Sermon for the Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost, Year C (9-14-25)

Tell me, where is the road I can call my own,

That I left, that I lost… So long ago?

All these years I have wandered,

Oh when will I know there's a way,

There's a road… That will lead me home?

After wind, after rain, When the dark is done,

As I wake from a dream In the gold of day,

Through the air there's a calling..From far away,

There's a voice I can hear… That will lead me home.

This popular choral work by composer Stephen Paulus speaks of a desire to return home. To be at home -wherever or whatever that may be for each of us. I first sang these words in my college choir, and it was a younger me most definitely seeking to find a home. To come home to that place that we all long for in some way. Where we feel most ourselves. Where our needs are best met. For some of us, that place may not be the physical space where we were raised - or even the one in which we reside now. But it seems we all yearn for the place that makes us feel most at home. And even if we aren’t sure of what that is – or if for any number of reasons can’t be there - we still long for it.

But homes can get dirty, we can track things in that don't necessarily belong there. And the ideal homecoming would include an opportunity to leave a few items at the door. “Repentance” is a word we see a whole lot in our biblical text. But strangely enough, since the beginning of the Christian church, there’s been a translation issue happening around the concept of repentance. Metanoia is one of those Greek words that doesn’t quite translate neatly into English. It's been translated as the guilt- and shame-laden term repentance now for ages. Even the early Church writers knew that it didn’t really convey the heart of what metanoia represents. 

Changing one’s mind. A transformational change of heart. A spiritual conversion. These are better translations of the Greek metanoia. But we can see why they wouldn’t read quite the same way when situated back in text. We would instead hear Jesus say something like: "Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who changes their mind than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no spiritual conversion." Or we would hear: “Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who has a transformational change of heart.” This comes across quite differently, doesn’t it?

In both of Jesus' parables today, something is lost - but then it's found. And while there’s a whole other sermon to preach about us as the lost sheep or lost coin - and how we've gotten to lost in the first place - today something  shone through that lesson.

The joy. The joy in the return of that which was lost to where it belongs. The homecoming of the sheep and the coin. "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep!” we hear the shepherd proclaim to friends and neighbors! “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin!” the woman cries out to anyone who will listen!

Jesus tells us that there is joy in heaven when we change our mind. When we have a change in heart. Not simply when we feel really crummy about something we’ve done. It would seem to me God doesn’t necessarily need an offering of shame and guilt for us to come home. And while these feelings can absolutely accompany real contrition, I'm beginning to believe God would rather us focus our energy on the hard work of continual, life-long spiritual conversion. To be transformed by the Good News. To let go of patterns and cycles that keep us distant from God and from one another.

But along with that work there is joy to be found there my, friends. And with it a reminder that changing our minds is not only a holy thing; it is a fundamental aspect of our salvation, it would seem. So, what about our common understanding of repentance actually keeps us from returning to God’s embrace: to be found, to be fed, and loved into a fuller, more mature faith? Do we stop short of true repentance - real metanoia - because we think we need to be good or clean enough to come home?

Even if that’s true – even if that’s where we’re stuck today - what I see Jesus offering here is a promise. A promise of a life imbued with the grace of God; with the unconditional love of the Spirit; with a persistent invitation to come home, again, and again, and again. A promise that such a life can transcend our desire see faithfulness as being “good enough”, and will instead give us a glimpse of something much bigger. A promise of new and unending life, born out of faith and made holy by true transformation of heart and mind.

But an honest look at all of this leaves one thing unaccounted for, doesn't it? The problem of sin. I’m a believer that sin always brings along its own punishment. The exhaustion of greed, the bitter, hollow taste of objectification when we lust, the isolation and loneliness of pride, the fracturing of our own self when we’re dishonest. God's gift of our perfect freedom comes with the option to opt into a life filled with emptiness. It is always our choice. But the scandal of the Gospel that we profess is that is that metanoia - true transformation - is also always available and abundantly so.

Yes, the Good News is that the incarnate God - like the woman crawling around, looking for her coin - that same God roots around in the dust and dirt endlessly to find us. To bring us home.

Back in college - that song I opened with - when we finally sang it at our big concert I couldn’t sing the last verse. I was crying, because I heard Jesus singing the last verse:

Rise up, follow me, Come away, is the call,

With the love in your heart As the only song;

There is no such beauty As where you belong;

Rise up, follow me, I will lead you home.

Amen.