Worship - 14 September 2025

Summary of this week's theme

A few weeks ago, I was asked to help renew the marriage vows of a couple on the beach at Arenal d’en Castell. Everything went smoothly until the moment came to bless their rings. I assumed they were tied to the cushion a teenage son was holding. They weren’t. One fell into the sand and disappeared, the other nearly followed. Suddenly, the ceremony turned into a beach-wide search project. Strangers in swimsuits gathered to help. It wasn’t a lost sheep or a lost coin, but it was lost - and people cared enough to search.

A wedding ring may be just metal, but it carries memory, promise, and love. That empathy - the willingness of strangers to join the search - is what our world desperately needs more of. Too often, we ration compassion. We decide who or what is worth the effort. But Christ teaches that God searches for the lost without calculation, because God’s economy is not like ours. God’s economy is a household that embraces all people, especially those we are least inclined to value.

God is the refuge of the poor and poor in spirit. If we admitted our own poverty - spiritual, moral, and civic - we might better receive the good news that God never gives up on creation. Søren Kierkegaard once said he took joy in knowing that any poor person in Copenhagen could approach him freely. He believed Christianity stood against discrimination and embodied radical inclusiveness. That vision still challenges us in a world deeply divided.

God’s mercy is not always 'fair' by human standards. But then, neither is life, forgiveness, crucifixion, or resurrection. Fairness in God’s kingdom is not about balance sheets, but about grace. Yet we risk losing our humanity when we let labels, violence, or language like 'collateral damage' numb us to the value of human lives. When we deny our communal and spiritual nature, we damage both our relationships and our sense of God’s image in one another.

Jesus’ parables of the lost sheep and lost coin remind us to notice what is missing. What may be missing is our human connectedness, our interdependence, and our sense of worth. In God’s reign, there are no discards, no collateral damage, no acceptable losses.

And on that beach, empathy prevailed. After much searching, one of the women found the missing ring. The blessing was completed, and there was rejoicing - just as there is in heaven whenever the lost are found.