Which of You Does not Seek the Lost One?

The way this question is asked, it implies an affirmative sort of answer--why, of course we would seek out the lost sheep.  But, we don't actually do that in reality.  Church families easily become a civic club with rules of inclusion and exclusion.  We don't leave our safe and secure 99 to risk life and limb for that one sheep.  It is counter-intuitive to our way of thinking.

Church as institution has lost its way.  We are not longer engaged in mission but in maintenance.  We have forgotten what it feels like to be lost and to be in desperate need of welcome.  We affirm with our lips that we want new members and yet when those new members come we treat them with suspicion and subject them to our age old power games.

What are we to make of a God who goes after the one sheep?  Will we respond like the bitter older brother of the prodigal son?  Will we fold our arms and become green with envy.  Or, will we let go, join the journey, and truly rejoice when the one who was lost has repented and found wholeness?

Our meditation asks when we ourselves have felt lost.  Sometimes I feel lost sitting right in the middle of church.  I wonder, "what are we doing here?"  Are we gathering as a faith bound community to be energized to go back into the world with love and good news, or are we fulfilling a social obligation, a mental check on our to-do list?  A good friend recently wrote a piece about what it would be like for Jesus to join us in modern times.  Where would he be?  What would he be wearing?  Who would he reach out to?  Would we too, when the time came, scream out "Crucify Him!" because he had disrupted us, turned upside down the way we've always done things?

My faith journey is an ongoing see-saw between being lost and found by God.  When I am lost, it is because I have been chasing a rabbit trail of sorts, enjoying the illusion of being master of my fate.  Then, I trip, fall, find myself bruised and suddenly consoled by the great Holy Spirit who has followed quietly.  I am drawn back into a loving fold and prodded along again with the others on The Way:  prodigals and prodigies alike.  

Thanks be to God for such lavish mercy.