Luke 15:8-10 / John 12:23-33
Never Lost to God

I recently saw two stories in the news about people who were reunited with family members after years of separation. 

On the 19th July the BBC ran the story of Tony May, who was abandoned by his parents on the Victoria Embankment by the River Thames in London in the middle of world war II.  With the help of a DNA detective Julia Bell, eventually the mystery of his abandonment was solved and he became united with a half sister on his mom’s side who lived not far from him here in the UK as well as a half sister on his Dad’s side living in Australia. 

And then a few days later, I came across an article dated from May last year about a young man in China who had been abducted from his parents at around the age of 2 and a half when the toddler asked for water, and his father stopped at the entrance of a hotel to get some. For three decades, his Mom kept up the search for him. 

Eventually after more than three decades, a tip-off in late April of 2019 finally led to the long-awaited and hoped for reunion.  Authorities had utilised facial recognition technology to to match baby photo’s with an adult photo on the national database and then confirming with a DNA test. 

Both of these stories are heart-rending stories of being lost and found. Stories of separation and being re-united.  They show the power of human determination to search and never give up. 

It raises the question: If human beings can be this determined, why do we think less of God.  If a mother would spend 32 years searching for a lost son, why do we think less of God. Why do we think that God, the Most High, the Eternal One, who Jesus called Abba, would ever give up on us?  If a DNA detective like Julia Bell can be so determined to help Tony May, why do human beings have such a low view of God to believe that God could ever abandon or forsake us? 

Another question comes to mind? If God is all-knowing, and all-loving, then surely, we are never ever truly lost. Because God knows where we are and has the ability to bring us back home in the end. 

Even when we feel lost, no-one is ever lost to God.  Even when a friend or loved one feels lost to us, no-one is lost to God, the Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Compassion in which all things exist. 

But many Christians live with this frightening possibility that we will be lost and separated from God forever.  At the root of many a Christian faith is a terrible fear of Eternal Hell and Damnation. 

But the Scriptures are filled with passages that speak of the Divine intention to bring all of us home no matter how far we stray. 

This is the sense that one gets reading the prophets. Even when the people of Israel feel lost in exile,   the voice of God is heard to say again and again, “Do not fear! I will bring you home.” In Ezekiel, “I will search for my sheep. I will save them and bring them back from all the places where they were scattered on that dark and cloudy day.” (Ez 34:12).

In the parable of the lost coin, we have to admit that lost coins cannot find themselves.  There are many in this world who feel they have strayed so far from God, and are so lost, that like a lost coin, they will never be able to find themselves again. But just as the lost coin was valuable to the woman in the parable, so the suggestion in the parable is that we are valuable to God, and even when, unlike the prodigal son, cannot turn and come home God will make sure that we are found in the end. 

One of my favourite quotes from Huston Smith is: It is impossible to fall out of the Infinite… The full quote reads as follows: “The ...Infinite’s inclusiveness is an all-encompassing circle that encompasses our finite universe and out of which it is impossible to fall, for “In Him we live and move and have our being”.  (Soul of Christianity page 3). In other words, we can never fall out of God. You can never be utterly lost to God. 

In the 2nd letter to Timothy, we read an interesting line that says, “God desires all people to be saved...” Another way of putting this is that God desires all people to come home to God. As Rob Bell puts it…  are we really to believe that God cannot accomplish that which God desires.  As Jesus says of the rich young man who is lost in his attachment to his wealth, and unable to let go of it in order to follow Jesus, “What is impossible for human beings is not impossible for God”. Even the Rich Young Man who chooses his wealth over God will in the end be brought home. 

In John’s Gospel we hear of the universal love of Christ that will bring salvation and wholeness to all people: John 12:32: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.”  Not just some, but all. No matter how far they have strayed, all people will be brought home again.  In the end, all people will be drawn back by the irresistible love of God. Love will break through even the hardest of defences. As the Tao Te Ching put’s it: “The softest thing in the world overcomes the hardest.”

And so, like the love of that Chinese mother searching for her kidnapped child, or even the DNA detective, searching for Tony May’s lost family, no-one in the end is ever so lost, that God's irresistible love expressed in Christ Jesus will not be able to draw us back to God's Self. 

And so, when you feel lost or that you have strayed far away, or perhaps when you worry about a friend or family member who feels lost in some way, or who it feels like they are straying far away, may we never doubt the love of God made known in Jesus, and that no-one ever is or ever can be truly lost, for no-one is ever lost to God. You can never fall out of the infinite.  

I close with two passages of Scripture: 

Psalm 27:10 Even if my father and mother abandon me, the LORD will hold me close.

Isaiah 49:15 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!

SERMON TEXT: Romans 8:18-19 & 28 

During the week, BBC news told the story of Maria Barnard who did a parachute jump on the birthday of her son, Morgan Barnard, who had died in the Greenvale Hotel tragedy a year ago.  It was a way for her to remember and celebrate her son’s life as well as to raise funds for charity so that the pain of her grief for her son might begin to find some kind of positive expression in the world. 

On Sunday evening and Monday I had a number of sermon idea’s swirling around my head. But on Tuesday morning as I was sitting in quiet meditation, a line from last weeks reading from Genesis 32 began ruminating on. 

“I will not let you go until you bless me.”

I have decided that for today, we will not let go of the Jacob story until we receive another insight or blessing from it. 

As one reads the series of Jacob stories, it becomes apparent that Jacob is a character who is hungry for blessings. In fact his hunger for blessings gets him into trouble in the first place when he steals his father’s blessing that was supposed to be reserved for Esau as the first-born.  Jacob is like us. We all long for the blessed life. 

But what happens when bad or difficult things happen to us in life? Jacob’s hunger for blessings makes him determined to receive a blessing even in what might be described as a difficult or traumatic experience. In the story, wrestling all night long with a stranger in the dark one can imagine that the character of Jacob must feel like he is in fact fighting for his life. 

And if the stranger had to slipped away in the dark, one can imagine the possibility of Jacob fearing, for the rest of his life, that this dangerous adversary might return.

But in the story, Jacob does something unexpected. He asks his adversary for a blessing.  In fact he refuses to let go of his opponent until he has received a blessing from him. 

What could it mean to refuse to let go of one’s opponent until we have received a blessing from them?

What could it mean, like Jacob, to seek a blessing out of one of the most difficult experiences in one’s life? 

The story of Jacob is not alone in communicating the idea that one might be able to receive blessings even in our most difficult of experiences.  Jesus points to this as well in the beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel.  The beatitudes come to us unexpectedly as they turn our own systems of expectation upside down. 

There’s a blessing to be found in mourning according to Jesus.
There’s a blessing to be found in being poor in spirit
There’s a blessing to be found in being meek and humble
There’s a blessing to be found even in being persecuted

What could Jesus mean when he tells us that we can find a blessing even in these negative places?
The apostle Paul also concluded that God has the ability to turn negative experiences into good. That does not mean that God willed it to happen but that God can turn it into good, like an alchemist turning base metal into gold. 

He seems to have come to this conclusion based on his understanding of the death of Jesus. The death of Jesus represents a moment of darkness, cruelty and torture. It represents a moment in which humanity choose darkness over light and in which violence appears to triumph over goodness. And yet Paul is utterly convinced that God has turned this most terrible act of cruelty, darkness and violence into a supreme good, and that somehow in the death of Jesus, God has used it as a moment to bring reconciliation to the world, reconciliation between enemy people, and reconciliation between people and God, and in fact in his mind, the renewal of the whole universe. 

Life out of death. Hope out of hopelessness. Light out of darkness. Love out of hatred. Peace and reconciliation out of violence and torture. 

For Paul there was an even more personal element to this truth of God’s ability to bring blessing out of negative experiences, for God had somehow brought good out of his own life as one who he regarded as the chief of sinners. Having sought out and murdered Christians in his narrow-minded religious zeal, God had somehow been able to bring light out of the darkness of his own life and use him as a means of spreading God’s love made known in Jesus across the then known world. 

And so Paul comes to the profound conclusion that God can work through all things for good in the lives of those who love him… and even ultimately in the lives who do not yet love God, for it was for sinners that Paul believed Christ died, not for the righteous. 

After a night of wrestling for his life, Jacob will not let his adversary go until he receives a blessing.   Like Jesus, and Paul, the character of Jacob believes blessings can come even from unexpected places. Jacob is willing and open to finding God’s blessing even in an experience which didn't feel like a blessing at the time. 

What could it mean for us to say: “I will not let you go until I receive a blessing from you?”

I get the sense that Maria Barnard, as she parachuted from a plane this week in memory of her son, in her own way was saying: “I will not let go of this grief and trauma until it becomes transformed into a blessing for others.”

I would like to end with two quotes: 

“God wastes nothing – not even sin. The soul that has struggled and come through is enriched by it’s experiences, and Grace does not merely blot out the evil past but in the most literal sense “makes it good.””— Dorothy L. Sayers

“You must learn, you must let God teach you, that the only way to get rid of your past is to make a future out of it. God will waste nothing.” Philip Brooks. 

Genesis 32:22-32

Last week, we reflected on a moment in the life of Jacob that could be described as a moment of Spiritual Awakening in Genesis 28. 

On the run from his brother who had intentions of murdering him after he stole his brother's birthright and his father’s blessing, Jacob sleeps out in the open on his first night. 


With a rock for a pillow, he has a dream of a ladder reaching from earth to heaven with angels ascending and descending. He wakes up and declares, surely God is in this place and I was unaware of it. This is the gate of heaven. 

In this moment, he becomes aware of God’s presence in the temple or cathedral of creation. It is a wonderfully symbolic story that can invite us to wake up to the omnipresence of God for ourselves.  The spirit of God who is everywhere present. 

Today, I would like to explore a second significant story in Jacob’s life that I believe can also be a pointer to us on our own spiritual journey. 

Jacob has been away from home for the past 20 years. During that time he has built up a large family with two wives, Leah and Rachael. He also has amassed quite a sizeable amount of wealth in the form of livestock. 

But he is nervous of being reunited with his brother Esau.  He had fled in haste after he had deceived his brother, and his brother had intention of murdering him.  The night before meeting his brother, he sends his family and flocks across the river Jabbok ahead of him, and he spends the night alone. 

We are often afraid of spending time alone. But time alone can often be extremely beneficial. It can give space to bring a clarity of mind and heart that we can often miss in the company of other people.  We can be so busy playing roles in the presence of others that we don’t always truly know ourselves. 

The English word alone could be extrapolated into two words “all-one”. When we are alone, there is the possibility of discovering a greater sense of inner one-ness, inner unity that we can lose through the many fragmented roles that we play. 

So Jacob spends the night alone out in the open, just like he had done 20 years before when he laid his head on a stone to sleep at the place that became known as Bethel.  

This time it happens at the ford of the River Jabbok. As Davis Marshall says, rivers represent boundaries and moments of transition.  The river in this story represents a moment of transition in Jacob’s life, a crossing over from a former life to a new one. From an old identity to a new one. 

In the story, during the night, Jacob wrestles with a mysterious character who is at first spoken of as being a man, and then later is identified as being God. So Jacob wrestles with this unknown figure in the dark all night long. 

It is a wonderfully vivid description. I think many of us have had this experience of wrestling on our beds during the night at difficult moments of transition. 

As the sun rises on Jacob,  the unknown assailant begins to leave him and Jacob refuses to let go of him until he receives a blessing from him.  The unknown shadowy figure then gives Jacob a new name.  It is a symbolic echo of the creation story where God names everything and then later Adam names everything. This is a moment of new birth and new creation in Jacob’s life.  The shadowy figure renames Jacob as “Israel” which means “one who wrestles with God”.  “Your name will no longer be Jacob but Israel because you have struggled, or wrestled with God and with human beings and have overcome.” 

Jacob asks his opponent's name, but the opponent refuses to give to him.  It comes as a reminder to us of the unnameable nature of God.  As soon as we name God, we have reduced God to a human conception and a human understanding and so in the story, the mysterious opponent, who turns out to be God, remains nameless. 

Byron Katie, like Michael Dowd, believes that God is synonymous with Reality itself. When we wrestle with God or Reality, she says we will always lose unless we accept Reality as it is. Reality is always what is and therefore is unchangeable. When we wrestle with that which cannot be changed, we will always end up the loser, unless we come to accept Reality as it is. 

I wonder if in this story, we see Jacob wrestling with the reality of his own deceitful nature. Before he can meet his brother Esau, he has to come to a new honesty about himself. This feels like he is wrestling with none other than God.  Until Jacob can become honest with himself about his own past , he is not ready to meet his brother. He is not ready to be reconciled to him. 

As Marshall Davis puts it: We wrestle in the dark with the Unknown, but if we persevere, we will be transformed so dramatically that we will need a new name, just as Jacob received a new name to reflect his new identity.  But as Marshall Davis says, we will not come out of this struggle unscathed. In the story, Jacob is wounded in this fight. His hip is put out of joint and he walks with a limp for the rest of his life. 

I wonder if it is a symbol of Jacob’s overconfident ego and pride which are now dented.  He is no longer as confident as before and this is a good thing.  It is often the case, that moments of spiritual awakening are accompanied by a greater degree of humility and not-knowing. Coming to terms with a deeper awareness of our human fragility, weakness and limitation invite us to become a little more humble and grateful than we were before.  Jacob has overcome, not as a superman who defeats his enemies, but maybe as someone who has come to know and accept himself a little more than before.  Jacob’s freedom comes as he learns to walk with a limp.

So, as you wrestle with God, with Reality, with life, as you seek to become your truest, most authentic self, may there come a moment when you receive a new name, as one who has wrestled and come out the other side a new person, even if it feels that you walk with a limp, with a little more humility, gratitude and grace. 

SERMON TEXT - The Spiritual Awakening of Jacob

Over the next two weeks I would like to reflect on two moments of spiritual awakening in the life of Jacob in the book of Genesis.

Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel might be regarded as the father of the nation of Israel. According to the story of Israel, his son’s offspring became the twelve tribes of Israel.

Now when one talks about having a spiritual awakening, one normally thinks of people who are in some way holy or saintly. But if truth be told, Jacob is described as something of a scoundrel in his early life.

Even his name itself suggests this. The name Jacob has two possible meanings in Hebrew. The first possible meaning is ‘heel-grabber’. And the second possible meaning is ‘supplanter’. In the first shade of meaning, Jacob is described as holding onto his twin brother’s heel as he came out of the womb. This is undoubtedly a legendary detail that was intended to describe in story form, something of the character and personality of Jacob. To grab onto some-one’s heel would be to trip them up. In the second possible meaning for his name “supplanter” this rather aptly describes his relationship with his twin brother, Esau. Esau as the older of the two twins, having come into this world just moments before Jacob, had all the rights of the firstborn son, which in ancient Hebrew culture were significant. But as the story unfolds, we see how Jacob first takes advantage of his brother in a vulnerable moment and tricks his brother Esau out of his birthright, and then, with the help of his mother, he steals his father’s blessing, which in Hebrew culture should have been reserved for Esau as the firstborn.

Jacob is no saint. He is a ‘heel-grabber’ ready to trip his brother up and take advantage of him. And he is a supplanter, being willing to use manipulation and deception to take from his brother what is not rightfully his.

Jacob is symbol of the heel-grabber and the supplanter in each of us. That part of us that is willing to use subtle and not-so-subtle manipulation and deception to get our way. That part of us that is willing to step over others if necessary in order to ensure our own success.

As can be expected, Jacob’s deception and manipulation alienates him from his brother Esau. And as Esau’s resentment and anger towards Jacob smoulders and then ignites, he vows to kill Jacob after their father has died.

Again with the help of his mother, who was clearly playing favourites in the family, Jacob runs away north to the country of his uncle Laban to escape his brother’s murderous anger.

What Marshall Davis says about the story is that it is very reminiscent of the story of the prodigal son. They both leave their father’s house for a far away country. Both eventually return home, and both have stories of spiritual awakening.

It is on his first night on the run that Jacob has his first spiritual awakening experience. We read that when he reached a certain place he stopped for the night because the sun had gone down. Taking one of the stones that was lying about, he made his bed under the stars and put the stone under his head as a pillow.

It is one of those details in the story that cries out for some explanation. I can’t imagine resting my head on a stone for a few minutes, let alone for a whole night. I wonder if it is in fact a symbol, that when we have done something we know has been wrong or harmful we no longer experience the softness of life. Even sleeping can become hard and difficult.

During his sleep, Jacob has a dream of a ladder, or a stairway between heaven and earth, with the angels of God ascending and descending upon it. And suddenly Jacob discovers that God is present with him. In John’s Gospel, Jesus uses the same image to speak of his own spiritual experience. Interesting, despite Jacob’s sin and deception, God doesn't bring a message of judgement or anger against him, but rather blesses him and promises to be with him: “I am with you and I will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you.”

Even in the midst of our sin and deception, God (or Reality with a capital R as Michael Dowd refers to God), promises to be with us and to watch over us, continuing to nurture us in order that we might flourish into who we really are.

As the story proceeds, Jacob wakes up from his dream. Marshall Davis suggests that this could be read both literally and symbolically. A change has taken place in Jacob. He has woken up to a depth of life that he had previously been unaware of.

So, in his now awakened state, Jacob declares: “Surely the Lord or the Eternal One is in this place and I was not aware of it. How awesome is this place. This is none other than the house of God: this is the gate of heaven.”

As Marshall Davis says, it is a powerful passage filled with symbolism. The gap between heaven and earth is bridged by a stairway. Heaven and earth are united in a reversal of the creation story where God is said to have divided or separated the two.

So Jacob becomes aware of God’s presence in an ordinary place, in the temple of creation. This wasn’t what people would have called a holy site. It was simply a matter of Jacob becoming aware of something that had always been present but which he had missed all that time. It is a reminder that in the most ordinary places of this world, God is present. As one ex-colleague used to put it, there are no God-forsaken places in this world.


In the words of Marshall Davis, the House of God is not a holy building. It is everywhere. In the open countryside. It is here and now. Wherever we are is the gate of heaven. But later on, Jacob’s descendants took this statement literally, as religious people tend to do, and they built a temple on that spot and named it Bethel, meaning the House of God. Religion always has the danger of fossilising and literalising the spiritual experience of a spiritual ancestor, leaving an outer shell often with very little or just a faint sense of the inner experience.

It is for this reason that in this denomination, there has been a tradition of making a distinction between the religion of Jesus and the religion about Jesus. The religion of Jesus is the way he lived and taught and acted in this world. The religion about Jesus refers to all the religious traditions that have grown up around Jesus and which sometimes have the danger of becoming an empty shell where the living spirit of Jesus, how he lived and taught and interacted with people can so easily be lost.

So may you, in those moments when it feels like you are sleeping with a stone or rock under your head, dream a new dream with Jacob, of a ladder uniting heaven and earth and earth with heaven, and wake up to discover the wonderful truth that God is in this place here and now, in the beauty of a flower, in the miracle of an insect, in the playfulness of a child, in the smile and the handclasp of a dear friend. May you discover that God is in this place and you were unaware of it, and that this, sacred here and now, is the very gate of heaven. Amen.