Come out, come out wherever you are

Reading:  Luke 15:1-10 (the lost coin and lost sheep) 

Who belongs in God’s kingdom?  Who will God gather together, to make the world the way it’s meant to be?  Who will be the members of God’s new chosen and blessed community?

These questions are important to the people around Jesus.  Because Jesus seems to be channeling so much of God’s power in the world, they want to know his answers.  And as usual with spiritual matters, some people like what he offers, and others don’t.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

that saved a wretch like me;

I once was lost, but now am found;

was blind, but now I see.

This was one of three songs we sang last Wednesday in the dining room of Orchard Terrace Care Centre just down the road.  It was the monthly morning-prayer service – every second Wednesday at 10:30.  I was gathered in a circle with twelve or fifteen residents – more than half of them in wheelchairs, the others with their walkers parked in front of the chairs they were sitting on.  Those of us who were awake and alert were chatting, reading Scripture, praying.  We were singing hymns to the accompaniment of a battered portable CD player in the corner of the room with the volume turned up as high as it would go in a vain attempt to cover the thinness and poverty of what we could offer.

“Amazing Grace,” though – the last hymn of the morning, transformed us.  Those who were dozing, woke up.  Those who were singing, sang clearly, loudly and happily.  Together we became a circle of visibly, tangibly, audibly and infectiously grateful people.

I once was lost, but now am found;

was blind, but now I see.

Do we all, I wonder, feel lost at times?  Or that something has been lost?  And is finding, or being found, one of our deepest longings, and greatest joys when it happens?  And how often and in so many ways in our life – if we’re blessed, does it happen?

I know the singing and the whole service on Wednesday was good for the residents who were there; it was good for me as well.  We chose to spend time together, to open up and reach out to one another across whatever separates us, to chat and pray about things that matter, unable – and this may be the most important, unable really to hide or disguise from one another our disabilities and weakness, and our troubles and sorrows. 

And in this we all felt found in some deep way.  We found ourselves to be found – gathered in and lifted up together in something that felt a lot like God’s love, like God’s saving embrace.

It was good, and it was worth whatever it cost us, whatever trouble we had to take to be there.

I think of the game Hide and Seek.  It’s the classic childhood game more than any other that our grandchildren some days want to play at our house.  More than tag, more than eye-spy, more even than spin-me-around or let-me-climb-on-you.

And what’s the point of it, really, if not to be found?

Yes, the action begins when all but one run off to hide themselves.  Because all of us do need private and personal places and time alone and apart.  Safe places where we can hide and not feel threatened or oppressed.  Where we can think our own thoughts and be with our own souls.

But at some point – and beyond which point the game becomes more anxious than fun, there really is a need to be found.  Because it’s in the finding – in the delighted recognition and sometimes surprising re-connection of one another that the fun is.  It’s in the being found that the deeper joy is.  It’s in the finding and the being found that God – at least the love of God is.

Now of course we don’t always know we’re lost.  Sometimes, especially as we grow up, we get so good at hiding that we forget what we’ve done and we confuse our hiding place with the whole of the home we could be living in, and we mistake our own company for the greater community we could be connected with.

When Aaron was three-and-a-half – almost four, one Easter Sunday morning he went missing.  One minute he was playing in the backyard.  The next, when his mother and I called him in for lunch, he was not there anymore. 

He was lost, and we immediately began looking for him. Running up and down the streets near our house.  Asking people on the street if they’d seen a little boy in red sweat pants and black-and-white t-shirt.  A friend went down into the nearby ravine.  The police were called.  A local news van showed up. 

We were frantic.  Lost in panic.  Lost to the wildest imaginings of our minds, because he was lost to us.

Until the teen-aged son of a neighbour showed up on his bike, with Aaron perched happily on the handlebars.  “Is this who you’re looking for”?

Aaron, of course, had no idea he was lost.  He was merely off on an adventure.  The back yard was too confining.  He said he needed fresh air.  So he walked – probably ran off down the street, to where he knew there was a playground.  And beside the playground a baseball diamond.  Where some older boys were playing, and he sat down to watch them.  Until someone heard he was lost, and helped bring him home.

Sometimes we do get really good at living in our own little world.  A world of self-sufficiency, maybe.  Of busy-ness.  Of pride.  Or of fear and insecurity.  A world maybe where we know we won’t be hurt or threatened.  Where we’ll feel safe, or in control.  Where we hide our weaknesses, don’t talk about our troubles, don’t share our sorrows.  A world we all need at some point and to some degree, but beyond which degree and which point we get lost in our own hiding, and we become lost to being found and to knowing the love of God in community that really can lift us up and make us whole.

And then, of course, there’s also the other side of the equation.  Sometimes we just don’t want to be the seekers of others who are hidden, to be the finders of others who are lost.

The most recent time I came home to two grand-children who were visiting with their Jammie and decided to hide as I arrived so I could find them, I was tired.  I just wanted to come home and relax.  I wanted to recharge my batteries, not have to spend my energy on anyone else.  So – I hate to have to admit it, I just quietly, persistently chose not to play the game. 

I pretended I didn’t know they were hiding.  I closed my ears to their whispered voices urging me to find them.  I ignored the clues that would have led me to them.  I was a churl.  I was a grumpy old man.  An unresponsive Papa.

And don’t we all get like that at times?  Aren’t we like that sometimes as a church?  Just wanting to come in and sit down, and be comfortable.  Have a place of our own in the changed community around us and in the world that so often wears us out, where we can just rest and feel cared for. 

Not have to go seeking those who are hidden.  Not have to be finding those who are lost.  Not having to hear in the world and in the community around us the whispered voices urging someone to find them.  Ignoring the clues that would lead us into other people’s hiding places.

But who then really is hidden?  Who really is lost?  

For how do we know God if not in the game and the life and the choice of finding and being found?  Where and when and how else are we gathered in and lifted up in the love of God?  Where and how else do we, along with others, come to know and to share the love of God for all?