Lost and Found

 

 We all know what it’s like to lose something or someone. Perhaps we can remember a time when we felt lost. We all know those associated feelings that border on fear, if not terror. Reading Luke 15:1-32 helps us to remember how we felt when we experienced loss and the joy we felt when we were “reunited” or “found.” 

One of my most memorable experiences with loss goes back to my very early childhood and is indelibly ingrained in my memory. I was not more than five years old and my mother sister and I were on a crowded beach in Coney Island. I suppose I got a little bored sitting on the blanket alone with my mother and sleeping baby sister I remember pestering my mother to let me get some water from the ocean for my pail to bring back to the blanket so I could make some mud pies. Mom resisted my going to the shore alone and did not want to leave my sister sleeping  unattended. I finally convinced her that I could not possibly get lost and would be always aware of where she was. She yielded and so I made my way with my metal pail and shovel in tow, carefully drawing a “tether” line in the sand with my foot. I played at the surfside for a bit, filled my pail and turned to make my way back to the blanket. Of course, the line was obliterated and I immediately panicked because I couldn’t find the line in the sand leading back, and above all, could not see my mother. I remember being overcome with fear and on the verge of tears. A woman standing nearby came to my aid, and assured me that we would find my mother. Mom appeared in seconds. Although seconds must have seemed like an eternity to me. I can still remember what I felt when my mother gathered me up in her arms and held me close, assuring me that I was not lost and that I was always in her sight. I suppose the reason I can still remember this event so vividly is because of the “palpable” effect it had and continues to have even as I write today.   

I relate this childhood experience with the stories Jesus uses in our gospel to describe what it means to lose and to find and to be lost and be found. I wonder what is the more memorable of the two emotions, the fear of being lost or the joy of being found. In both instances Luke depicts the joy in finding what was lost and being found. There was no recrimination just joy.

 

Please...not again

 

It all began with Adam, didn’t it? When he fell he introduced and asserted his free will and with it, independence. However, Adam also introduced chaos, dying, misery and death as our legacy. “No! No! No!” Writes Kruger in the character of God , “Not on our watch! We did not create you to perish, to die, to live in such appalling pain and blindness and brokenness. We created you to share in our life, to taste and feel and know and experience what we have known for all eternity.” (The Shack Revisited)

So Jesus’ frustration with Peter in denying his destiny for our sake is palpable. You could almost hear him say, Please... not again. This is why I’ve made this trip Peter. You don’t know the mind of God and you can’t put words in my mouth. Adam got it wrong in the beginning and now you are repeating his original mistake. Please don’t be an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings.  

And so Jesus came as The One through whom the very life of the triune God would enter human existence. This in turn would allow us to be raised up and share in the very life of God. We have to get it right this time.

So part of what strikes me in (Matthew 16:21-27) is how it reveals something deeply true about our human nature, and is personified in the behavior of Peter. We don’t want to hear bad news. We certainly don’t want to know that our best friend and our Savior will have to suffer and die so that we free. And can we bear to know that we too will follow him on our journey through this vale of tears as part of Adam’s legacy? We have to get it right this time.

 

...Even the dogs eat the scraps

 

Can we imagine what it feels like to have a pressing need or a significant request ignored and met with silence? Just think about it for a moment. For me, the question and my own personal memories are brought home by the plight of the Canaanite woman. (Matthew 15:21-28). This Gospel has always made me uncomfortable. In years passed whenever it rolled around as our assigned reading, I wrote around the story, not wanting to address it; not fully understanding it as it was so contrary to Jesus’ nature and earlier events in Matthew’s Gospels. Even Mark in his corresponding account of the story (Mark 7:24-35), chickened out and did not include Jesus’ somewhat callous response in Matthew: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” (I still am chickening out as I had to change the blog's title from the last sentence.)

Admittedly, even today, women’s words are too often met with silence or are interrupted or disrespected, by men and sometimes by other women. Those times in my life when I asked for information or help and received nothing but silence, were hurtful. No one immediately responds to the Canaanite woman or gives the impression that they will respond. The disciples urge Jesus to send her away because, it appears, they are annoyed by her continued shouting and her refusal to take silence for an answer. Too often we either cannot or refuse to empathize with people whose experience is different from ours. If we are not at the receiving end of oppression or injustice we find it easy to dismiss it as unwelcomed noise. If our common humanity and our relatedness does not move us, what will? The Canaanite woman’s blood ran through Jesus’ veins and for that matter, ours…but it didn’t seem to move Jesus!

So many  disenfranchised people in history like the Canaanite woman have persisted as lone minority voices among a majority of authoritative and powerful men. She persisted! She didn’t go away; she would not be dismissed. Her plea for help was met with the language of societal indifference: “It is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

In the end, Matthew’s Jesus responds by commending the woman for her faith. (In Mark’s version, Jesus commends the woman with no mention of faith.} Matthew calls what this woman does an act of faith. Yet, Jesus does not perform an exorcism; he simply says, “Let it be done for you as you wish.” He does not say let it be done as you believed but as you will. The woman’s strong will manifested by her persistence, identified as faith, led to her daughter’s healing.

While Jesus doesn’t tell us, we are told that the woman’s daughter was healed instantly. Perhaps faith engenders persistence or maybe persistence feeds faith. Either way, persistence and faith make a powerful pair. While we can never  underestimate the power of a persistent woman and the God in whom she believes, we still wonder why Jesus hesitated and initially responded as he did? For me, the answer lies in the fact that Jesus was as fully human as he was divine. I wonder if this was a teachable moment for him and that this woman at this precise moment in time, was the vessel for this powerful education? While I feel a little better, I still have difficulty with this Gospel. You see, it’s so easy to relate to the loving, compassionate, Jesus who is “above it all,” but when I encounter Jesus who in this case, behaves as I might have, it makes me uncomfortable. Maybe that’s the lesson for us; we’re are trying; we’re still learning. We are only human.

Remember man, presume not God to scan, the proper study of mankind in man. Alexander Pope

 

Like a Bridge Over Troubled Water

 

Have you ever noticed that it’s often in our most challenging times that we recognize God’s presence most clearly? I’m not saying it should be this way or that God is only present when we most need him. Rather, I think there is just something about significant challenges and trials that clarify our priorities and cut through the many distractions of everyday life that prevent us from feeling God's presence more clearly. What strikes me is how (Matthew 14:22-33)  reveals something deeply about our humanity, and the behavior of his disciples. While I know that I often overlook God’s presence when all is well, I have no problem calling out to him when things take a more difficult turn and are not going so well. Yes, I know it’s all a part of our transformative journey in which we desire to grow in our quest to be more closely united with God. But let’s face it, it’s so much easier when times are peaceful and pleasant.  

Looking back over these past months of  "confinement," compounded by some discomfort and apprehension, I realize how our faith is a little like a yo-yo or see-saw...up one day, down the other. Our initial fear of the early unknown had us hungrily praying  for God’s intervention.  When tragedy strikes in the form of personal loss, illness, the fracture of a relationship, or some mistake we’ve made, our ongoing need for God becomes painfully clear.  

Isaiah (55:1-33) reminds  us that from the beginning of our creation God desired that we flourish and thrive and while we know the journey back to Him is not easy and requires  effort on our part, do we sometimes just sit back and wait for life to happen? Or, or do we step out of our “boat” like Peter, and make it happen? Either way, we often forget how much we depend on God and when we think we have done it on our own, our egos dismiss His intervention: “it’s OK Lord, I got this one.” 

All too often we take comfort in our modest success and assume that we no longer need Him now. We forget how much God is intimately wrapped up in every aspect of our lives… and wants to be. As a reminder of God’s perennial presence Carl Jung had the following reminder carved over the entrance to his home in Zurich.