2025 Rally Day Sermon

Grace and peace to you from God the Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Isn’t it funny how things are always found in the last place you look?

Hours, days or even weeks can go by while you look for something and then you think, “oh, I’ll just go check the couch or under that car seat” and bam – that’s where it was this whole time! And I am personally lucky to have all of you to help me keep track of my keys here at church – I open a closet door here at St. Matthew and my bad habit is to leave my keys hanging in the lock as I think, “well, I’ve got to lock the door when I close it anyway.” Well, then I end up leaving my keys hanging there… Deb and Roy in particular have brought my keys back to me several times… It’s a good thing I have a name badge on these things!

In my lucky case, before I even realize I’ve lost my keys, they are found.

The shepherd who has lost a sheep and the woman who has lost a coin today in our Gospel text, are said to have sought and found what was lost. They are thrilled! They even tell their friends and neighbors to come over to celebrate and rejoice in their success.

As fellow people who have most certainly lost something in our lives, I think we can identify with these characters. We know what it feels like to misplace something special and then to have that sense of the relief wash over us when it’s found.

This morning though, I don’t really identify with the seekers for what’s lost… I feel like I identify more with the lost things of the parables. In the midst of what feels like endless cycles of violence in our world including the report of another school shooting this week in Colorado – the 9^th shooting at a K-12 school since August 1^st of this year according to Education Week, a periodical; and there was another politically motivated assassination; and there was expanded bombing in the middle east in Gaza and now in Qatar; I am feeling more like the lost sheep and the lost coin than the seekers.

I feel this way, because when a lamb is lost, it doesn’t cry out to be found. Its instincts tell it to hide instead, to be quiet, to avoid predators. The lamb is virtually frozen, unable to even help with its own rescue. And when a coin is lost, it’s an inanimate object, it can’t shine brighter to show its owner where it’s hidden.

And THAT’S a how I’m feeling in the midst of this world right now – lost, frozen and fearful.

And, I know the news skews toward the negative because that obtains views and clicks and there are certainly moments of joy, love and good that do not get reported – but overall, I’m not feeling like our world is a place where life is deemed precious.

And because of that, I really think we’re the lost ones – humanity, us, all of us who are stuck in this place right now. Like a little lamb, lost and unable even to cry out. Frozen in our lost-ness amidst this never-ending news cycle of more and more chaotic events. I often find myself trying to tuck myself away from this violence, hiding from the evil I know is out there even while I hope for goodness and life to prevail.

In this experience of lost-ness within this world filled with what we can name as sin and death, I start to think: Is God looking for me as I am frozen here unable to even call out? Is my very inability to call out to God a part of a lack of faith in God’s presence… or even in God’s existence?

Am I so lost and unfaithful that I cannot be found?

This is the reality of being a person of faith. It’s hard. The things that happen to us and our experiences of the world can make us lose our convictions. Can lead us to a place where we are hiding, not calling out, and unable to help in our own rescue. We are like the inanimate coin, laying there, unable to shine brighter to be found.

On this Rally Sunday, I come to you in all my honesty, as your pastor, sharing with you my very real experience of asking these kinds of questions. Because I wonder if many of you join me in coming back to this church wanting to kick-start our faith-filled programs here at St. Matthew and yet you might be coming in lesser or greater degrees of feeling weighed down by the sin and evil in our world that I am today? As ones who come to this place as the seekers for God’s promises, as the ones who eat of the bread and drink of the wine at communion, hoping beyond hope for a taste of God’s goodness and yet still feeling stuck in the lost-ness of the world.

I think we are the seekers for God’s goodness, who are actually the lost ones needing to be sought by God’s goodness.

These two parables that make us the lost ones also tell us that we are lost to someone. To be lost means that we are lost to someone. And these parables assure us that we are being looked for.

The Shepherd leaves behind all the rest to seek out the lost one and the woman seeks for so long that she needs to light a lamp to continue her searching. These parables are metaphors for God’s tireless seeking for us.

In other words, God responds to our lost-ness. Indeed, God has already responded to our lost-ness – each one of us here today. God has somehow drawn you here to St. Matthew this morning on Rally Sunday; in the midst of the world’s lost-ness, you have come to this altar where God will encounter you in the goodness of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion.

These two sacraments remind us of God’s ultimate decisiveness in defeating the sin and evil in the world through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection. We are promised that in Christ’s death, sin and evil dies and resurrection life emerges. We are washed of the world’s sin and evil and we rise to live a new life of love and joy! As our baptismal promises say: By water, bread, wine and word (the very things we do here in church), God delivers us from sin and death and raises us to new life in Jesus Christ!” We will hear these very words in a little while during Penelope’s baptism.

And so, we are found over and over again by God in our baptismal promises and when we eat the bread and drink the wine during communion. These gifts of Word, Water, Wine and Bread are the ways we know God is seeking us and finding us.

So, I want to welcome you all back to St. Matthew dear congregation! I am glad God brought you here today. Where you will experience the gift of Holy Baptism and then Holy Communion. Where you will hear the promise in those Sacraments that in the midst of a world which feels so lost, you are found and encountered by God. You are nourished. You are loved. When you step outside those doors after this time of “found-ness” here at church, I pray that God’s Holy Spirit is with you calling you always, seeking you as you navigate the wilderness that is our life and our world.  

Amen.

Rev. Ryan Heckman | September 14, 2025 | Rally Day