"When Getting Lost Is For the Best"

Matthew 10:24-39

This passage is tough. Jesus says he does not come to bring peace, but a sword. He suggests that one's foes will be members of ones own household. This is a tough, tough passage. It ends with those famous words "whoever finds their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."

Suffice it to say, this isn't every pastor's first choice of a scripture for writing a sermon. But, occasionally, we do need to speak to the scriptures that make us wince, make us squirm in our seats a little, make us wonder "What, Jesus? Why?"

And so, we are talking, in this week's segment of Summer Vacation sermons about getting lost. When the best thing that can happen to you is your getting lost. Finding you way OFF the beaten path, possibly never to return.  Echoes of Robert Frost's 'Road Not Taken' swirling through your head.

Have you ever gotten lost on vacation?  I know we have. And sometimes it's fun. And sometimes it's not.  When I was a little kid, my family went to Florida. My dad was driving one car (the front) and my uncle the other car, which followed behind. My aunt says my dad drove through every yellow light in Florida and my uncle through every red. Back in the days before cell phones and GPS systems, you had to just keep up with each other if you were following one another on the open road.  Of course, we got twisted and turned around a lot on that trip and sometimes my dad asked for directions, but more often he did not. We got lost.

Barbara Brown Taylor has some great stuff in her book An Altar in the World,  but my favorite chapter in that book is the chapter called "Getting Lost."  She has a quote that speaks volumes about what it means to take a road that involves struggle and pain and strife that might just hint a little at what Jesus is talking about in today's text.  She writes, "You can get lost on your way home. You can get lost looking for love. You can get lost between jobs. You can get lost looking for God. . . I have set out to be married and ended up divorced. I have set out to be healthy and ended up sick. I have set out to live in New England and ended up in Georgia. ..While none of these displacements was pleasant at first, I would not give a single one of them back. I have found things while I was lost that I might never have discovered if I had stayed on the path…I have decided to stop fighting the prospect of getting lost and engage it as a spiritual practice instead.” 

Jesus, in suggesting the disciples might be at odds with family members and find themselves holding a sword instead of a peace symbol, is making it clear to those early followers that following the gospel message is not an easy game. It is more than just saying "I believe." It is living a gospel message.

In today's United Methodist Church, divided and fractured particularly on the issue of homosexuality, this rings true, doesn't it? Perhaps Jesus is saying that these kind of things are going to happen if people believe with all their hearts and souls that they are following the gospel way.  That mother will be divided against daughter and father against son. That is certainly playing itself out in our current divide. And all with everyone proclaiming to bear the gospel witness, on both sides. Maybe this sort of strife is what Jesus is referring to in this passage. This kind of strife.. just like the strife of Martin Luther in nailing the 95 Theses to the wooden church door... happens when churches have differing views on what it means to follow Jesus. Do we have to agree? What happens if we don't?

Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.  Maybe it means we can't be too sure of the path we are on. That we need to spend a lot of time wandering around and getting lost. Lost in our thoughts. Lost in conversations with others who think the same, but also in conversations with those who think differently. Lost and alone with what it means to follow the grace and love of Jesus Christ, no matter the consequences.

I think being lost can be a great freedom. When you have no one around you to impress but yourself and your God you can think very clearly about what you offer, or don't, to the world.

What does it mean to get lost in the faith? What does it mean to get 'found"?  "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me... I once was lost, but now am found, 'twas blind, but now I see."  What does that verse mean to you?

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