Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now I’m found,
was blind, but now I see.
A while ago I read a book about being wrong. The starting point was the author’s recognition that we can never take in being wrong. We just can’t. We can see how we used to be wrong, even one second ago; but we cannot, in this second, coherently say or think, “I am wrong.” Every statement is an affirmation. “I am wrong” means “I know this much; I’m wrong.” So even saying “I am wrong” amounts to saying “I’m right about my wrongness. I know my wrongness.” I can’t really know that I’m wrong until after I’ve left that wrong place for another place I take to be true.
If this is true, it makes the work of being lost and found much more confusing than the hymn suggests.
You might think some lostness is obvious. People who are killing themselves with alcohol or drugs surely know they’re lost? Not necessarily. Part of addiction is denial, which is another name for lostness. Until that moment when our vision changes, we cannot see ourselves as seriously lost.
It’s especially hard to see our lostness when our way is rewarded by the world around us. When we’re making lots of money, when we go to the best schools and can send our children there in turn, when we succeed in our goals, when our houses are big and well furnished - how could we be lost?
Ah, but we who come to the monastery know better. We come because we know, somehow, that those values are not the measure of the world. We can see the lostness behind the achievement and the material wealth.
Likewise, those who enter ordained life are able to see the limits of those choices, to see the lost souls in our congregations.
Aren’t we lucky to be so smart?
We go to church regularly, and serve on its committees, and share in outreach - surely we aren’t lost? And if we’re ordained, and shepherding souls, and praying regularly - aren’t we lucky to be found? And we monastics, who have left everything to follow Christ - aren't we blessed?
There are so many ways to be lost.
I remember two conversations that send me back to reality, to God.
I remember Brother Scott saying, “If the Church is a hospital for sinners, then the monasteries are the ICU.”
I remember my former spiritual director saying that God called him to the priesthood because standing in the front of the class was the only way to be sure he’d get the message.
Those two conversations remind me that I am not here because I’m right. I’m here because I’m not all there.
When I felt the call to the priesthood, part of my despair was my awareness that I must not be as healed and whole as I liked to think.
I was already a nun, and I knew a lot of priests. They were gifted and caring, and mostly lost. I knew that my sisters, likewise, were not wiser or holier than those who came to us for help. We were mostly there because we were lost.
So being here today, whether for life or for the weekend, does not make us less lost.
We may be righteous, we may be living good lives and loving God, and still be lost.
That’s who Jesus is talking to, after all. He’s talking to the religious leaders, those doing their best to follow God’s way. Their lostness shows up in their certainty about themselves, and their judgment of others.
We should notice here that Jesus is not talking about whether we’re sinful. Sinning is one way to be lost. But the problem for some of us is that we are lost in our righteousness. We can’t see the limits of our practices and our understandings.
The righteous form of lostness is not, I think, intrinsically worse than other forms of lostness. It is, however, more dangerous.
The first danger is that others will be harmed by my judgments, that I might cut them off from human community.
The other danger is to myself. I cut myself off, from others and from God, and put an idol in God’s place. I am so deluded that I offer myself as a guide to others, and lead them astray in turn.
It’s partly because we can’t know our lostness that we need community. Sometimes I am so certain I’m right I just can’t find my way out. Someone needs to come and get me. I give thanks every day for Elizabeth, my sister in Christ. I say something that seems obvious or given to me, and she’ll say, “Really? That’s not how it seems to me.” And because I trust and respect her, I find myself looking for where I might have left the path. I look around and see if I can see God from where I am. If I can’t, or if the God I’ve got in my sights doesn’t look quite right, I need to turn back and retrace my steps. I need to start over.
Fortunately, God does not have to wait for us to figure out that we’re lost. The woman searches for the coin and rejoices, even though the coin is not thinking anything. The shepherd rejoices to find the sheep, even if the sheep is thinking, “Put me down!” God is so hungry for us that she reaches past our blindness and touches us. Those moments when we realize our lostness do not precede the grace of God; they are gifts of God. God searches for us and rejoices when we turn back.
And yet, even here, God does not insist.
We are not sheep, or coins, to be grabbed. We are created with free will, and God honors that. God will call, and whisper, and even stick out a foot to trip us up, but God will not insist on our turning back. So how much more does God rejoice when we, of our free will, return the love that is offered us?
Being lost and found is not a one-time event. It is a constant dynamic in our relationship with God. And just when we’re certain we’ve got it, we can be pretty sure we’re lost again. It’s time to turn back.
So I want to propose another verse for Amazing Grace:
Amazing grace, come search me out,
come save your wandering sheep!
I’m lost, I’m found, I’m lost again,
please don’t give up on me.
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