SEEKING THE LOST
Ezekiel 34:11-16
November 16, 2008
(At 9:15 and 11:00 there will be a video clip of a homeless man standing on the street corner with a sign reading: “Need Help; God bless.” A young man drives up and tries to avoid eye contact with the homeless man. Narrator asks: Would it make a difference if you knew he wouldn’t buy alcohol? Would it make a difference if you knew he had a debilitating mental disease? Would it make a difference if you knew he wanted a job? The driver is hesitant but finally, just as he reaches for his change, the light changes and he drives away. The narrator asks: Would it make a difference if you knew he was God’s son?)
We’ve all been there. We’ve asked ourselves those questions. We are torn between wanting to reach out a hand to help and our skepticism about whether or not we would be contributing to someone’s addiction.
On Veteran’s Day I saw on the news that nearly 1,000,000 of our homeless are veterans. Some are physically disabled, some are mentally disabled, some are addicted, and some are simply unable to live with the memories of war. What do we do? How do we help these individuals who responded to their country’s call to serve? The news story was about “Freedom House” where 16 veterans live in
A little girl with pink Velcro-fastening sneakers scuffs her well-worn shoes back and forth while she waits. Her mommy is late again. She knows that sometimes Mommy gets busy, but she also knows that sometimes mommy just forgets – she forgets about time passing, she forgets who she left her daughter with for that day, she even forgets she is a parent with a 4-year-old child depending on her, counting on her. Even at her young age, the little girl with the pink sneakers already knows it’s the drugs and the drink that make mommy forget.
They move often. Mommy spends the rent money on more drugs, and they have to sneak out in the middle of the night. The little girl reaches down to try to re-stick the Velcro strap on her left sneaker but half the fuzzy little grippers don’t work anymore, making the strap flap open and her shoe fall off. That was probably why they were in the garbage where she’d found them in the first place – but at least they were a pretty color. The little girl sits quietly on her most recent neighbor’s porch and wishes that her mommy would remember where she was, and that she needed her mother to take her home. She is lost and alone in a big frightening world.
Every one of us has known what it feels like to be lost – that scary, confusing, out-of-control feeling that takes hold of your heart and squeezes it hard. For some of us, it’s a feeling that we encounter only occasionally – when we are negotiating the streets of an unknown city, or trying to find our car in a mall parking lot. But, for many people, feeling “lost” is a much more permanent condition.
The homeless man, the little girl, and the little girl’s mother…are all lost. The lost are all around us. There are so many: the father who came to the church to see if we could help with milk for his hungry child; the mentally ill, the rejected, the lonely. Perhaps some sitting here in this beautiful church on this
chilly morning are feeling lost.
In our scripture lesson for this morning, Ezekiel delivers a promise to the lost children of
God says that he will search for those who are lost and even when they are scattered, he will seek them out and he will rescue them from darkness.
Darkness – that place where there is no light, no way to see a way forward or to see what lies ahead. You know how it is when you walk into a dark room and can’t find a light switch. I swear the choir room is the worst. There are no windows in the room so when it is dark and the lights are off, it is really dark. The light switch is not right by the door. It is not easy to find. Every time I unlock that door and enter the darkness, I feel lost. I can’t see where I’m going and I stretch out my arm running my hand up and down the mirrored wall searching for the light switch. What a comforting feeling to finally flip the switch and be able to see.
The Israelites were desperately searching for a light to lead them out of the thick darkness in which they found themselves. Those who are lost walk in darkness daily. They cannot find the light switch. They don’t know how to find their way through the maze of pain and suffering they are experiencing. The lost are desperately searching for some source of light, some hope.
One of the hardest things about being lost is feeling that you are alone. There may be people all around you but they are strangers and you don’t know who to trust. You don’t know where to look for help. When we are lost we need others, perhaps who have been there and come through the darkness, to help us find our way. Or at least, like the people living at Freedom House, we need others who understand what we are experiencing and can share our feelings and pain.
God tells the Israelites that he will gather them together so that they need not feel lost and alone. He will feed them and he will bring them into a place they can call their own. This will be a good place where they can lie down and rest and where they will be able to grow and life will be good. Sometimes when we are lost and alone, we need someone to help us find a place where we can rest and where we can grow and where we can have hope that once again life can be good.
God promises the Israelites that he will be their shepherd and they will be his sheep. He will seek the lost and will bring back the strayed and will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak. Yet, the sad fact is that there were many Israelites who had become accustomed to this strange and foreign land in which they were living. They had become accustomed to the darkness. They did not want to change, so they refused to allow God to lead them to a better place. They ignored God’s offer to bind their wounds and to heal them. They had become too weak to reach out a hand and accept God’s offer of strength. So, they remained in bondage. God wanted to offer them freedom and hope that would change their lives but they were unwilling to take the risks, to face the consequences that might come with leaving the past behind and beginning a journey toward home.
God has promised to seek the lost…the homeless, the child who waits for her mother to become a mother, the mother who is searching for solace from her pain in her drugs and alcohol, the unemployed, the teenager who is bullied, the mentally ill, the broken and bleeding…God will seek them out and will bind up their wounds, give them the strength and the hope they need to pull their lives together, if they will let him.
There is no shame in being lost. There is only shame in refusing to get help. If you are among the many that are lost, the question is; Do you want to be found? Do you want to change? Do you want God’s help? Will you allow others to help you?
This scripture from Ezekiel contains both a threat and a promise. Ezekiel says that God will feed them with justice. Justice means that we get what we deserve. That’s not always good. Justice for those who abuse the lost will be destruction. But justice for the lost will mean that they will be restored and they will once again be God’s own chosen ones.
God always seems to show a bit of preference for those who are in need, for the poor, for the lost, for the lonely. And, we are reminded that if God cares about them, we should care about them as well. Jesus said that whenever we reach out to help those who are in need, the hungry, the homeless, the sick and wounded, we are doing it for him.
This morning if you are feeling lost and alone, be comforted. God has promised to bind up your wounds and to give you strength. Just open your heart to hear his voice, reach out your hand and place it in his. He will be with you and walk with you through the darkness.
lnk