“Desperate Housewives”

Luke 15:1-10

I know what you may be thinking: Marty has really gone too far this time – preaching a sermon on Mother’s Day and giving it the title “Desperate Housewives!” How dare he make a comparison between our sainted mothers and those wacky, underdressed, and less-than-respectable women who reside on Wisteria Lane?

There's Susan, the divorcee and single mom who will go to any lengths for love; and Lynette, the ex-career woman who traded the boardroom for boredom, mixed with moments of sheer panic as the mother of four rambunctious kids; there’s Bree, sort of like a Martha Stewart on steroids, whose family is about to mutiny; and Gabrielle, the ex-model with everything she's ever wanted – a rich husband, a big house, and a virile and all-too-willing 17-year-old gardener; and there’s Edie, the serial divorcee whose romantic conquests have everyone buzzing. And then, of course, there are the men – Mike and Rex and Carlos and Paul. We won’t talk about them today because this, after all, is Mother’s Day.

Desperate housewives. I learned a little while ago that one of the houses on Wisteria Lane is actually the house used by the Cleaver family on the old “Leave It To Beaver” show. Did you know that? June Cleaver – desperate housewife! What a thought! And it just goes to show you that desperate housewives can be found just about any where, any time.

In fact, maybe you’ll cut me a little slack today if I tell you that the desperate housewife I want to talk about this morning doesn’t live on Wisteria Lane. No, her story lives on in the 15^th chapter of Luke in the Bible!

All we know about this desperate housewife is the little that Jesus tells us – she is a woman who has ten silver coins, and loses one. She lights a lamp, moves the furniture, and sweeps out the whole house, DESPERATELY searching for the lost coin.

A desperate housewife, to be sure!

And perhaps you can understand her desperation when you realize that the silver coin she has lost is a drachma – a Greek coin worth a whole day’s wages! What will her husband say when he returns from working in the fields to find a missing paycheck? Or, if she is a widow, how will her future be cut short by the loss of 10-percent of all her resources? Or, if she is a banker – which she is not because women in that day were not allowed to be anything like bankers – what would her customers do? And what about the bank regulators? We don’t know this woman’s exact circumstances, but we can be certain about two things – one, she has lost something that has great value to her, and two, she is desperate to find it!

And when Jesus finishes telling the story of this desperate housewife, he tells his listeners that the story isn’t really about this woman and her lost money. It’s about God’s relationship with the world, and OUR relationship with the people around us.

Jesus is telling us that God is like a desperate housewife, searching not for lost money, but for lost children.

And you and I must become desperate housewives too!

The occasion of Mother’s Day, of course, provides us with a living illustration of what it means to desperately seek the well-being of others. My father used to say about me that I have a face only a mother could love. Fortunately, that comment has not resulted in more than just a little psychosis in my life! Not really. But at least the joke is true. Yes, I do have a face only a mother could love. But isn’t it amazing – and life-giving – and wonderful that my mother DOES LOVE IT!? Thank you, mom! That’s what mothers do – they desperately love their children!

Bob Warner sent me a Mother’s Day poem that he penned himself. It goes like this:

A mother is an art form, designed by the Lord,

They’re crafted by God, and by all are adored.

A Mother is someone who loves you the most,

You’ll never forget her, about her you’ll boast.

You’ll talk of her cooking your favorite dish,

And the power she had to grant any wish.

She always would do without things for your sake,

And then on your birthday she’d bake you a cake.

Remember that day? The bump on the head.

She kissed you and hugged you and put you to bed.

The love that she gave you must be returned,

It’s something you know she really earned.

Her love watches over you, close or away,

So be sure you remember her this Mother’s Day.

The words in Bob’s poem that touched my heart were the ones that say: “Her love watches over you, close or away…” Many of us here today have a sense of that truth even though our mothers may be gone now. We sense that they still watch over us. I’ve known this to be true even with mothers who needed to give children up for adoption. I know it to be true with mothers I’m acquainted with whose children are serving in Iraq. There is a unique passion that mothers have for their children.

And this is the same passion Jesus calls the church to have for the people all around us.

You may have noticed in your bulletin this morning, a little insert with a title that says, “A Community of Reconciliation.” You can take it out if you’d like. That title is followed by the Bible verses in 2^nd Corinthians 5 where Paul says that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself – sort of like a desperate housewife searching for something – or someone – of value. And then Paul goes on to say that we who have received this amazing grace of God now have been given responsibility for the ministry of reconciliation.

We are called to be desperate housewives reaching out to embrace God’s children with the reconciling love of Christ.

You’ll notice on the insert that there is a cross. The vertical bar, of course, represents God’s reaching out to each of us – connecting heaven and earth - calling us into relationship and new life in Christ. Then there is the horizontal bar of the cross representing US, opening our arms and reaching out to others in Christ’s name.

This is a picture of a church. I hope it is a picture of our church! We are a community gathered here because God has redeemed us in love! And our task is to be a real-life agency of God’s reconciling love toward others. We are a COMMUNITY OF RECONCILIATION!

And in the quadrants of the cross that is the picture of our church, are four crucial ministries of reconciliation. The first one – in bright yellow – is the ministry of BELONGING.

Every human person needs to BELONG – to be known as a person, to be valued, to be accepted, to be loved. I don’t know if you ever realized it, but the first layer of Jesus’ ministry with people was almost always giving them the gift of BELONGING. He heard their cries, opened his arms to them, touched them, got to know them by name, invited them to dinner, attended their parties, cared for their needs, made them feel safe. Some of the religious leaders called those people “sinners”, but Jesus called them “friends.” Like the woman desperately searching for the lost coin she valued, Jesus desperately searched for God’s beloved children.

That’s the first ministry of the church – helping people find a sense of belonging to God by way of a community that seeks them and embraces them with the unconditional love of Jesus.

You know, our founding pastor – Carl Burke – tells me that when the ministry that became Tellico Village Community Church first began, he discovered that many of the new residents here were lonely. They had pulled up roots and moved to a strange place. They had left behind families and support systems. They were stepping out onto a new stage of life, and they weren’t always sure they had made the right decision. So our church began as a tiny community of reconciliation, opening its arms to lonely people, giving them the gift of belonging.

And there are other kinds of loneliness, you know. There’s the loneliness of trying to make it through life – and death - without a personal relationship with God. There’s the loneliness that comes when you feel like others don’t understand you. Sometimes loneliness comes to us because the way we live sets us at odds with others. Often, people are lonely because they feel different.

I can tell you after thirty years in ministry that some of the most lonely times come to people when they doubt what everybody else seems to so easily believe; or when they’re going through hard times and others tell them to “just pray about it”, or “just trust God.” I’ve known times in my own life when I could not muster the energy to pray, let alone the faith that God would hear the prayer. Oh, we all experience loneliness.

It’s got to be lonely to be a young family here in Tellico Village. It must be lonely when they tell you’re too old to drive anymore. Loneliness is all around us.

Dr. James Lynch who is a leading expert on loneliness writes in his book “A Cry Unheard; The Medical Consequences of Loneliness” that "Mortality rates in the United States for all causes of death, and not just for heart disease, are consistently higher” for people who live in conditions that cause loneliness.

No wonder God gave the church as its first task the ministry of belonging! And praise God that Carl Burke and Bob Puckett and those brave founders of our church took that to heart!

Now it’s our turn to do something about it!

I want to ask you today to become a really desperate housewife! Men and women, girls and boys, we’re ALL called to become deeply passionate about finding the lost coin – embracing with God’s reconciling love the lost person, the lonely man, the questioning woman, the small child, the new widow, the overwhelmed parents, the new resident, the difficult neighbor down the street, the person who sits here on Mother’s Day without good memories of a loving mom.

And like the desperate housewife in Luke 15, I want to ask you to join with me and those called to the leadership of our church in rearranging whatever organizational furniture we may need to rearrange in order to get better at the ministry of belonging.

And I would ask a special thing of each of you. Go home and spend time in prayer and conversation with each other about how we can embrace in loving community the children of God both “out there” and “in here”. Be daring and creative in your thinking! How can WE help people BELONG?

Whenever I think about the power of belonging, I remember Sherry (not her real name), a young teenager who was the friend of a friend of a friend of a friend who belonged to a church youth group. Someone who understands the importance of belonging invited Sherry to come to a meeting, and she did. Sherry came from a rather tough home situation, and didn’t have any church relationship, and no real memory of God. But as a stranger, Sherry was welcomed; as a new friend, she was embraced; and as a human being struggling with all the things human beings struggle with, Sherry was supported, encouraged and loved. You could almost see in her face that she was growing in this community of reconciliation. And although God was still pretty distant and foreign to Sherry, you could tell she was nudging closer.

Sherry traveled with the kids from Massachusetts to our work project at Roses Creek, just north of Jellico, Tennessee. She helped build a house, and made friends with the people of the community. Sherry is the one who, at the end of the week, said, “Marty they’re not poor people. They’re rich!” And then, with a sad look on her face, Sherry said, “I’m the one who’s poor.”

The next day, the group arrived back in Massachusetts and formed a closing friendship circle in the church parking lot. Each one took a turn to say something about what the week had meant to them, and their testimonies were heartwarming. When Sherry’s turn came, she started to weep. “This has been the best week of my life,” she said, “and I love you all so very much.” Then, in a deep burst of emotion, Sherry said, “And I don’t understand why you’ve accepted me. I don’t even belong to your church.”

I think it may have been my daughter Bethany who was standing next to Sherry who said, “Oh, Sherry, you belong – you belong to US.”

I believe it was in that very moment that Sherry found God.

Or maybe it would be better to say that in that very moment, God – like a desperate housewife – found the lost coin.

Desperate housewives, UNITE! We have important work to do!