Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, September 14, 2025
Back in March of 2021, I was feeling pretty lost. I was grieving the news of a dear family member who had a terminal illness and would inevitably pass away. And we were still very much in the throes of the pandemic too. You know, the loneliness and isolation, the confusion and pain of that time for all of us. I was doing ministry, and a lot of it was over Zoom—which I know all of us love so much. But I was experiencing a little bit of Zoom fatigue.
So I decided during that spring break time to take a week and go hike the AT. My dad dropped me off at Wendy Gap, and I had planned for one of my best friends, Meline, to pick me up eight days later at Allen Gap, which is not a well-known spot to be picked up. Kind of off a random trailhead. So for eight days I thought, I will feel found by the end of this. I will do the whole Eat, Pray, Love thing. I’ll squeeze it into eight days. I’ll eat the pita with the peanut butter and the beef jerky.
And there were many times during that week where I got lost, somehow found my way back. But overall, as you might expect, that week did not heal the parts of me that were sad. But I hiked on, and the plan was for Meline to pick me up on the eighth day. On the seventh day, I called her from a phone in a hostel and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.” And she was sobbing. She said, “My dog ate a sock. I cannot come get you. I have to take her to the emergency vet. There is a sock in her somewhere, and we have to get it out of her somehow.”
I didn’t know how I was going to get home, and it was a six-hour drive away. So Meline and I scrambled, called friends, and one of my dear friends, Megan, said, “I got you.” The next day, she hopped in the car from Nashville, drove the six hours, probably got a little lost herself trying to find this trailhead, and found me. And Meg is one of those people who, when she sees you—whether it’s been one day or ten years—it’s like she hasn’t seen you in forever. She said, “I found you.”
And with double masks on, we drove back home. So, for her, this was a 12-hour drive in one day. We were blasting pop music and stopped for Reese’s Fast Breaks. And I was more afraid of the harrowing hike of what was waiting for me at home. But Meg didn’t just diligently search for me. She didn’t just find me. When we got back to Nashville, she continued to restore me to my community. And I’ll get into that in a little bit.
But for now, we have this story this morning—this passage that probably all of us have heard—of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and, if you read on, the lost son.
At the beginning of this story, Jesus is having dinner with a bunch of people he shouldn’t be having dinner with. What I love about Jesus is that probably the most offensive things he does in his life happen over a meal. He just sits down and eats pizza or whatever with people others hated, misunderstood, ignored, or wouldn’t touch or talk to. He ate dinner with anybody and everybody.
And the Pharisees were pretty upset about this. “You’re eating dinner with tax collectors.” These were people who were despised among the oppressed. They were benefiting from the economic exploitation of the poor and from living within the Roman Empire. They were hated. “And you’re having dinner with sinners.” Who knows what that meant, but these people weren’t doing too well, right?
They were upset that Jesus often ate with the humiliated, the humble, and the hated. And so, they started to grumble. And I would be grumbling too, to give them some credit. I would be grumbling if I saw Jesus eating with people I hate, people I judge, people I don’t understand. They were followers of the law. This didn’t make sense. “You seem to think you can eat with anybody and everybody.”
They said of Jesus—actually said this guy, this fellow, which in Greek is kind of like this dude, a diminutive term—“This dude is eating with people he shouldn’t be eating with.” So probably in a biting tone, as we know Jesus can have sometimes, he jumped in and asked them a question that he framed as a parable:
“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, would not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after this lost sheep?”
And just as an aside, shepherds in ancient times weren’t making a lot of money. Every sheep counted. Every single one of the hundred mattered. For these Pharisees, tax collectors, and sinners, Jesus knew they probably wouldn’t have gone after one sheep. They didn’t really need the money. But shepherds did.
He said, “When the shepherd has found this one sheep, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he gets home—because the story doesn’t end there with just finding it—he calls his friends and neighbors, and he rejoices with them too because he found this sheep that was lost.
“I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous ones who are grumbling with their chins held high.”
And then he asked them another parable:
“What about a woman who has ten silver coins—which, by the way, would be about ten days of labor for her? This poor woman who didn’t have a high social or economic status—she has to find this coin. What about her if she loses one?
“She lights a lamp—not just turning on a flashlight. She would have had to use some of her oil to light this lamp, which was expensive. She picks up a broom and sweeps this dusty, dirty floor, looking who knows how long for this coin. And when she finds it—because the story doesn’t stop there—she calls her friends and neighbors, and she spends this coin rejoicing with them because she had found something that was lost.
“I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
One sheep, one coin.
In both stories, we can wonder: does God show up as our shepherd? Does God show up as our diligent, relentlessly searching, persistent woman? In both stories, God not only finds the sheep or the coin, but once God does, God immediately restores it to community—brings it back into the fold of friends and neighbors—and celebrates.
That’s our equation in this passage this morning. As Matt Skinner puts it: it’s really fun to be God, to see a lost person become found. And in that way, both are found: the lost, which God has searched for, and the community, which has lost one of its own. That missing puzzle piece—something is longing to return back to us, to restore us into wholeness. The job isn’t done. The rejoicing doesn’t happen until one is reconciled to all.
As Professor Trey Clark writes, in our divided and divisive times, this passage reveals that God is a God whose heart is insistent on closing chasms. And church, we need some chasms closed this week, don’t we?
God rejoices in finding lost things—shows up as a shepherd, shows up as a devoted woman, not stopping the search until the puzzle piece is found. And I believe, church, that this missing piece has been you and it has been me.
We have all felt lost at some point. Lost to addiction or grief. Lost to peer pressure or homesickness. Lost to unemployment, separation, or abandonment. Perhaps we are the sheep roaming around in fear, unable to find our ninety-nine. Longing to be reconciled to community. On a hike, trying to find our footing.
And I wonder if you are feeling that way. Who are the shepherds in our lives seeking us out?
Maybe it’s the psychiatrist who has your back, who walks with you, searching for the right medication to make your mind, body, and spirit feel good again—not stopping until you’ve found something that works. Maybe it’s a friend who helps you look for your car keys as the sun goes down, turning on the flashlight app on your phone until you find them.
Has anybody been there? Okay, thank God—I’m there. Mia knows I’m there every week.
Or a music minister helping you try to find that note when you’ve lost it over and over again, patiently and carefully helping you reach high or low to get there. Or a parent who searches the whole house for your lost homework, then drives back to school to give it to you. Or a friend who visits you in the hospital, gives you a ride to physical therapy, or calls you on a day when you least expect it and you feel lost. Or maybe it’s your partner who offers you grace upon grace when you lose it—even lose it on them a little bit.
Maybe it’s a camp counselor who makes sure you feel included, who learns your name in the first ten minutes and always brings you back into the fold when you show up not knowing anyone. Or a student who shows you where to find that classroom on your first day of school when you’re new. Or a congregant who shuffles out of their pew to greet and welcome you, even though they don’t know you, just to make sure you feel a sense of community here—that you feel found.
Maybe you’ve felt that lost. Or maybe you’re in a place where you feel like you could be the shepherd, the woman, the finder. Even if you grumble at the beginning, maybe it’s your turn to find others.
Maybe you’re the one who can help new mothers with their breastfeeding questions because you’ve been through the throes of motherhood yourself. Maybe you’re the one who points people in the right direction when they seem lost in Nashville, Tennessee, stuck on 440 and just going crazy. Maybe you’re the one who invites someone to AA or Al-Anon because you’re intimately connected with addiction. Maybe you’re the one who picks up the phone just because someone’s name crossed your mind on a random Tuesday—and you call them, and you rejoice.
Maybe you’re the one who finds cash in an old shoebox and treats your friends to a nice meal, like that woman who found the coin and immediately celebrated.
Megan found me. Woo! Sorry.
But her shepherding didn’t end with finding me, and it didn’t end with driving me home. She continued restoring me to community—checking on me when I felt pain, texting me most mornings and saying, “Good morning. I love you. You can do this. You can get through this. I’ll be right there with you.”
Showing me that God doesn’t just seek us out and diligently look for us. God doesn’t just find us and end the story there. No—God rejoices when we are welcomed back into the fold of community.
And this missing puzzle piece—that might be you, that might be me—is finally placed back where it belongs.
So may we be like Meg—persistent and carefully searching. May we be listening for the cries of help, seeking the ones who might be on the outside. Closing the chasm and putting that puzzle piece back where it belongs. And celebrating. Celebrating when we do.
Amen.