The Lost Passage of the Bible.

My title is misleading -- you should know that right off the bat.

There are actually a few "lost" passages, you see. A whole section of red-letters where Jesus describes the lost and the found.

You probably know them well. The prodigal son, the lost sheep, the lost coin. I grew up hearing about the prodigal son the most, but the wayward sheep was also fairly popular for a while (Reckless Love, I'm looking at you.)

The lost coin story -- where the woman turns her house upside down to find the one missing coin -- was one I'd never heard preached on. And I never spent a lot of time thinking about it. But this year, I couldn't shake the image of Jesus as a woman searching a small hut for me, a lost and dirtied coin that had rolled underneath a dresser with the dust bunnies and the abandoned bobby pins.

I even preached on the lost coin, I think. I integrated all of the lost passages, actually, into one sermon. And it was important for me to emphasize that Jesus searches for us -- no matter what, no matter how dark our circumstances or how lost and lonely and scared we are, Jesus is still looking for us.

I believe this is true.

But I also, now, in just a few short months, have started to think about something else, too...

A coin can't get lost on its own, can it? It can't jump out of its piggy bank and tumble, sentient, away of its own free will. And a sheep? It's going to wander; that's what sheep do.

Reverend Emmy Kegler writes about these passages in her memoir One Coin Found and she makes a point of explaining that sheep would tend to wander if they weren't being fed or watered well. They'd go looking for another spot to graze, or to find water if the rest of the flock were preventing them from reaching what limited water existed in the desert. They'd wander if the shepherd wasn't being as attentive as he could be.

If Jesus is the woman looking for the coin she lost, and Jesus is the shepherd over the flock, then why would Jesus lose me as a coin? Or neglect me as a shepherd?

The reality is that Jesus hasn't ever abandoned me, lost me, or neglected me. But do you know who has? Church leaders. My ministry mentors.

The church has thrown me aside, dismissed me for my sex, ignored me for my age.

It hasn't come looking for me when I was wandering in the wastelands of depression or anxiety.

The men I looked up to in my SBC youth would come to accuse me of plagiarism, as well as repeatedly accuse me of "tempting" my "brothers" by daring to wear clothing that was comfortable yet "too seductive."

The church has let me down. If you've been plugged into a faith community like a church, then you've probably been let down too. In this way, I've started to view these lost passages through a different lens:

The church is the woman in the beginning of the story, when she somehow recklessly or mindlessly loses a coin, letting it roll to the edges. But Jesus is the woman who comes looking for it, sweeping up every corner until its found. The church is the shepherd who doesn't pay attention and lets a sheep wander, thirsty and afraid. But Jesus is the shepherd who comes to its rescue.

Jesus is teaching us, over and over again, what it means to live in care and service to other people. He is the picture of how the church should be acting. When we are careless, he is careful. When we are inconsiderate, he is crouched down before us washing our feet.

These lost passages are illustrating to us not just the love of Christ, but the love we're called to as well. And that's worth thinking about.