Scripture text: Luke 15:1-10
A few nights ago, I had sat down for a quiet evening of monster slaying on my favorite video game when Emily comes rushing up to me. “Daddy, Daddy, guess what we found? A baby kitten abandoned by its mommy.”
Typical Emily: soft-hearted and kind to any animal. This is a kid that refuses to kill bugs because they are “nature” (Although, she has no problem asking Daddy to kill them for her. Funny that.) Of course, she’s found some lost little kitten. Of course, she’s brought it home.
I should probably note at this point, at the risk of alienating certain members of this congregation, that I am a proud DOG person. And if you know the unwritten rules of pet ownership, dog people are NOT cat people. I don’t like cats. I’m highly allergic to them to boot, so I was none too happy to hear this bit of excited news from my daughter.
Yet, in the days and weeks that followed, I’ve come to (heaven forbid) have something of a soft spot myself for the little guy. He is cute, a little white ball of fir barely larger than my hand. He’s a voracious eater and he’s growing like a weed. But I think the reason I’ve softened up a bit is because I always have a soft spot for lost things.
When Emily found him, he was cold, alone, and hungry, three things no creature of God’s creation should ever be, and I can hardly condemn her for doing her utmost to take those three things away from this kitten. I can’t condemn because I’ve done the same...many times.
My mother used to tease me when I was a kid in school by calling me the “weird magnet.” If any other student at school was a mite odd, unpopular, or nerdy, they would almost immediately gravitate into my circle of friends. That was not unintentional. I was often actively seeking them out, trying to be the friend that they didn’t have anywhere else.
Some of them were quite damaged people. Teens whose parents were undergoing divorce. Others were victims of abuse. They were angry, hostile, and often uninterested in school, sports, or anything else having to do with school or life back then. They were, like this kitten, cold, alone, and hungry. Perhaps not literally, but certainly in a metaphorical sense. They needed someone to help them, someone to be there for them. And I did what I could. It wasn’t always enough, but I tried.
A lot of my motivation for doing this was because I remembered well my own sense of feeling lost. Even earlier in childhood, I was the bullys’ favorite target. I was not a big kid, skinny and frail, which mean I was dead meat pretty much every day. As I grew older, I came to realize that I didn’t want others to feel the way I did. I learned compassion from those experiences.
I also took to heart the lesson of the parables in our Gospel lesson today. I’m clearly not the only one who has a soft spot for lost things, so I’m in good company. Jesus does too.
It’s pretty sad in some ways that Jesus even has to tell these parables. Why on Earth would the Pharisees find this behavior of Jesus so worthy of condemnation? Of course, they are falling victim to the same skewed perceptions that we often do. We often come to believe that these people WANT to be lost and that they did everything in their power to become so. And for that reason they don’t deserve any help. They should STAY lost.
There’s no accounting for the whimsies of fate nor for our propensity as humans to be short-sighted.
Sure, maybe that guy wanted to be a tax collector. I’ll be rich, he may have said to himself. Just like today maybe some young women will say they want to be a porn star, thinking it glamorous and fun. Did they not realize until after the fact the consequences of their choice? Was it only after it was too late that they discovered it wasn’t all they thought it would be?
And who wakes up in the morning and says I want to be a leper today? Who says they want to lose all they have in poor investments? Give me cancer, that’ll be fun! I’m looking forward to Daddy sneaking into my bedroom tonight. No one says those things, but they happen nonetheless.
There is something very twisted about the way we look at the world. Everything has to have a why. Why did this happen?
- I’m sick, why? Well, you’re evil, that’s why. You did something wrong and now you’re being punished for it.
- I lost everything, why? Well, if you hadn’t bought that big screen TV and you’d made better choices, maybe you’d have avoided that. So tough luck.
- I got raped last night, why? Well, if you hadn’t worn that mini-skirt and tank top, maybe that guy could have kept his hands off you. You got what you deserved.
This is what we presume is the truth. This is how we think the world works. The disasters of life are our own making. It’s their fault things went south for them. But that’s not the truth. It’s just magical thinking. We’re fooling ourselves. If only I avoid what he didn’t....If only I don’t do what they did....then nothing bad will ever happen to me. I’ll never get lost. I’ll never get sick. I’ll never be poor. I’ll never be hurt by anyone. And life will be just perfect as long as I don’t do what they did.
Well, good luck with that. Life doesn’t work that way.
That’s the ugly truth. That’s what we don’t want to face. That these things can happen to us completely randomly. We can get lost and never do anything wrong. Our lives can fall apart even when we have the best of intentions, even when we do everything right.
That kitten didn’t choose to be abandoned by its mother. Just as my friends growing up didn’t ask for the things that happened to them. But they were lost nonetheless. Just as we could be and maybe are.
Lost perhaps, but not without hope. For the Savior we follow goes forth time and time again. Like the shepherd into the hills, he seeks the lost. He strives constantly to bring them home again. When we are lost, he comes seeking us. When they are lost, he goes after them.
The Pharisees of this age and every other may condemn the lost in order to feel good about themselves, but Christ goes forth to find us. You, me, and everyone else who’s ever had life take an ill turn or ever found ourselves in over our head by choices that looked good at the time. It doesn’t really matter to Jesus how we got lost. What matters to him is how can he get us home again.
And to that end, he came to this world, was born, lived, and then in the ultimate act of compassion he went to the cross. He went for us. He went for them. He went for all those lost and damaged by sin, their own or others. He went to make us whole again, to heal our wounds, to bind us up. He went to that cross for all the lost lambs of the world. For you and me and for everyone else. It doesn’t matter if we’re lost. What matters is that we’ve been found. Amen.
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