As I mentioned in the last entry - One Coin Found is a theological autobiography of encouragement, melding Kegler's personal experience with theological reflection and convictions. That's not my usual genre to review. It would sound silly to look at someone else's heartfelt experience and reflection in a published book and give it some sort of thoroughgoing critique, or elaboration on content as though I have authority over her lived experience.
Kegler's book was written in order to help spiritually struggling folks see that they are first and foremost treasured by God, and second that they have a home in the Church with her. We see a classically Lutheran "One beggar telling another beggar where they found bread" mode of reflection and invitation at work here. Kegler focuses particularly on LGBT folx, who share part of her experience, and bear a mighty burden in a lot of churches - even in theoretically inclusive denominations such as our own. That said - I'm not an LGBT+ person and I still gained a lot from it, and I suspect I'm not alone. We can all learn and reflect from her experience.
One Coin Found reads as an extended written testimony of a Lutheran pastor in the early stages of her career - looking to the future with all the love and conviction that we should all have. Experienced enough to have been burnt. Faithful enough to have hope. Lucky enough to have seen that holy glimpse of God's work and way this side of the grave.
In her reflections, Kegler finds great inspiration in those most sacred parables of Christ found in Luke 15 - the Lost Sheep, the Missing Coin, and the Prodigal Son. Since the book's title is One Coin Found, I may as well focus on her reflection on that parable:
"The funny thing about coins is that they can't get lost by themselves. They cannot roll away on their own. Coins get lost because their owners aren't careful; whoever was in charge was wasteful with them. Coins get lost because they lose their shine, because dirt and rust cling to them, and without careful attention, they turn into a color indistinguishable from dust and mess...
We've known leaders like that, too. There were leaders who saw our value as something to be squandered, something they could be careless with... The trouble with this metaphor is that God is the shepherd and the woman, and if God was careless with the sheep and the coin, that would mean God was careless with us. Metaphors, in Scripture and elsewhere, do not encompass the whole of reality. God has never been careless wit su, but those who claim to speak for God have...
We too are lost and dusty coins. We have gone unnoticed, rusted form others' indifference, misspent and misused, and our friends and did not see our neglect. But God in big and little ways, has picked up a woman's broom and swept every corner of creation. God, in big and little ways, has tucked up her skirts and flattened herself on the floor, dug through dust bunnies and checked every dress pocket, God has found us, dustier, and rustier, and without any luster, and held us ip to the light to say: no matter how rolled away or what corner you were dropped in, you are mine. "
Emmy Kegler, One Coin Found (Fortress Press 2019) 4-5, 8-9
Emmy sees herself, and the whole Church Invisible (the Church as God would and will have it, not as the institutional entity of any individual day) in this light. She tells her story through these parables and reflects on her entire life. She begins with her blessed, but difficult childhood - which grows through love for the Episcopal Church, and her coming out. It continues through her experiences with an evangelical church which inspired her so deeply through its community and worship, but then attacked her for her sexuality and nearly turned her away from the Church forever. She reflects on how the shame she felt from that experience bled into her mental illness and caused her last harm. But she doesn't stay there - she moves on to the experience of true welcome through distributing Holy Communion at Luther College. When she thought she might be unworthy, her chaplain put a loaf into her hand and gave her the words to distribute. This began a turning of the tide towards grace, hope, and love - and it turns out, towards becoming a pastor in the ELCA.
The book continues in showing her life in conversations with scripture: how she came to live through them, believe them, argue with them, and more. Not as a fact book on a shelf, but a steadfast companion. It closes with a few observations on the divine love of God that "found" her, and what that means for her. The grace she experienced has consequences for her identity - in a similar way to how it should transfigure all of us - not merely covered in rust and patina but glimmering and reflecting the love of God. This is all great stuff - a real testimony of how we can come to read the Scriptures in our lives not as a book on the shelf, but as a story that shapes and strengthens human hearts for the sake of love.
What a great autobiography! I'm happy to have read it, and to have been inspired from it - and I hope that Kegler and Augsburg Fortress decide to write and publish a few more things like this for people who need them when the season is right.
A good friend of mine (@noah_hepler) often reflects that the Church's issues/problems aren't sociological, or demographic at their core. They're issues of identity, and by extension theology. The Lutheran tradition to me, and to I would hope all folks, is so liberating, so hopeful, so critical, so Christ-centered, and so grounded in God's passion (in the sense of fervent love, and the sense of the execution and resurrection of Jesus) in/for the lives of people that it will constantly call more people into its fold in a mode we call "Law and Gospel." For non-Lutherans - that's the revealing of the garbage we get into, and the grace and love that pulls us out of it. Testimonies like Kegler's provide us with the down to earth stories of God's grace at work, and theological reflection applied to daily life. Because she can talk about her life with God, she can invite other people to reflect and come to speak in the language of Law and Gospel as well. And with it, the presence, grace, and persistent blessings of God. And I'm really hopeful that in ten or so years Kegler will write a part two for us as we all grow in faith. Because she's got the gifts to tell her story, and God's story.
