Henrietta United Church of Christ

Rev. David Inglis Luke 15:1-10

September 28, 2007

How do sheep get lost? It’s easy. They get so absorbed in going after the grass that looks good to them that they lose track of where the shepherd is or the flock is. And they’re oblivious to holes, rocky cliffs, or wild animal dens they wander near.

How do souls get lost? We can be a lot like sheep. When I went off to college, I suddenly felt liberated from a lot of the constraints I had felt growing up in a minister’s family. So I started going after what looked appealing or exciting to me at the moment. I didn’t need any more shepherds in my life telling me what to do. The old hymn comes to mind: “I Was Sinking Deep in Sin”–Whee! But the “Whee’s” didn’t last very long. What did last was the unpleasant feeling of having no bearings, no direction, no purpose except my own gratification. My soul didn’t know what I was placed on this earth for, but it knew in a very visceral way that it wasn’t that. It was that feeling of empty lostness that finally made me humble enough to realize that I needed a shepherd, I needed God. And so my lost soul got found when I stopped trying to be own master and gave myself to God.

What is our soul, anyway? I can’t define it exactly. But I know it as the part of us that is capable of deeply connecting to other people when we give and receive unconditional love. It’s the part of us that finds its purpose in unwrapping our gifts and offering them to the world. It’s the part of us that is touched by beauty, by the majesty of God’s creation, by words of inspiration. It’s the part of us that is naturally honest, generous, humble, and ready to serve. It’s the part of us that can see the potential and promise of God’s realm in the midst of this fallen world, and act with hope, creativity and courage to help bring it into being. It’s the part of us that becomes a channel for the compassion, forgiveness, justice, peace and hope that come from God.

Our soul enters this world when we were born, and departs from this world when we die, and is always a part of us. We can never really lose our soul. But we sure can lose touch with it. And when that happens, our life loses the richness, depth, purpose, and power that our soul can give it.

As we know, our world is full of temptations and distractions that lure us away from our soul. There’s the perpetual sexual stimulation from TV, movies, magazines, and computer games, in addition to porn, that keeps our sexuality selfish, shallow, and depersonalizing, instead of opening us to the depths of honesty, trust, emotional intimacy, and selfless love.

We have cable TV, satellite dishes, movie theaters with 10 or more features playing day and night, DVD rental stores, computer games--all luring us to spend our time plugged into other people’s fantasy dramas of excitement, adventure, love, terror, and revenge. Watching this stuff isn’t inherently sinful, but watching too much of these dramas keeps us from really starring in the one role we were created for--the story of our lives.

Many people use alcohol or chemical substances to get artificial highs or numb them from pain, keeping them from experiencing the natural highs and the challenging pathos of human existence. I’m not saying an occasional drink or taking medications for mood disorders is sinful. But we need to ask ourselves, Is my soul being deprived of the growth that comes from full engagement with reality? From the ego’s point of view, guilt, pain, and anxiety are bad things, and it’s helpful to numb them out. But from the soul’s point of view, guilt can be what prods us toward reconciliation with God and other people. Pain can prod us toward healing. Anxiety can prod us toward trust in what this world can’t take away. Is our goal to live smoothly, or to live fully and deeply? Listen to your soul. And listen to your doctor before going off any prescribed medications. Sometimes the soul does need medication to keep from getting buffeted around by emotions caused by our biochemistry.

Of course another big soul trap is filling our lives with things instead of with the love, peace and wisdom of God. As it’s been said, “You can never get enough of what you don’t really need.”

Not only does our outer world give us lots of tempting grass to lure us away from our souls, but our inner world has its own traps. If we have a hard time feeling successful and powerful in our lives, well, it must be somebody’s fault. “Look at the way I was treated as a child. Look at what my spouse or kids put me through. Look at this body I was given. Look at all the bad luck I’ve had. Don’t you feel sorry for me? I’m a poor, helpless victim. No wonder I can’t make a contribution to the world.” Of course we have to come to terms with the ways we’ve been mistreated and how it’s affected us. That’s what therapy is for. But the point of going back to those old wounds is to find our soul underneath the pain, and to liberate it from the past so that we can live fully and freely in the present. When we use our past as an excuse for our present, we end up wasting our lives instead of really living them.

Our inner insecurities can also keep our souls buried under our need to be right, be in control, be recognized, and be loved and appreciated.

And sometimes it’s a part of our soul that gets lost--like the coin that the woman in Jesus’ story lost track of from her collection. Maybe our self confidence got lost because of a parent that made it clear we could never measure up. Maybe our creativity got lost because we were told we had no talent. Maybe our capacity to feel got lost because we taught that showing emotion was a sign of weakness. Maybe our own opinions got lost because we were taught it wasn’t good manners to express them. Maybe our ability to care for ourselves in healthy ways got lost because we were taught we were just supposed to take care of others.

Wow, when you think about all the different ways our souls can get lost, it’s no wonder that there is such heartache, emptiness, loneliness, exploitation, cynicism, addiction, violence, and destruction in our world.

So if you find your soul feeling kind of lost, how do you get found? Well, if you found yourself in any of the descriptions of ways souls get lost, you have found the place to begin. Open your awareness to the emptiness, loneliness, gnawing unsettledness, longing, or sadness you feel when the most precious part of you is missing. You probably do a lot of things to try to block or distract yourself from those uncomfortable feelings. Does it work? Not for long. So go the other direction--feel them, and as you feel them as fully as you can, open them to God. And yield yourself to God–yield the things that have blocked God from working fully in you–your pride, your will, your pain, your shame, your fear, your looking for love or satisfaction or recognition or power in all the wrong places–whatever has separated you from God and your soul, turn it over to God. That’s the beginning.

But that’s just the beginning. The rest of your life is a journey of learning to live more and more centered in God and learning to live more from your soul. Every day, it’s important to take some time to unhook from all the demands and distractions, and just be, listen, meditate, pray, read–something that opens up space for you to find your soul again and be centered in God.

Find a group of soul partners, like the spiritual growth group that meets every other Sunday evening at Alan Dailey’s house, or the Soul Food support group that meets here every other Thursday afternoon, or our Metanoians group, or the Faith and Reason group that Gene is going to start on Thursday evenings starting Oct. 11.

And become aware of the blocks and emotional knots that arise as you open more deeply to yourself. Old guilt, pain, fears, and emotional blocks point to the places where some of your soul has gotten tied up and lost. It’s waiting underneath those uncomfortable places for you to find it and set it free. But you’ll probably need the help of a skilled healer. I would be happy to refer you to someone who can help free your soul.

Of course worship is a way we open our soul to the nourishment of God’s love, grace, hope, wisdom, and power, all of which feed and strengthen us from the inside out.

Jesus said that when a lost soul returns to God, there is great joy in heaven. Can you feel any of that joy yourself, when the God-sized hole in you that you’ve tried to fill with everything else gets filled with the boundless love of God? Can you feel that joy when the part of you that felt so lost and alone finds that it can never be alone, because when you are “alone” with your soul, you’re “all-one?” Can you feel that joy when the pains and fears and blocks that have held you back for so long are finally released, and you feel totally whole, alive and free? Can you feel that joy when you live, give, create, and work to change the world around you, empowered by the most creative power in the universe--God? If you’re not feeling that joy, can you at least imagine it? Or if you can’t imagine it, do you at least long for it? If you can at least long for it, that is your soul saying to you, Yes, keep looking. Don’t give up. I’m here. I may be lost. But not forever. By God’s grace, let me be found.