Lost and Found

I have been thinking, in this time when our society seems all too willing to abandon the vulnerable, about this thing called love. As we hear about services to the poor being cut, the privileges of the wealthy be extended. As we see immigrants, the mentally ill, the poor being minimized, we have to think about what it means, as Christians, as church, to love. Suffice it to say that love is not all fun and games. It can be difficult. After all, Jesus clearly asks us to love those who by objective standards don’t deserve it.

Many years ago, when I was in high school, I would work on a ranch in Plush, Oregon. A group of us would start out in Plush, and then for about a month, move the herd of cattle from water hole to water hole out on the desert. It was a lot of fun. But I remember well the “one horned cow.” We hated that cow. She just wouldn’t go with the herd. We would start out, and all would be well, then suddenly we would realize that we had lost the one horned cow.

So one of us would go back, and look around, and inevitably, there she would be… wandering off on her own agenda… so we would gather her in and force her back to the herd. A few hours later, she was gone again. The whole trip we fought that stupid cow. And I will tell you, buy the end of the trip we had a vision for that cow….. hamburger.

I am reminded of the parable of the lost sheep. Leaving the whole flock to go after one, especially one who is problematic, rebellious? Pretty crazy. But that is the way God’s love is, -- and that is the way our love is meant to be.

Fourteenth Century mystic Catherine of Siena is one of three women who have been honored by Catholic Christianity as Doctor of the Church, because of the depth of her writings on the spiritual life. She often began her prayers, “O Divine Madman.” While this brilliant, fiery Italian woman was asked to describe the God of her journey, she whispered “he is pazzo d’amore, ebro, d’amore”. He is crazed with love, drunk with love.

That is God. The mad one. One whose love is beyond logic. We see this illogical love reflected in the Jesus’ relational attitude toward his disciples. Brennan Manning expresses this attitude in a story he tells in his book The Importance of Being Foolish. “Jesus attitude was beautifully expressed” he writes, “on a tour through Sleepy Hollow Village on the Hudson River. Our guide’s only instruction was, “Please be gentle with the lambs. They won’t come to you if you frighten them.”

When Jesus eyes scanned the crowds, he looked with the eyes of compassion. And thus, except when people were afflicted, as were the Pharisees, with a fatal case of self-righteousness, he did not speak to them with words of blame and shame, castigating, moralizing, ridiculing, threatening, labeling.

No, he was gentle with the lambs. He looked at people with the eyes of love, and his goal was always forgiveness. He always sought to take that lost sheep, and return it to the flock. He took the initiative, over and over again, to seek out sinners, and draw them in to his circle… Matthew the tax collector, Peter the uncouth fisherman.

The woman caught in adultery. . . think about that scene. It’s incredible, really. He didn’t even ask her, as he forgave her and accepted her, whether she was sorry. He did not demand that she commit to change. He did not lecture her on the harsh consequences of future infidelity. He looked at the woman, love her, forgave her, and told her not to sin anymore. The lost sheep. Being brought back to the flock – not through guilt or fear, but through compassion. When we look at other people with compassion, we are recognizing that person as one created and loved by God. We are recognizing them as someone, not something. Not as an adjective. Poor, old, sinful, ill. But as a person, a child of God.

Compassionate Community

Sam Keen, toward the end of his book Hymns to an Unknown God, makes a comment that seems remarkably important in today's world. "What we are discovering in American society is that we can't build a good society on the principles of self-interest and entitlement alone. Without generosity there can be no community."

This seems painfully true. As we look at the politicians in Washington explore health reform, as Oregonians look at supporting, or failing to support, funding for state programs, the principles of self-interest and entitlement do not seem to be leading us into generosity or community. Instead we seem to be producing enmity and polarization. Our society seems to be turning into an armed camp.

Frankly, as one of my church friends noted today, it is frustrating and depressing. For we were created to be in community. As God remarks in the story of the Garden of Eden. "It is not good for one to be alone." We find our full personhood, we reach our potential, only when we are nurtured in a community marked by faith, hope and love.

When we are self-encapsulated. When our focus is too narrow, we destroy community. We don't think of our neighbor, let alone the poor and vulnerable we seek to keep out of view. Instead we make decisions, and we act and yes, vote, based upon self interest (I don't want to give up anything that is mine) and entitlement. The other day a commentator on FOX waxed eloquently about calls for America to moderate its consumption of resources. She was incensed and indignantly proclaimed that "they want us to lower our lifestyle, they want to take away our lifestyle so they can have a better life." That is exactly where we end up. In that place where only we count. Why would we not want that person without health care to have care? Or that person without enough to eat, to have food? Or that homeless person to have a place to stay? Because we do not see them as part of our community.

When we surrender to God. When we give our selves to someone beyond ourselves and allow that One to fill our lives with meaning, we begin to ask critical questions. Questions so similar to those Jesus asked his disciples. Who is my neighbor? Who are my people?

As Keen notes, the more we expand our community, the more we are called to move into compassion. If we identify only with ourselves, we do not have to consider anyone else as we make our decisions. If we identify only with our family and friends, then we only have to love those who love us. If we expand our boundaries to include our neighbors, then we must show compassion to some way may not even like. If we include our country, our world, then suddenly find ourselves with at least some degree of responsibility to people who look differently, speak differently, perhaps even believe differently than us. To these people we must offer compassion, food, clothing, and more.

Keen suggests that one way to live community out in everyday life is "to make an effort to respond to people and situations you meet in the course of the day as if they were issuing a personal appeal to you for help OR offering you a gift. Listen with an open mind and heart. Look with a care-ful eye. What is being (silently) asked of you . . . "

And what is being offered, when people treat us this way in return?

"We Expect a theophany of which we know nothing but the place, and the place is called community" Martin Buber in Between Man and Man