Lost and Found, Part Two

Text: Luke 15

Lost doesn't feel good. Oh, it may be an adventure for a while, but when the realization strikes that we don't know where we are, no one else knows where we are, and the prospects for a quick return are diminishing by the second, the adventurous feeling changes into something closer to panic.

The tax collectors and irreligious (the original rendering of what is translated as "sinners" in many versions) folks knew what it was like to be lost. They, like so many of their counterparts today, gave every impression that they didn't care about God, about being in His company. They had filled their needs for acceptance, love, and participation with substitutes that did not satisfy them. So when the real live God showed up in their neighborhood, and took time to meet with them, speak with them, hear about their lives and longings, they continued to come and fill themselves with the best nourishment for mind and spirit they could ever imagine.

So with the one we know as the prodigal son. After squandering the good stuff from his father's house he still needed to be filled. Lost people continue to eat, not just literally, but figuratively as well. They consume anything which appears for the moment to satisfy the very same needs for love, acceptance, and purpose. Most of what is ingested fills but does not nourish--it takes the pain away temporarily, but it returns in a way that now seems to need more than before. Lost people need something better to eat, and their Father longs to give them the best. So Jesus went to the tax gatherers and drop-outs; the father went searching for his lost son. And the former were filled with the words and presence of Jesus; the latter by his father's lavish banquet. It feels so good to be found and to be fed well again.

Sometimes we eat the junk food of the lost, substitutes for the mind and spirit's real needs; we wander from the father's house, maybe long enough to eat the lesser fare of our culture. During Lent, we should examine our diet and eat so that we may be filled with all the best food for the soul and have much left over to share with the lost ones along our way.