What Is Missing? A Guided Meditation

The Sunday Sermon:  July 11, 2021 – 7th Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture:  Luke 15:8-10


What’s Missing?  A Guided Meditation

So, I’ve wrestled with this most of the week and finally decided to go where the Spirit was moving me.  It’s been a while, but this morning – in the middle of the summer – after more than a year dealing with pandemic realities (we’re still dealing with pandemic realities), the Spirit has led us to another Sunday morning “guided Meditation.”  I shared my “wrestling” with Ashia early in the week as she asked about thoughts for the Sacred Space she was leading.  And I shared my “wrestling” with Matt later in the week.  Both of them encouraged me, or – neither of them discouraged me, at least.  Matt said that in college they used to call these types of exercises when done in, or as, a class “sleeping for credit”.  I get that and the pews are comfortable enough on a rainy Sunday morning, so if that’s where the Spirit leads you, you follow it, too.

I think of this “sermon,” this time, this morning, as a continuation of sorts to last week’s challenge of placing your faith, your Christianity, at the front of all else in your life so that we might heal that which divides us and keeps us anxious and too easily controlled by outside forces, forces  that seek to disconnect us with ourselves, one another, and with the Christ power at work in the world that insists on just the opposite – connection. 

In order to identify, embrace, and engage that power, we need to be as “whole as possible.”  We need all the gifts that Life (capital L) and Love (capital L) have to offer us.  So, this morning, I want you to think more deeply – to mediate on – what is missing.

I want you to relax, get comfortable (not that you haven’t already done that, but), take a deep breath … Find a focal point other than my eyes or anyone else’s … Close your eyes, if that helps (again, don’t worry about falling asleep.  You’ll still get credit.  Just try not to snore!)  Reach back into that quiet space inside of you … right behind your eyelids or in the middle of your chest … hear the other sounds in this Holy room, other than my voice … and listen for the Word of God  …

Luke 15:8-10 (NRSV)

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?  When she finds it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found (what) I had lost.” 

Just so I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God (when what is lost, is found.)

(Through these words may we hear the Word of God.)

…  joy in the presence of the angels  every time what is lost, is found …

What is missing in your life that keeps the angels form rejoicing?

You may consider what is present in your life that keeps them from joy  But the presence of something negative most often signals the absence of something positive.

What is missing in your life that keeps the angels from rejoicing?

The woman in Jesus’ parable is pretty special … imagine her in your mind … she has treasures which not everyone of her day had – especially other women.  Ten silver coins, after all.

Imagine that you are that woman – that you are in that woman’s place, now … Because you are … You are pretty special, too.  You have treasures many in this time do not.

(silence)

Talents … meaningful relationships … abilities … finances … memories … accomplishments … shared experiences.  What else? … Think about them – all your treasures …

(silence)

Now ask yourself, “In your daily life, with its emphasis on doing more and being more …how often do you devalue your treasures?  How often do you dismiss them as “insignificant,” apologizing for what you perceive as their worthlessness?”  What good is my song?    What good is my education?  What good is my love for family and friends? 

(silence)

How do you dismiss the riches you have?  How, in dismissing them, do you lose them?

(silence)

We have coins, each one of us, two or three, or more – eight or nine or ten.  We have coins but we have lost at least one.  Maybe more … God created us with great beauty healed, and whole … but we have lost something, some part of it, this divinely created wholeness … What is missing for you?

(long silence)

In your mind … light a lamp. – a lamp of knowledge and wisdom … Use the Light now present in your mind to help you see more clearly, to perceive more unmistakably.

With the lamp lit, sweep out, sweep through, your mind, search for your beauty, your lost beauty, the elusive, hard to get a hold of piece of your true wholeness.  Where is it?  What is it?

(silence)

What is missing?

Attention to the beauty of creation all around you?

Confidence in the good at the heart of humanity?

Belief in yourself to be the change you seek?

Why is what’s missing, missing?

No time to slow down and notice creation?

To many experiences of all that is wrong?

Begin told too many times that one person can never change the world?

How can you “find” what’s missing again?

By slowing down?

By affirming the goodness at the heart of humanity, planted more deeply than all that is wrong? (the goodness at the heart of humanity, planted more deeply than all that is wrong …)

By not listening to the voices that insist you be anything less than God created you to be?

What is missing?  Why?  And how will you find it again?

(silence)

It is good to seek.  Moments such as these are treasures in themselves.  It is good that we seek.  “Seek and you shall find.”

But even as you seek the … missing coin, recognize the wealth that you have in the other nine.  You are complete in the love which your loving Creator has given you.  In the wealth of the gifts you have been given all that was lost, will be found.

Your search will lead you to the missing piece of truth in your lives:  God’s loving care for all of creation – for all of us, for you and for me, especially when we are lost and searching.

(silence)

Take a final moment and touch the warmth of God’s loving care … Where do you feel it? … How does it feel? … Who does it include? …

(silence)

Pray with me:  God, we thank you for the special gifts you have given us.  Make us aware of your presence with us each day as we journey to wholeness.  Fill us with your Spirit that we may own our beauty and express it in our daily lives with confidence.  Fill us full of a deep understanding of you loving care for each one of us.

Amen.

Slowly come back to this room, this Sanctuary, and the ones beside you, in front of you, and behind you.  We’re going to sing the first two verses of our sermon hymn sitting down.  I’ll ask you to rise, as you’re able, on the third stanza.

Reverend Joel Weible, Pastor

Pewee Valley Presbyterian Church / July 11, 2021