The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost – September 14, 2025

There’s a wind in Jeremiah today… Not a gentle breeze. Not a cleansing gust. It’s a scorching wind from the heights – a sandstorm, dry and fierce, sweeping through the land not to winnow or purify, but to judge. But God’s voice is not vindictive, it is anguished.

Jeremiah’s words are not easy to hear. He speaks of a people who are “foolish,” who “do not know God,” who are “skilled in doing evil” but “do not know how to do good.” God’s judgment is not an arbitrary punishment; it is the consequence of breaking relationship with the creator.

And the land itself responds: it becomes “waste and void,” echoing the chaos before creation. The heavens grow dark. The earth mourns.

It’s tempting to turn away from such imagery. To skip ahead to the parables. To find comfort in the shepherd and the sheep. But we must begin here… with the wind. Because it names something true.

There are moments when the world feels scorched. When our own hearts feel barren. When we look around and see folly, injustice, indifference. And we wonder: where is God in all this?

Psalm 14 joins the lament: “There is no one who does good… not even one.” It’s a mirror held up to humanity. Not to shame us, but to wake us. To remind us that we are not the source of our own goodness… to remind us who we are and whose we are. That we are, each of us, in need of mercy. And mercy comes.

Paul, writing to Timothy, interrupts the lament with a confession: “I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, a man of violence… but I received mercy.” He doesn’t hide his past. He names it. And then he names the grace that met him there. “The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance,” he writes, “that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the foremost.”

Paul doesn’t say that he earned mercy, but that he received mercy. Paul – who felt the furthest possible from redemption – was offered God’s grace. And even if we feel unworthy or beyond repair, we are able to receive God’s grace.

This is the hinge, the turning point… From judgment to grace. From lament to joy.

And then Jesus speaks. He tells of a shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to find the one. Of a woman who lights a lamp and sweeps the house to find a single coin.

These stories are not about being found – they are about being sought. These are not passive images. They are urgent. Active. Joyful.

God does not wait for us to find our way back.
God seeks.
God searches.
God rejoices.

And here’s the mystery: The same God who sends the wind in Jeremiah is the God who shoulders the sheep. The same God who sees the folly of humanity is the God who throws a party when one sinner repents.

This is not contradiction. It is grace.

God’s judgment is real. But it is never the final word. The wind may expose. But it does not destroy.

The shepherd is already on the move.

So where are you today?
Are you feeling lost?
Are you faint from the wind?
Are you swept up in the chaos, unsure how to return?

Hear this:

You are not forgotten.
You are not beyond reach.
You are sought.
You are found.
You are rejoiced over.

This is the gospel.
This is the good news.
This is the God who seeks.

Today, and always, let us embody the joy that God finds in rescuing the lost here at St. Michael & All Angels, especially towards those who feel excluded. Let us imagine God dancing with joy – and not simply tolerating it – when we are lost and return. Because our God is emotionally invested in each one of creation and deeply committed to restoration.

Amen.