroughly and completely is a terrifying piece of information, we are to remember who it is that is the knower: the gracious lover of us all. 

To discover my lostness was both troubling and relieving.  Once I knew that I was not going to find my destination, I had a choice to make, I could keep driving around hoping that I would find it, or I could embarrass myself and make a phone call asking for help.  Choosing the later brought about a positive result.

The same challenge occurs to us when it is made clear to us that we are like lost sheep or a lost coin.  I am indebted to Donald Hands and Wayne Fehr (Spiritual Wholeness for Clergy, p.19) for three words that will help us here – uncover, discover and recover.  When we uncover the truth (we are lost),  we can then choose to discover a way out.  In my case it was Jesus’ invitation to open myself to him, others, and myself and then to recover a sense of Awe and Reverence.  Life is not about me.  It is not finally in my control.  God wants to enable me to be fully what I was created to be – an image bearer, or reflection of the Divine, and the Spirit empowers me to do that.

The recovery part is to acknowledge that life is received from and lived for God in a relationship of thankful dependence and active obedience.  Shirley Guthrie Jr. in his book, Christian Doctrine, continues that life is self-affirming and self-fulfilling when we live in community with God and other people.  Sin is when we depart from that norm. It’s when we think we can do it on our own, for we don’t need God.  While sin always has a negative connotation in the Bible, it can also be the beginning of a positive.

For if we uncover the truth that we are not on the way, we then can discover or accept the reality that life is more than we have been living.

Admitting sin then becomes the path to recovery of our true self.  In addition, as we recover, we experience that the soul’s growing union with God through love brings about its ever increasing transformation into the image and likeness of God (Spiritual Wholeness for Clergy’ p.19).  Is it no wonder then why there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who discovers the truth than all the ninety-nine who are experiencing what is natural to them?  It is like a new creation occurring. 

I know it’s not fashionable to talk about sin.  But we can’t really find ourselves until we admit that we are lost.  We don’t know we can experience so much more if we don’t know that we are less than we are created to be.  I know as a parent how thrilled I am as my son or daughter is recovering his or her true identity.  It is an ongoing joy to see them claim that which is natural to them.  It does not take a big jump for me to understand that there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.  Thanks be to the God of generous love who knows us and invites us to a full life as we receive it through Jesus Christ. 

As this awareness of the Presence of God occurs not in the head, but in the heart, reverence and awe enable me to join in with joy as others discover that they too belong, they too are welcomed by the one who is willing to sit and eat with all of us.