Theological Status: THERAPEUTIC / COMPLACENT
Biblical Parallel(Archetype): Ephesus
❓ What do these grades mean?
🔍 Biblical Discernment: The 7 Church Parallels
The Cold Orthodox Parallel
Ephesus
Teaching that upholds doctrinal precision yet parallels the loss of the "first love"—the vital, motivating power of the Gospel (Rev 2:4).
The Compromised Parallel
Pergamum
Teaching that parallels churches tolerating the "doctrine of Balaam" through cultural accommodation (Rev 2:14), characterized by weak boundaries, sloppy theology, and worldly compromise.
Why strictly "Mark & Avoid"?
We do not issue this rating to attack the speaker, but to protect the listener. This ministry's overall teaching trend consistently deviates from sound doctrine. As per Romans 16:17, we identify these patterns so believers can guard their hearts.
We do not issue this rating to attack the speaker, but to protect the listener. This ministry's overall teaching trend consistently deviates from sound doctrine. As per Romans 16:17, we identify these patterns so believers can guard their hearts.
🧐 Overview
Theological Verdict & Summary
Sermon Summary: A challenging exploration of the Parable of the Lost Sheep, urging the congregation to move beyond passive attendance to active, intentional inclusion of those on the margins, including the neurodivergent.
Pastoral Analysis: The sermon offers a compelling call to action regarding church inclusion and neurodiversity, utilizing personal anecdotes and biblical parables effectively. However, the theological foundation is compromised by a significant hermeneutical error regarding the nature of God's initiative in salvation and a failure to explicitly articulate the Gospel of Christ's substitutionary atonement. While the pastoral heart is evident, the doctrinal precision requires correction to ensure the message remains biblically sound.
Biblical Parallel (Archetype): Ephesus — The sermon exhibits a compromised theological state due to the failure of the Gospel Engine and the presence of major hermeneutical errors, yet it maintains a generally orthodox framework without crossing into fundamental heresy (Path C). The teaching is characterized by a formal, academic approach that lacks the warm pastoral affections and explicit proclamation of the Cross required for a 'Sound' (Path A) classification.
Big Idea: God calls us to a different kind of counting, welcoming and celebrating the 'lost' (including the neurodivergent) rather than counting them out, mirroring the shepherd's and the woman's frantic search for wholeness. [00:39:56 ▶️ 📄]
📖 How they Handle Scripture & Jesus
- Primary Text: Luke 15:1-10
- Usage Classification: Thematic
- Text-to-Talk Ratio: High
- Pulpit Decorum: ⚠️ CAUTION - The use of subjective authority claims ('if I'm honest, something about that interpretation never really sits quite right with me') undermines the authority of Scripture and the pastor's role as a faithful interpreter. It suggests personal preference over biblical truth.
✝️ Christological Focus: Absent
"The sermon fails to explicitly connect the parables to the person and work of Jesus Christ. The focus is on the 'shepherd' and 'woman' as generic figures or human leaders, rather than explicitly identifying Christ as the Good Shepherd who seeks the lost."
Scripture Saturation: Verses Read: 42 | Referenced: 0 | Alluded: 0
📖 View 3 Passages Read Aloud
-
Exodus 32:7-14
[00:20:57 ▶️ 📄]
"The Lord said to Moses, go down at once. Your people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt have acted perversely. They have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them. They have cast for themselves an image of a calf and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said, these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. The Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them, and of you I will make a great nation. But Moses implored the Lord, the Lord his God, and said, O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power? and with a mighty hand. Why should the Egyptians say it was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from your fierce wrath, change your mind, and do not bring disaster upon your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them i will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven and all this land that i have promised i will give to your descendants and they shall inherit it forever and the lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people"
-
Luke 15:1-10
[00:27:17 ▶️ 📄]
"now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to jesus and the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them. So Jesus told this parable, which one of you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it. and when he has found it he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices and when he comes home he calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them rejoice with me for I have found the last sheep just so I tell you there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 religious persons who need no repentance? Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost. Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
-
Psalm 139
[00:33:21 ▶️ 📄]
"where can I go from your spirit or where can I flee from your presence if I ascend to heaven you are there if I make my bed and Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there you shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness shall come over me, and night wraps itself around me, even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is as bright as the day, for darkness as is light to you."
🎙️ Sermon Content & Delivery
Word Count: 1,691 words
📌 View 5 Key Topics Addressed
-
The Parable of the Lost Sheep and Coin
[00:30:41 ▶️ 📄]
> The pastor analyzes the parables, challenging the traditional interpretation that God is the seeker, suggesting instead that the shepherd and woman represent the religious leaders who should be seeking the lost. -
Neurodiversity and Church Community
[00:37:21 ▶️ 📄]
> The pastor connects the parables to the book 'Blessed Mind,' discussing how churches should move from counting only the present to actively welcoming neurodivergent individuals. -
The Nature of God's Presence
[00:33:01 ▶️ 📄]
> The pastor argues against the idea that God 'loses' people, citing Psalm 139 to assert that God's presence is inescapable and that God does not abandon His people. -
Neurodiversity and Church Inclusion
[00:37:39 ▶️ 📄]
> The pastor defines neurodiversity, contrasts it with neurotypical norms, and argues that churches should celebrate neurodivergent members as a gift rather than marginalizing them. -
Breaking Silence and Learning
[00:40:34 ▶️ 📄]
> The pastor emphasizes the necessity of active conversation and education to understand neurodivergent experiences, asserting that love requires knowledge.
🖼️ View 3 Illustrations & Stories
-
Sermon Illustration
[00:29:08 ▶️ 📄]
> The pastor shares a personal story about her grandmother's love for puzzles, specifically how she taught the pastor to start on the edges and work inward, and how they dealt with incomplete puzzles by writing down the missing pieces to avoid the anxiety of wondering if they were lost. -
Sermon Illustration
[00:30:41 ▶️ 📄]
> The pastor uses the analogy of an incomplete puzzle to illustrate the anxiety of wondering if something is missing, comparing it to the frantic search for the lost sheep and coin. -
Sermon Illustration
[00:39:14 ▶️ 📄]
> The pastor references specific examples from Reverend Sarah Griffith Lund's book: a teenager who cannot stay quiet in worship, a man whose Bible study comments confuse others, and a woman who remains depressed despite gratitude.
🚀 View 2 Calls to Action
-
Pastoral Charge
[00:40:34 ▶️ 📄]
> Break the silence of neurodiversity by talking with each other and with others who have lived experience. -
Pastoral Charge
[00:41:08 ▶️ 📄]
> Learn about neurodivergent members and make accommodations for their welcome.
🧭 Biblical Alignment Dashboard
Overall Verdict: Fundamentally in Error
| Category | Status | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Gospel Presentation | ❌ FAIL | The Gospel Engine is broken because the sermon fails to substantively articulate the core Gospel message of Christ's substitutionary atonement and sovereign grace. Instead, it relies on an assumed, thematic application that shifts the focus to human effort and inclusion without grounding it in the finished work of Christ. |
| Soteriology | ⚠️ WEAK | The sermon presents a 'Thematic/Moralistic' soteriology, assuming the Gospel rather than proclaiming it. It fails to explicitly teach that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, instead focusing on human action (counting, welcoming) as the primary mechanism for spiritual wholeness. |
| Bibliology | ⚠️ WEAK | The hermeneutic is flawed. The speaker rejects the orthodox interpretation of the Parable of the Lost Sheep (that God/Christ actively seeks the lost) in favor of a novel reading that reassigns agency to human religious leaders. This undermines the biblical witness of God's initiative in salvation. |
| Theology Proper | ⚠️ WEAK | The speaker suggests that 'God loses us,' which contradicts the orthodox doctrine of God's omnipresence and faithfulness. While the speaker corrects this by saying 'I can't say that I believe that God ever loses us,' the initial assertion and the shift of agency to humans create a theological boundary violation. |
| Sacramentology | ✅ PASS | No errors detected regarding sacraments. The sermon does not contain any sacramental errors or misrepresentations of the Lord's Supper or Baptism. |
| Confessional Depth | ❌ SHALLOW | The sermon lacks depth in its theological exposition. It relies heavily on personal anecdotes and subjective authority claims ('if I'm honest...') rather than engaging deeply with the biblical text and historical theology to build a robust, defensible case. |
⚙️ The Core Gospel Framework
What is this? This section checks if the sermon contains the essential building blocks of the Gospel. We look for explicit, substantive mentions of God's holy standard, human inability, and Christ's finished work on the cross.
Why it matters for the final verdict: A complete Gospel framework protects a sermon from becoming man-centered. If a preacher gives commands for good behavior but leaves out the grace and atonement of the Gospel, it often results in a 🔴 Critical or 🟠 Major error for Moralism (teaching human self-improvement rather than reliance on Christ). However, if these Gospel elements are missing simply because the pastor is preaching a highly focused, practical message to mature believers (e.g., instructions on biblical marriage), our system applies a "Safe Harbor" pardon, graciously reducing the omission to a 🟡 Minor error.
Why it matters for the final verdict: A complete Gospel framework protects a sermon from becoming man-centered. If a preacher gives commands for good behavior but leaves out the grace and atonement of the Gospel, it often results in a 🔴 Critical or 🟠 Major error for Moralism (teaching human self-improvement rather than reliance on Christ). However, if these Gospel elements are missing simply because the pastor is preaching a highly focused, practical message to mature believers (e.g., instructions on biblical marriage), our system applies a "Safe Harbor" pardon, graciously reducing the omission to a 🟡 Minor error.
❌ The Law And Wrath: Not observed in the sermon.
❌ Total Depravity And Inability: Not observed in the sermon.
❌ Active Obedience Of Christ: Not observed in the sermon.
❌ The Cross And Atonement: Not observed in the sermon.
⚠️ Theological Concerns
🔴 Critical Assumed Gospel (Thematic/Moralistic)
Root Cause: Moralistic Therapeutic Deism
Description: The sermon assumes rather than proclaims the core Gospel message, failing to substantively articulate Christ's substitutionary atonement and sovereign grace. It relies on an assumed, thematic application that shifts the focus to human effort and inclusion without grounding it in the finished work of Christ.
Biblical Correction: Romans 1:16 "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek."
🟠 Major Hermeneutical Error Regarding the Parable of the Lost Sheep
Root Cause: Progressive Christianity
"We tend to interpret this parable by saying that the shepherd and the woman, they're like God. They're in the place of God, seeking out the lost. But if I'm honest, something about that interpretation never really sits quite right with me. the shepherd loses his sheep and the woman loses her coin but I can't say that I believe that God ever loses us" [00:32:44 ▶️ 📄]
Description: The speaker rejects the traditional, orthodox interpretation of the Parable of the Lost Sheep (that God/Christ actively seeks the lost) in favor of a novel, non-orthodox reading that reassigns the agency of seeking to human religious leaders, while simultaneously denying the traditional understanding of God's initiative.
Biblical Correction: The parable of the lost sheep is a theological demonstration of God's active initiative in salvation, explicitly contrasting Christ's teaching with Pharisaic exclusionism. It affirms that the lost are still God's property and children, and that the Father and the Good Shepherd actively seek and restore them. This aligns with the biblical witness of Psalm 139, which affirms God's omnipresence and that He never loses His people, while simultaneously validating the sermon's critique of religious leaders who fail to emulate the Shepherd's active seeking and rejoicing over the lost.
🟡 Minor Homiletical Subjectivity and Interpretive Overreach
Root Cause: Liberal Theology
"if I'm honest, something about that interpretation never really sits quite right with me. the shepherd loses his sheep and the woman loses her coin but I can't say that I believe that God ever loses us" [00:33:01 ▶️ 📄]
Description: The speaker uses personal subjective authority ('if I'm honest') to critique a traditional theological interpretation, suggesting that the shepherd loses the sheep, which contradicts orthodox Christology.
Biblical Correction: The Gospel places acceptance at the beginning of repentance, and as the free gift of God’s love. Christ said to them: ‘There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth.’ The figure of the Good Shepherd appears also in... Jesus champions the lost and accepts the challenge and justifies his conduct by these superb stories.
🟡 Minor Theological Boundary Violation (Divine Initiative)
Root Cause: Arianism
"the shepherd loses his sheep and the woman loses her coin but I can't say that I believe that God ever loses us" [00:33:01 ▶️ 📄]
Description: The speaker suggests that 'God loses us,' which contradicts the orthodox view that God is omnipresent and never loses His people.
Biblical Correction: God's omnipresence is closely related to His omnipotence and omniscience: that He is everywhere enables Him to act everywhere and to know all things, and, conversely, through omnipotent action and omniscient knowledge He has access to all places and all secrets. Thus conceived, the attribute is but the correlate of the monotheistic conception of God as the Infinite Creator, Preserver and Governor of the universe, immanent in His works as well as transcendent above them.
🟡 Minor Ecclesiological Misapplication of Parables
Root Cause: Pelagianism
"God calls us to a different kind of counting not just to count who is in the room but to count who is missing" [00:39:35 ▶️ 📄]
Description: The speaker redefines the parables to suggest that religious leaders are the primary seekers, rather than God being the primary agent of salvation.
Biblical Correction: It is the Shepherd who seeks the sheep, and not the sheep that seek the Shepherd. But who is there that seeks for you... save only Him who dispenses that mercy to you in all things? God is sought at a seasonable time, when of his own accord he advances to meet us.
✅ Commendations
Pastoral Application | Active Inclusion of the Marginalized
The sermon effectively challenges the congregation to move beyond passive attendance to active, intentional inclusion of those on the margins, including the neurodivergent. This is a strong, practical application that aligns with the spirit of the Parable of the Lost Sheep.
Illustration | Grandmother's Puzzle Analogy
The personal story about the grandmother's love for puzzles and dealing with incomplete pieces is a relatable and effective illustration that helps the congregation understand the anxiety of wondering if something is missing and the relief of finding it.
📜 Full Sermon Transcript (Audit)
Use the 📄 icons next to quotes above to automatically jump to their location in this raw transcript.
[00:06:02] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:06:02] Welcome to worship on this beautiful September day. Whether we are gathered here in person or gathered online, it is always good to be together for worship.
[00:06:12] I have a few announcements I'll highlight before we jump into worship. The first is that during the month of September, we will be collecting diapers, and those diapers will go to Wilkes Community Partnership for Children, and they'll be distributed to families in need from there.
[00:06:29] so if you would like to bring any diapers in you can put them on a table in the breezeway and we'll make sure that they get to Wilkes community partnership for children our peace and justice book club is meeting today for
[00:06:43] their first discussion on what the eyes don't see by mana Hanna so come and join for that this is the first of a two-part conversation 3 p.m. in the library and if you have any interest in the book but you just haven't read it yet come anyway
[00:06:59] and join in the conversation. On Sunday evenings in September, we are having a small group time in which we will be gathering to have a conversation about how we might better welcome our neurodivergent siblings. And that conversation is based on the book Blessed Minds by Reverend
[00:07:20] Sarah Griffith Lund. And that conversation is intentionally designed so that you do not have to have read the book to come and join and learn something we hope together. So come for that at 5 30 also in the church library on Sunday evenings through September. Finally I'll point out that this
[00:07:40] Thursday our church the Thursbaterians will be serving lunch at St. Paul's Crisis Assistance Ministry. This week on the menu are soups and chilies and grilled cheese sandwiches and so you can go to the newsletter to our sign up genius to see what food might still
[00:08:01] be required and also to find out how to volunteer if you're interested in that so make food show up to serve check that out in the newsletter so you that you can be connected I will just refer you to the QR code in our bulletin which
[00:08:19] will take you to our up-to-date newsletter along with a whole host of other useful information tune in there so that you can be connected throughout the week we know that our worship continues throughout the week and we
[00:08:33] have many opportunities for us to grow and learn and serve and love together but we gather here now to worship the one who never stops seeking wholeness who rejoices when the lost are found.
[00:08:50] Like a puzzle incomplete without all of its pieces, God gathers us in here, and together we make up the image of the church, the image of Christ's body here in this place.
[00:09:03] So I invite us all to quiet our hearts and our minds, to open up our spirits, and prepare to worship the God that counts all of us in.
[00:09:14] let us call one another to worship in the image of god god makes us with the sound of god's voice god calls us with the touch of god's hand god forms us from different nations and cultures
[00:09:33] god gathers us of all abilities and genders god creates us children of god god makes us God blesses us. God loves us. Amen.
[00:12:49] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:12:49] Trusting in God's abundant grace and mercy, let us confess our sin before God and one another, trusting that God will indeed create in us a new heart and will indeed put a new and right spirit within us.
[00:13:06] We will do so first and foremost by joining our voices with our corporate prayer of confession, the one that's printed in our bulletins. Then we'll offer silence so that we might, each of us, offer those things in the silence of our hearts, those things that cling to us
[00:13:23] and weigh heavy upon us. So let us join our voices in prayer saying, Loving God, too often we forget that you formed us as your children, beautiful and complete, Unified through our diversity Each with gifts to share
[00:13:42] Yet each in need of support Loving God, forgive us Let us see your face in each person that we see Hear your voice in all creation And feel your touch in every embrace Help us to see your face in our own
[00:14:02] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:14:02] And hear your voice in our song
[00:14:05] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:14:05] Friends, the grace of our God overflows upon us through the faith and love that are ours in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is indeed good news, so let us join in reassuring one another of our forgiveness. Be at peace and know that God loves you in your strengths, but also in
[00:15:01] your vulnerability. God's grace is granting us the opportunity to grow. Our gifts are to be shared in abundance. Amen. Indeed, God is a God of abundance, lavishing love and mercy, grace and forgiveness, peace and justice upon you, me, upon everyone. This is good news, so let us take a
[00:15:26] moment to share the gifts that God has given us. Let us share the peace of Christ with one another.
[00:15:33] You can do so in whatever way seems sensible to you. The shake of a hand, a warm embrace, a fist bump, an elbow tap, peace gesture, or a kind word. In whatever way makes sense,
[00:15:46] let us extend the peace of Christ to one another saying, may the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. And also with you. Well friends, as we prepare to listen for God's word, both read
[00:19:28] and proclaimed, let us take a moment to open ourselves up to hearing God's word anew today.
[00:19:35] Would you join me as we sing our prayer for illumination? That is hymn number 452, Open the eyes of my heart. Amen. Well, our first scripture lesson for today comes from the book of Exodus, chapter 32, verses 7 through 14. So listen, listen for the word of God.
[00:20:57] The Lord said to Moses, go down at once. Your people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt have acted perversely. They have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them.
[00:21:14] They have cast for themselves an image of a calf and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said, these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. The Lord said to
[00:21:30] Moses, I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are.
[00:21:36] Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them, and of you I will make a great nation.
[00:21:48] But Moses implored the Lord, the Lord his God, and said, O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power?
[00:22:01] and with a mighty hand. Why should the Egyptians say it was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth?
[00:22:14] Turn from your fierce wrath, change your mind, and do not bring disaster upon your people.
[00:22:22] Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them i will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven and all this land that i have promised i will give to your descendants and they shall inherit it forever and the lord
[00:22:47] changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people holy wisdom
[00:22:56] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:22:56] holy word thanks be to god our second scripture lesson for today comes from the gospel according
[00:27:17] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:27:17] to luke chapter 15 verses 1 through 10 so listen again for what the holy spirit is telling god's people now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to jesus and the
[00:27:34] Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them. So Jesus told this parable, which one of you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it.
[00:27:59] and when he has found it he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices and when he comes home he calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them rejoice with me for I have found
[00:28:14] the last sheep just so I tell you there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 religious persons who need no repentance?
[00:28:30] Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?
[00:28:42] And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.
[00:28:51] Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
[00:29:02] Holy wisdom, holy word. Thanks be to God.
[00:29:08] When I was growing up, my grandmother lived with us.
[00:29:12] She watched my sister and me when my parents were at work, and through our time together, she instilled a lot of her loves.
[00:29:20] Her love of crummy daytime television, her love of all holidays, and especially perhaps her love of puzzles.
[00:29:31] By her reclining armchair, she had a stack of crossword, sudoku, and word search books.
[00:29:38] And every so often, when she was in the mood, she would pull out our folding card table and set up a puzzle for us to do together.
[00:29:46] I was always anxious to jump in and start assembling the pieces of the beautiful picture that was on the box, but my grandmother had absolutely no patience for that.
[00:30:00] She taught me that you always have to start on the edges, the outer edges, and work your way in.
[00:30:06] She did not allow any skipping ahead.
[00:30:10] This is where I usually lost interest and let my grandmother and my sister keep doing the puzzle.
[00:30:15] It must be said, though, that one of my grandmother's other loves in life was finding a good deal.
[00:30:25] And that meant that almost all of our puzzles came from garage sales or second-hand stores.
[00:30:32] That also meant that almost all of our puzzles had quite a few missing pieces.
[00:30:38] Isn't that the worst?
[00:30:41] Jesus talks about the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin.
[00:30:45] but is there ever a more frantic search for something lost than when you get near the end of a puzzle maybe a puzzle you've been working on for days only to notice that there are pieces
[00:30:57] missing you always end up on your hands and knees crawling under the table checking under the seats wondering if maybe the pieces have sprouted legs and moved into other parts of the house you will do anything so long as you don't have to admit that the puzzle may be incomplete.
[00:31:19] If you finally do have to give up and put the puzzle away without finishing it, you're always left wondering, did I lose the piece or was it lost before I started?
[00:31:30] One summer, my grandmother decided that she was going to try to lift some of that psychological burden of wondering if all the pieces were there when you started by doing every single one of the
[00:31:43] puzzles we had and then writing in the box how many pieces were missing. So you knew when you got started that you didn't have to keep looking for those final six pieces. They were already long
[00:31:56] gone. It usually didn't stop us hoping though. Our brains are funny that way. We would start out on one of those incomplete puzzles and always secretly in the back of our minds we'd be hoping
[00:32:11] that somehow as the puzzle sat in the box in the closet something mysterious and magical happened and all of the pieces were found and placed back in the box because even if you know what to expect
[00:32:26] it really is never completely satisfying to put some to put together an incomplete puzzle Jesus seems to have a similar longing for wholeness as he tells his parable about the lost sheep and the lost coin.
[00:32:44] We tend to interpret this parable by saying that the shepherd and the woman, they're like God.
[00:32:51] They're in the place of God, seeking out the lost.
[00:32:55] But if I'm honest, something about that interpretation never really sits quite right with me.
[00:33:01] the shepherd loses his sheep and the woman loses her coin but I can't say that I believe that God ever loses us along with the writer of Psalm 139 I would like to proclaim where can I go from your
[00:33:21] spirit or where can I flee from your presence if I ascend to heaven you are there if I make my bed and Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits
[00:33:38] of the sea, even there you shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness shall come over me, and night wraps itself around me, even the darkness
[00:33:54] is not dark to you. The night is as bright as the day, for darkness as is light to you.
[00:34:03] No, God does not lose people. So maybe the shepherd and the woman are meant to be someone else.
[00:34:14] Jesus tells the parable after the religious leaders begin to grumble and complain about the kinds of people Jesus welcomes, the kinds of people with whom Jesus eats. And so I wonder if maybe the shepherd and the woman are not meant to be God at all, but meant to be the religious
[00:34:36] folks, as they should be, as they could be, if they would learn how to stop counting others out and start counting who was missing so that they could be brought in.
[00:34:51] Jesus tells the story of the lost sheep, and to begin, he asks, Which of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?
[00:35:09] We're used to this parable.
[00:35:10] We know how it ends, and so it's easy for us to fill in some things.
[00:35:16] We think maybe, of course, a good shepherd would seek out the lost sheep.
[00:35:22] But is that really how Jesus' first hearers would have thought, I wonder?
[00:35:28] A hundred sheep is a large flock.
[00:35:30] If you only had five, perhaps one missing would be easy to notice and more valuable to retrieve.
[00:35:37] But would a shepherd of a large flock risk leaving 99 unattended to search for just one?
[00:35:47] Is it possible that a wise shepherd might judge that that was too great a risk to take?
[00:35:54] But Jesus' shepherd isn't willing to leave even one behind.
[00:35:59] And perhaps it is in the shepherd's surprising commitment to wholeness that we learn something about God's accounting and something about how we are supposed to be counting too.
[00:36:15] And something about how we're supposed to be counting too.
[00:36:19] One missing means the flock is incomplete.
[00:36:23] And that's just not going to cut it if everyone counts.
[00:36:27] In the story of the woman searching for the lost coin, we see exaggerated rejoicing when the lost coin is found.
[00:36:37] It makes sense. 10% of her savings is missing.
[00:36:42] So it makes sense that she would tear her house apart and search for it until it was found.
[00:36:47] But after finding it, does it make sense for her to call all her friends and neighbors and throw a party to celebrate?
[00:36:55] there is an exaggeration in the rejoicing.
[00:37:00] Perhaps if we learn from the shepherd and the woman, who are both frantic to find what's been lost and overjoyed when wholeness is restored, we might be challenged in our own time and place to look around and to count.
[00:37:17] Who do we welcome and who do we leave out?
[00:37:21] During our Sunday evening small groups throughout September, we're learning from the book Blessed Mind, Breaking the Silence on Neurodiversity by Reverend Sarah Griffith Lund. The book is written to the church, encouraging us not only to accept
[00:37:39] neurodivergent folks, but to celebrate their belonging in our communities as a gift from God.
[00:37:47] neurodivergent is maybe a term that is not very familiar to all of you it's not a medical term it's not a diagnosis it's a word that grew out of people's lived experience living with brains that
[00:38:04] somehow work differently from other people's sometimes that comes with a diagnosis like adhd or autism spectrum disorder, but not always.
[00:38:15] Neurodiversity then recognizes that there are all types of brains with different strengths and with different needs, much like in our understanding of biodiversity, in which we know that an environment is made stronger by the diversity of plant and animal and insect species.
[00:38:37] Neurodiversity strengthens our community, makes us stronger The challenge for church communities is that we're generally set up to accommodate neurotypical brains Reverend Griffith Lund writes in her book That while churches should be a place of unconditional acceptance
[00:38:58] Differences and symptoms originating in the brain Sometimes prove particularly challenging for Christians to understand She writes about the teenager who can't stay quiet and still in worship.
[00:39:14] The man whose comments in Bible study leave others scratching their head.
[00:39:20] The woman who remains depressed despite everything for which she can be grateful.
[00:39:27] Many faith communities count these folks among their members and friends, yet keep them on the margins, she writes.
[00:39:35] but if we learned anything from the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin God calls us to a different kind of counting not just to count neuro divergent folks as members and friends who stay on the outside but as people to
[00:39:56] be welcomed in and celebrated rejoiced over the neurodiversity paradigm paradigm helps us to see that it is not people who are deficient because their brains work differently it is our communities that are at a loss somehow when we do
[00:40:17] not welcome or create space for people whose brains work differently this is not the kind of work that happens overnight it is the kind of work that takes persistence as Sarah Griffith one calls for we need to start by breaking
[00:40:34] the silence of neurodiversity by talking with each other and with other people who know more than us who have to live into experience becoming a more welcoming community will require us to take the time to stop and learn new
[00:40:50] things because the truth is we really can't love people until we know something about them we need to start learning about the beloved among us who have been counted out, perhaps learning how we might make accommodations for their welcome.
[00:41:08] Jesus says there is rejoicing in heaven over the one who is found. What if we sounded more like heaven, celebrating each and every one who comes in from the margins? That's the joy God invites us
[00:41:29] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:41:29] to share. Amen. Having heard God's word read and proclaimed, with God's word ringing in our ears and bouncing around in our brains and embedded deep in our hearts, let us affirm our faith together. Our affirmation of faith today comes from the Iona Abbey worship book, so I'll invite
[00:42:05] you to rise in body or spirit so that we might say what we believe together. We believe in a bright and amazing God, who has been to the depths of despair on our behalf, who has risen in
[00:42:24] splendor and majesty, who decorates the universe with sparkling water, clear, bright light, twinkling stars, and sharp colors over and over again.
[00:42:38] We believe that Jesus is the light of the world, that God believes in us even though we make the same mistakes over and over again we commit ourselves to jesus to one another as
[00:42:53] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:42:53] siblings and to the maker's business in the world amen now let us turn ourselves in prayer to god
[00:45:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:45:50] lifting up our concerns for this world that god so loves holy incarnate one word made flesh we thank you for the gifts of all people made in the image of God we thank you for loving us so completely that you took on the joys and sorrows pains and
[00:46:14] pleasures of this world we know that you lived and walked among us touching our pain and feeling our hurt we praise you that in your reconciling love you restored lives and communities through your healing acts and in doing so proclaiming the
[00:46:35] belovedness of all abilities. Lord, hear our prayers. We come to you with hearts heavy and weighed down with worries and sadness. We lift up to you your beloved children whom this world considers disabled. We praise you for the lives of the one in four Americans who identify as
[00:47:01] disabled, and we pray that as the conversation around disability continues to grow, you would pour out your compassion and mercy. Hear our prayer, oh God. The lives of disabled people are obscured by popular stereotypes misunderstandings and stigmas give us
[00:47:26] the clarity and awareness to move past our judgments to notice the real living breathing people in our midst soften our hearts and open our minds to the challenges and triumphs that disabled people experience you remind us that
[00:47:44] that while people with disabilities may or may not want to be healed, they are already whole.
[00:47:56] Lord, hear our prayers.
[00:48:00] The types of disabilities vary widely, and there are many that cannot be seen or recognized.
[00:48:10] Many people do not have disabilities which are visible.
[00:48:14] So give us grace to learn about and really welcome those who are neurodivergent, whose brains work differently. Teach us to embrace the wide variety of our differences as a gift from you. Lord, hear our prayers. Many living with disabilities are isolated from their communities, both in the
[00:48:39] scriptures and still today. We pray for all those who wrestle with their bodies or with their minds.
[00:48:46] Help them to know that they do not wrestle alone. Lord, hear our prayers. We give you thanks for all those who help and serve others, medical caregivers, nurses and doctors, therapists and counselors.
[00:49:04] Thank you for the teachers and tutors, for all those whose life work is to build up other people with their expertise and talents. Lord, hear our prayers. God of peace, on this Sunday morning, we find ourselves again in the wake of more violent tragedy in our country. We confess that
[00:49:30] too often we choose violence as our answer to difference, as our solution to conflict.
[00:49:38] We confess that there have been 302 mass shootings in our country in 2025.
[00:49:46] We see the ripple effects, families shattered, children traumatized, communities marked by loss and fear.
[00:49:55] Forgive us, we pray.
[00:49:58] us a better way, a holy imagination of justice, mercy, and reconciliation. Make us builders of bridges, makers of community, and keepers of hope until the swords are beaten into plowshares and your reign of love is all in all. Lord, hear our prayers. Present God, we trust to you our
[00:50:24] concerns for the big things that worry us and weigh us down. And we also trust that you are never far from us personally. No matter how lost we feel in this world, you are with us. So we lift
[00:50:39] up to you now the prayers that we know from our community, those who we know by name who are in need of a little extra care. Anna Jo, Karen, Chris, Susan, Martha, Trula, Mamie, Richard, Michael,
[00:51:01] William, Betty, Kathy, Evelyn, Debbie, Joelle, Barbara, Cole, and Leslie. And we also lift up the prayers that we each know in the silence of our hearts, trusting that you hear. Lord, hear our prayers. God who seeks us, who offers us grace, and who celebrates our presence,
[00:51:37] hear us as we join together in prayer using the words Jesus taught his disciples, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
[00:51:48] Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:51:54] Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
[00:52:02] Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
[00:52:07] For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
[00:52:20] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:52:20] Well, just yesterday, several of our young people, our youth, along with a few of our grown-ups, gave their time and their energy to do the Clemens YMCA Mud Run.
[00:52:35] The event always has its goal to raise awareness and to raise funds to fight chronic disease.
[00:52:44] And our youth have participated in this over the past few years now.
[00:52:48] they have put their time and their energy into it. They've even dedicated their bodies to this cause. They've gotten into the game, so to speak. They've got skin in the game. Is there anything more generous than that? To give of yourself for the good of others, even other people that you
[00:53:08] don't even know. So we take time each and every week to consider how we as a congregation, how we as individuals here might be generous with who we are and with what we have, so that we might
[00:53:22] invest ourselves in the lives of others, maybe even people we don't yet know. So perhaps you'd like to join in. Perhaps you'd like to get your time and your energy to put your resources, even
[00:53:38] your own bodies, your lives into the game. Maybe you want to get your skin in the game as well.
[00:53:45] you know how you can do that there's lots and lots of ways if you'd like to do that by giving to the good work that we are doing there are offering plates here on the communion table
[00:53:56] there's a little white church in the narthex that you can drop something into as you exit worship today you can mail something in or drop it by the church office you can scan the qr code
[00:54:08] and click the link to give online but we also know that there are lots of other ways to give Maybe you want to get your skin in the game by donating your time or a meal at St. Paul's Crisis Assistance Ministry.
[00:54:25] Maybe you want to make bag lunches for Wilkes Ministry of Hope.
[00:54:28] Maybe you want to donate diapers for underserved peoples for the Wilkes Partnership for Children.
[00:54:34] Maybe you want to spend time at Kirk Knight learning and growing together.
[00:54:39] Maybe you want to join the conversation with our Peace and Justice Book Club this afternoon.
[00:54:44] maybe you want to learn about our neurodivergent neighbors here this evening in whatever way is sensible to you in whatever way you feel called use this time to make your own commitment about how you are going to give of yourself who you are and what you have and in just a moment's time we
[00:55:04] will pray all of those dedicating all of our commitments to god would you join me in prayer as we dedicate all of our commitments to God.
[00:59:32] We rejoice and give you thanks, O God.
[00:59:36] Lost have been found, sinners have received mercy, and the dead have been restored to life.
[00:59:44] Send us out in your service to tend your sheep and show the riches of your grace.
[00:59:52] Through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
[00:59:55] Amen.
[00:59:56] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:59:56] It's time for us to go.
[01:02:55] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[01:02:55] And I pray that we go out into the world ready to count as God counts, not counting people out, but looking always to find those who need to be counted in and rejoicing, joining our voices with the songs of the angels
[01:03:11] when there is welcome, when there is wholeness.
[01:03:15] And as you go, I pray you go with this blessing.
[01:03:19] May the Lord bless you and keep you.
[01:03:21] May the Lord be kind and gracious to you.
[01:03:23] May the Lord look with favor upon you and grant you peace.
[01:03:28] Hallelujah. Amen.
[00:06:02] Welcome to worship on this beautiful September day. Whether we are gathered here in person or gathered online, it is always good to be together for worship.
[00:06:12] I have a few announcements I'll highlight before we jump into worship. The first is that during the month of September, we will be collecting diapers, and those diapers will go to Wilkes Community Partnership for Children, and they'll be distributed to families in need from there.
[00:06:29] so if you would like to bring any diapers in you can put them on a table in the breezeway and we'll make sure that they get to Wilkes community partnership for children our peace and justice book club is meeting today for
[00:06:43] their first discussion on what the eyes don't see by mana Hanna so come and join for that this is the first of a two-part conversation 3 p.m. in the library and if you have any interest in the book but you just haven't read it yet come anyway
[00:06:59] and join in the conversation. On Sunday evenings in September, we are having a small group time in which we will be gathering to have a conversation about how we might better welcome our neurodivergent siblings. And that conversation is based on the book Blessed Minds by Reverend
[00:07:20] Sarah Griffith Lund. And that conversation is intentionally designed so that you do not have to have read the book to come and join and learn something we hope together. So come for that at 5 30 also in the church library on Sunday evenings through September. Finally I'll point out that this
[00:07:40] Thursday our church the Thursbaterians will be serving lunch at St. Paul's Crisis Assistance Ministry. This week on the menu are soups and chilies and grilled cheese sandwiches and so you can go to the newsletter to our sign up genius to see what food might still
[00:08:01] be required and also to find out how to volunteer if you're interested in that so make food show up to serve check that out in the newsletter so you that you can be connected I will just refer you to the QR code in our bulletin which
[00:08:19] will take you to our up-to-date newsletter along with a whole host of other useful information tune in there so that you can be connected throughout the week we know that our worship continues throughout the week and we
[00:08:33] have many opportunities for us to grow and learn and serve and love together but we gather here now to worship the one who never stops seeking wholeness who rejoices when the lost are found.
[00:08:50] Like a puzzle incomplete without all of its pieces, God gathers us in here, and together we make up the image of the church, the image of Christ's body here in this place.
[00:09:03] So I invite us all to quiet our hearts and our minds, to open up our spirits, and prepare to worship the God that counts all of us in.
[00:09:14] let us call one another to worship in the image of god god makes us with the sound of god's voice god calls us with the touch of god's hand god forms us from different nations and cultures
[00:09:33] god gathers us of all abilities and genders god creates us children of god god makes us God blesses us. God loves us. Amen.
[00:12:49] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:12:49] Trusting in God's abundant grace and mercy, let us confess our sin before God and one another, trusting that God will indeed create in us a new heart and will indeed put a new and right spirit within us.
[00:13:06] We will do so first and foremost by joining our voices with our corporate prayer of confession, the one that's printed in our bulletins. Then we'll offer silence so that we might, each of us, offer those things in the silence of our hearts, those things that cling to us
[00:13:23] and weigh heavy upon us. So let us join our voices in prayer saying, Loving God, too often we forget that you formed us as your children, beautiful and complete, Unified through our diversity Each with gifts to share
[00:13:42] Yet each in need of support Loving God, forgive us Let us see your face in each person that we see Hear your voice in all creation And feel your touch in every embrace Help us to see your face in our own
[00:14:02] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:14:02] And hear your voice in our song
[00:14:05] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:14:05] Friends, the grace of our God overflows upon us through the faith and love that are ours in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is indeed good news, so let us join in reassuring one another of our forgiveness. Be at peace and know that God loves you in your strengths, but also in
[00:15:01] your vulnerability. God's grace is granting us the opportunity to grow. Our gifts are to be shared in abundance. Amen. Indeed, God is a God of abundance, lavishing love and mercy, grace and forgiveness, peace and justice upon you, me, upon everyone. This is good news, so let us take a
[00:15:26] moment to share the gifts that God has given us. Let us share the peace of Christ with one another.
[00:15:33] You can do so in whatever way seems sensible to you. The shake of a hand, a warm embrace, a fist bump, an elbow tap, peace gesture, or a kind word. In whatever way makes sense,
[00:15:46] let us extend the peace of Christ to one another saying, may the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. And also with you. Well friends, as we prepare to listen for God's word, both read
[00:19:28] and proclaimed, let us take a moment to open ourselves up to hearing God's word anew today.
[00:19:35] Would you join me as we sing our prayer for illumination? That is hymn number 452, Open the eyes of my heart. Amen. Well, our first scripture lesson for today comes from the book of Exodus, chapter 32, verses 7 through 14. So listen, listen for the word of God.
[00:20:57] The Lord said to Moses, go down at once. Your people whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt have acted perversely. They have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them.
[00:21:14] They have cast for themselves an image of a calf and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said, these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. The Lord said to
[00:21:30] Moses, I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are.
[00:21:36] Now let me alone so that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them, and of you I will make a great nation.
[00:21:48] But Moses implored the Lord, the Lord his God, and said, O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power?
[00:22:01] and with a mighty hand. Why should the Egyptians say it was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth?
[00:22:14] Turn from your fierce wrath, change your mind, and do not bring disaster upon your people.
[00:22:22] Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them i will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven and all this land that i have promised i will give to your descendants and they shall inherit it forever and the lord
[00:22:47] changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people holy wisdom
[00:22:56] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:22:56] holy word thanks be to god our second scripture lesson for today comes from the gospel according
[00:27:17] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:27:17] to luke chapter 15 verses 1 through 10 so listen again for what the holy spirit is telling god's people now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to jesus and the
[00:27:34] Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them. So Jesus told this parable, which one of you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them does not leave the 99 in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it.
[00:27:59] and when he has found it he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices and when he comes home he calls together his friends and neighbors saying to them rejoice with me for I have found
[00:28:14] the last sheep just so I tell you there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 religious persons who need no repentance?
[00:28:30] Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?
[00:28:42] And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.
[00:28:51] Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
[00:29:02] Holy wisdom, holy word. Thanks be to God.
[00:29:08] When I was growing up, my grandmother lived with us.
[00:29:12] She watched my sister and me when my parents were at work, and through our time together, she instilled a lot of her loves.
[00:29:20] Her love of crummy daytime television, her love of all holidays, and especially perhaps her love of puzzles.
[00:29:31] By her reclining armchair, she had a stack of crossword, sudoku, and word search books.
[00:29:38] And every so often, when she was in the mood, she would pull out our folding card table and set up a puzzle for us to do together.
[00:29:46] I was always anxious to jump in and start assembling the pieces of the beautiful picture that was on the box, but my grandmother had absolutely no patience for that.
[00:30:00] She taught me that you always have to start on the edges, the outer edges, and work your way in.
[00:30:06] She did not allow any skipping ahead.
[00:30:10] This is where I usually lost interest and let my grandmother and my sister keep doing the puzzle.
[00:30:15] It must be said, though, that one of my grandmother's other loves in life was finding a good deal.
[00:30:25] And that meant that almost all of our puzzles came from garage sales or second-hand stores.
[00:30:32] That also meant that almost all of our puzzles had quite a few missing pieces.
[00:30:38] Isn't that the worst?
[00:30:41] Jesus talks about the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin.
[00:30:45] but is there ever a more frantic search for something lost than when you get near the end of a puzzle maybe a puzzle you've been working on for days only to notice that there are pieces
[00:30:57] missing you always end up on your hands and knees crawling under the table checking under the seats wondering if maybe the pieces have sprouted legs and moved into other parts of the house you will do anything so long as you don't have to admit that the puzzle may be incomplete.
[00:31:19] If you finally do have to give up and put the puzzle away without finishing it, you're always left wondering, did I lose the piece or was it lost before I started?
[00:31:30] One summer, my grandmother decided that she was going to try to lift some of that psychological burden of wondering if all the pieces were there when you started by doing every single one of the
[00:31:43] puzzles we had and then writing in the box how many pieces were missing. So you knew when you got started that you didn't have to keep looking for those final six pieces. They were already long
[00:31:56] gone. It usually didn't stop us hoping though. Our brains are funny that way. We would start out on one of those incomplete puzzles and always secretly in the back of our minds we'd be hoping
[00:32:11] that somehow as the puzzle sat in the box in the closet something mysterious and magical happened and all of the pieces were found and placed back in the box because even if you know what to expect
[00:32:26] it really is never completely satisfying to put some to put together an incomplete puzzle Jesus seems to have a similar longing for wholeness as he tells his parable about the lost sheep and the lost coin.
[00:32:44] We tend to interpret this parable by saying that the shepherd and the woman, they're like God.
[00:32:51] They're in the place of God, seeking out the lost.
[00:32:55] But if I'm honest, something about that interpretation never really sits quite right with me.
[00:33:01] the shepherd loses his sheep and the woman loses her coin but I can't say that I believe that God ever loses us along with the writer of Psalm 139 I would like to proclaim where can I go from your
[00:33:21] spirit or where can I flee from your presence if I ascend to heaven you are there if I make my bed and Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits
[00:33:38] of the sea, even there you shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness shall come over me, and night wraps itself around me, even the darkness
[00:33:54] is not dark to you. The night is as bright as the day, for darkness as is light to you.
[00:34:03] No, God does not lose people. So maybe the shepherd and the woman are meant to be someone else.
[00:34:14] Jesus tells the parable after the religious leaders begin to grumble and complain about the kinds of people Jesus welcomes, the kinds of people with whom Jesus eats. And so I wonder if maybe the shepherd and the woman are not meant to be God at all, but meant to be the religious
[00:34:36] folks, as they should be, as they could be, if they would learn how to stop counting others out and start counting who was missing so that they could be brought in.
[00:34:51] Jesus tells the story of the lost sheep, and to begin, he asks, Which of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it?
[00:35:09] We're used to this parable.
[00:35:10] We know how it ends, and so it's easy for us to fill in some things.
[00:35:16] We think maybe, of course, a good shepherd would seek out the lost sheep.
[00:35:22] But is that really how Jesus' first hearers would have thought, I wonder?
[00:35:28] A hundred sheep is a large flock.
[00:35:30] If you only had five, perhaps one missing would be easy to notice and more valuable to retrieve.
[00:35:37] But would a shepherd of a large flock risk leaving 99 unattended to search for just one?
[00:35:47] Is it possible that a wise shepherd might judge that that was too great a risk to take?
[00:35:54] But Jesus' shepherd isn't willing to leave even one behind.
[00:35:59] And perhaps it is in the shepherd's surprising commitment to wholeness that we learn something about God's accounting and something about how we are supposed to be counting too.
[00:36:15] And something about how we're supposed to be counting too.
[00:36:19] One missing means the flock is incomplete.
[00:36:23] And that's just not going to cut it if everyone counts.
[00:36:27] In the story of the woman searching for the lost coin, we see exaggerated rejoicing when the lost coin is found.
[00:36:37] It makes sense. 10% of her savings is missing.
[00:36:42] So it makes sense that she would tear her house apart and search for it until it was found.
[00:36:47] But after finding it, does it make sense for her to call all her friends and neighbors and throw a party to celebrate?
[00:36:55] there is an exaggeration in the rejoicing.
[00:37:00] Perhaps if we learn from the shepherd and the woman, who are both frantic to find what's been lost and overjoyed when wholeness is restored, we might be challenged in our own time and place to look around and to count.
[00:37:17] Who do we welcome and who do we leave out?
[00:37:21] During our Sunday evening small groups throughout September, we're learning from the book Blessed Mind, Breaking the Silence on Neurodiversity by Reverend Sarah Griffith Lund. The book is written to the church, encouraging us not only to accept
[00:37:39] neurodivergent folks, but to celebrate their belonging in our communities as a gift from God.
[00:37:47] neurodivergent is maybe a term that is not very familiar to all of you it's not a medical term it's not a diagnosis it's a word that grew out of people's lived experience living with brains that
[00:38:04] somehow work differently from other people's sometimes that comes with a diagnosis like adhd or autism spectrum disorder, but not always.
[00:38:15] Neurodiversity then recognizes that there are all types of brains with different strengths and with different needs, much like in our understanding of biodiversity, in which we know that an environment is made stronger by the diversity of plant and animal and insect species.
[00:38:37] Neurodiversity strengthens our community, makes us stronger The challenge for church communities is that we're generally set up to accommodate neurotypical brains Reverend Griffith Lund writes in her book That while churches should be a place of unconditional acceptance
[00:38:58] Differences and symptoms originating in the brain Sometimes prove particularly challenging for Christians to understand She writes about the teenager who can't stay quiet and still in worship.
[00:39:14] The man whose comments in Bible study leave others scratching their head.
[00:39:20] The woman who remains depressed despite everything for which she can be grateful.
[00:39:27] Many faith communities count these folks among their members and friends, yet keep them on the margins, she writes.
[00:39:35] but if we learned anything from the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin God calls us to a different kind of counting not just to count neuro divergent folks as members and friends who stay on the outside but as people to
[00:39:56] be welcomed in and celebrated rejoiced over the neurodiversity paradigm paradigm helps us to see that it is not people who are deficient because their brains work differently it is our communities that are at a loss somehow when we do
[00:40:17] not welcome or create space for people whose brains work differently this is not the kind of work that happens overnight it is the kind of work that takes persistence as Sarah Griffith one calls for we need to start by breaking
[00:40:34] the silence of neurodiversity by talking with each other and with other people who know more than us who have to live into experience becoming a more welcoming community will require us to take the time to stop and learn new
[00:40:50] things because the truth is we really can't love people until we know something about them we need to start learning about the beloved among us who have been counted out, perhaps learning how we might make accommodations for their welcome.
[00:41:08] Jesus says there is rejoicing in heaven over the one who is found. What if we sounded more like heaven, celebrating each and every one who comes in from the margins? That's the joy God invites us
[00:41:29] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:41:29] to share. Amen. Having heard God's word read and proclaimed, with God's word ringing in our ears and bouncing around in our brains and embedded deep in our hearts, let us affirm our faith together. Our affirmation of faith today comes from the Iona Abbey worship book, so I'll invite
[00:42:05] you to rise in body or spirit so that we might say what we believe together. We believe in a bright and amazing God, who has been to the depths of despair on our behalf, who has risen in
[00:42:24] splendor and majesty, who decorates the universe with sparkling water, clear, bright light, twinkling stars, and sharp colors over and over again.
[00:42:38] We believe that Jesus is the light of the world, that God believes in us even though we make the same mistakes over and over again we commit ourselves to jesus to one another as
[00:42:53] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:42:53] siblings and to the maker's business in the world amen now let us turn ourselves in prayer to god
[00:45:50] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:45:50] lifting up our concerns for this world that god so loves holy incarnate one word made flesh we thank you for the gifts of all people made in the image of God we thank you for loving us so completely that you took on the joys and sorrows pains and
[00:46:14] pleasures of this world we know that you lived and walked among us touching our pain and feeling our hurt we praise you that in your reconciling love you restored lives and communities through your healing acts and in doing so proclaiming the
[00:46:35] belovedness of all abilities. Lord, hear our prayers. We come to you with hearts heavy and weighed down with worries and sadness. We lift up to you your beloved children whom this world considers disabled. We praise you for the lives of the one in four Americans who identify as
[00:47:01] disabled, and we pray that as the conversation around disability continues to grow, you would pour out your compassion and mercy. Hear our prayer, oh God. The lives of disabled people are obscured by popular stereotypes misunderstandings and stigmas give us
[00:47:26] the clarity and awareness to move past our judgments to notice the real living breathing people in our midst soften our hearts and open our minds to the challenges and triumphs that disabled people experience you remind us that
[00:47:44] that while people with disabilities may or may not want to be healed, they are already whole.
[00:47:56] Lord, hear our prayers.
[00:48:00] The types of disabilities vary widely, and there are many that cannot be seen or recognized.
[00:48:10] Many people do not have disabilities which are visible.
[00:48:14] So give us grace to learn about and really welcome those who are neurodivergent, whose brains work differently. Teach us to embrace the wide variety of our differences as a gift from you. Lord, hear our prayers. Many living with disabilities are isolated from their communities, both in the
[00:48:39] scriptures and still today. We pray for all those who wrestle with their bodies or with their minds.
[00:48:46] Help them to know that they do not wrestle alone. Lord, hear our prayers. We give you thanks for all those who help and serve others, medical caregivers, nurses and doctors, therapists and counselors.
[00:49:04] Thank you for the teachers and tutors, for all those whose life work is to build up other people with their expertise and talents. Lord, hear our prayers. God of peace, on this Sunday morning, we find ourselves again in the wake of more violent tragedy in our country. We confess that
[00:49:30] too often we choose violence as our answer to difference, as our solution to conflict.
[00:49:38] We confess that there have been 302 mass shootings in our country in 2025.
[00:49:46] We see the ripple effects, families shattered, children traumatized, communities marked by loss and fear.
[00:49:55] Forgive us, we pray.
[00:49:58] us a better way, a holy imagination of justice, mercy, and reconciliation. Make us builders of bridges, makers of community, and keepers of hope until the swords are beaten into plowshares and your reign of love is all in all. Lord, hear our prayers. Present God, we trust to you our
[00:50:24] concerns for the big things that worry us and weigh us down. And we also trust that you are never far from us personally. No matter how lost we feel in this world, you are with us. So we lift
[00:50:39] up to you now the prayers that we know from our community, those who we know by name who are in need of a little extra care. Anna Jo, Karen, Chris, Susan, Martha, Trula, Mamie, Richard, Michael,
[00:51:01] William, Betty, Kathy, Evelyn, Debbie, Joelle, Barbara, Cole, and Leslie. And we also lift up the prayers that we each know in the silence of our hearts, trusting that you hear. Lord, hear our prayers. God who seeks us, who offers us grace, and who celebrates our presence,
[00:51:37] hear us as we join together in prayer using the words Jesus taught his disciples, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
[00:51:48] Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
[00:51:54] Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
[00:52:02] Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
[00:52:07] For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
[00:52:20] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_02]
[00:52:20] Well, just yesterday, several of our young people, our youth, along with a few of our grown-ups, gave their time and their energy to do the Clemens YMCA Mud Run.
[00:52:35] The event always has its goal to raise awareness and to raise funds to fight chronic disease.
[00:52:44] And our youth have participated in this over the past few years now.
[00:52:48] they have put their time and their energy into it. They've even dedicated their bodies to this cause. They've gotten into the game, so to speak. They've got skin in the game. Is there anything more generous than that? To give of yourself for the good of others, even other people that you
[00:53:08] don't even know. So we take time each and every week to consider how we as a congregation, how we as individuals here might be generous with who we are and with what we have, so that we might
[00:53:22] invest ourselves in the lives of others, maybe even people we don't yet know. So perhaps you'd like to join in. Perhaps you'd like to get your time and your energy to put your resources, even
[00:53:38] your own bodies, your lives into the game. Maybe you want to get your skin in the game as well.
[00:53:45] you know how you can do that there's lots and lots of ways if you'd like to do that by giving to the good work that we are doing there are offering plates here on the communion table
[00:53:56] there's a little white church in the narthex that you can drop something into as you exit worship today you can mail something in or drop it by the church office you can scan the qr code
[00:54:08] and click the link to give online but we also know that there are lots of other ways to give Maybe you want to get your skin in the game by donating your time or a meal at St. Paul's Crisis Assistance Ministry.
[00:54:25] Maybe you want to make bag lunches for Wilkes Ministry of Hope.
[00:54:28] Maybe you want to donate diapers for underserved peoples for the Wilkes Partnership for Children.
[00:54:34] Maybe you want to spend time at Kirk Knight learning and growing together.
[00:54:39] Maybe you want to join the conversation with our Peace and Justice Book Club this afternoon.
[00:54:44] maybe you want to learn about our neurodivergent neighbors here this evening in whatever way is sensible to you in whatever way you feel called use this time to make your own commitment about how you are going to give of yourself who you are and what you have and in just a moment's time we
[00:55:04] will pray all of those dedicating all of our commitments to god would you join me in prayer as we dedicate all of our commitments to God.
[00:59:32] We rejoice and give you thanks, O God.
[00:59:36] Lost have been found, sinners have received mercy, and the dead have been restored to life.
[00:59:44] Send us out in your service to tend your sheep and show the riches of your grace.
[00:59:52] Through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
[00:59:55] Amen.
[00:59:56] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_03]
[00:59:56] It's time for us to go.
[01:02:55] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[01:02:55] And I pray that we go out into the world ready to count as God counts, not counting people out, but looking always to find those who need to be counted in and rejoicing, joining our voices with the songs of the angels
[01:03:11] when there is welcome, when there is wholeness.
[01:03:15] And as you go, I pray you go with this blessing.
[01:03:19] May the Lord bless you and keep you.
[01:03:21] May the Lord be kind and gracious to you.
[01:03:23] May the Lord look with favor upon you and grant you peace.
[01:03:28] Hallelujah. Amen.
