This past week Lee and I took some vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota. One day we went out for a drive along the Needles Highway, which is a road that winds around some marvelous granite formations at the highest points of the mountains. At one point we stopped and got out of the car and walked on a trail up toward a formation called "Little Devil's Tower"--why is it that the Devil always gets the credit for things like really cool rock formations?--and as we walked along I noticed that the sand the path was made out of glittered. It was ordinary sand, ordinary soil, just like all the other soil in that forested area--except that it had been cleared of vegetation and walked on by lots of hikers until it was bare sand. But it glittered and sparkled and danced with light reflected from the sun. There were a couple of low spots where water had collected from rain and dew, and it made puddles, it made mud--and even the mud was glittering in the sun. This really intrigued me; I'd never seen anything quite like it; and gradually I figured out that the sparkles in the sand were coming from flecks of mica that had eroded off the granite peaks. Granite is made of quartz, feldspar, and mica, and the mica forms very flat, shiny surfaces that are very good at reflecting sunlight. Wind and water and weather wear off surface particles from the granite peaks, and those particles collect underneath the peaks as sand. Some of the particles are shiny mica--and it was the mica particles that were catching and reflecting the sunlight as we walked along the sandy path. What the peaks had lost to erosion we were finding again as beauty as we walked. And when such lost things get found, the thing to do is rejoice.

Yesterday Dawn Bacon, our Rector's Warden, and I spent most of the day at a training summit for Millenium Development Goal work in our diocese. We had a chance to hear from some of the leading MDG supporters in our national church, as well as people from our own diocese who are involved in MDG projects. Dawn and I had a chance to talk to a couple of people people from the Haiti Episcopal Connection, which is a consortium of about three congregations in our diocese who send people and money and support to the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti to help out with various educational and healthcare and development projects going on in that impoverished nation. A couple of representatives from the Minnesota Haiti Connection will be coming to our Grown-Up Sunday School on October 21 to share with all of us about their Haiti MDG ministry. But in this short conversation yesterday, I was surprised to learn just how active the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti is, and how many vital social services are provided by our church there. There was one item in particular that caught my attention: The diocese of Haiti, with support from Minnesota among others, runs an agricultural school, where Haitian students can learn good techniques for farming and providing basic food necessities from the land. One of the things the agriculture students will do is go into towns and villages and plant demonstration gardens that show the local people just how much they can grow with even a small plot of land and some basic techniques. In one town in particular, the Minnesota connection helps the diocese of Haiti maintain an orphanage, and right beside the orphanage is a strip of land that was always kind of ignored. It wasn't big enough to build anything on, and nobody thought the soil was good enough to grow anything there, so for a long time people had simply written it off, they'd kind of given it up for lost. But the agriculture students came, and on that strip of land they planted five--five--demonstration gardens showing how different food plants could be grown on what everyone had assumed was lost land. What they'd given up for lost could actually help feed quite a large number of people. The lost land had been found with a new purpose. But it wasn't just the land that was found: the students helped the locals find new skills as gardeners, find an ability in themselves they'd never known they had, find a new kind of hope for food security that they could see to themselves. Lost land had been found; lost hope had been found; and when such lost things get found, the thing to do is rejoice.

In our Gospel reading today Jesus gathers together sinners, outcasts, the impure, the marginalized, the poor, people who cannot afford to do all the prescribed rituals and sacrifices that would keep them "religiously appropriate," the sick, the unclean, the rich, tax collectors who make their fortunes by cheating their neighbors--Jesus gathers together the lost, the ones worn down and eroded away by their society, the ones everyone else in their culture had written off as a lost cause. Jesus gathers together the lost and Jesus tells them that they have been found by God. Jesus tells them that God forgives all their sins, that God sets them free from the bondage of sin, that God empowers them and enlivens them and liberates them, so that they can co-create with God new lives of justice and peace and love and right relationships. Jesus tells them that because God has found them, they can now find in themselves all kinds of strength and courage and compassion and giftedness they never even knew was there. And. Jesus tells them, when such lost things get found, the thing to do is rejoice.

And through this Gospel reading this morning Jesus says the very same thing to us: that God finds us, and because God has found us, we can find in ourselves, by God's grace, light and life and energy and gifts for ministry we'd never even guessed about ourselves. For us, too, the message is that when such lost things get found, the thing to do is rejoice.

So what is it God helps you find today? I want you to think for a moment about something you feel you have lost--lost innocence, lost dreams, lost hope, lost enthusiasm, lost relationships, lost joy. Perhaps someone close to you has died, or is dying, and you feel that loss as a deep and aching grief. Perhaps you were hoping for a new opportunity, a new direction for your life or your career, and it didn't happen, and now that disappointment feels to you like a terrible loss. Perhaps it's something you can't even name, something you can't exactly put your finger on, something that feels restless, some empty place in your heart whose longing to be filled feels to you like a loss. Someone once said that our hearts are made with a God-shaped hole in them, and we never feel quite whole until we let God fill in that place. Take a moment now and think of some way that you feel lost.

Now ask yourself: What would it be like for you if Jesus told you you were found? What would change for you if God's grace came to you right now and filled in that empty place, if God's grace came to you right now and helped you find in yourself the strength and courage and love and joy that could transform your situation and make your life more whole? What light might you find on your path, what growth might come forth from your barren ground, if you could hear Jesus say right now "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost"?

Jesus gathered around his table people who were lost in a variety of ways, and at that table Jesus helped them feel found. Jesus gathers us around this communion table here today, and at this table Jesus helps us find gifts and grace and power to be his people, to find ourselves in sharing his mission. And when such lost things get found, the thing to do is rejoice. Let's share the joy.