In my mind, Luke 15 has always started with verse 11. The beautiful final chapter of Jesus' "Lost" trilogy challenges even as it paints a vivid picture of God's grace. A lost sheep and a lost coin? Neither can hold a candle to a parent abandoning all dignity as they sprint to welcome a wayward child. I've never given the sheep and coin their due.
I remember driving one night to say goodbye to some friends. Switchfoot's Learning to Breathe played on loop in my car. I was leaving for college and it felt like the end of the world and the beginning of a brand new one. That was fifteen years ago. And tonight I felt an overwhelming sense of deja vu.
Psalm 139 has always been a source of great comfort for me. I have written a few times before (maybe many times) about feeling out of place through during various seasons of life. To read that God knit me in my mother's womb, to affirm that I'm fearfully and wonderfully made presses a healing hand to the wounds that life inflicts on occasion.
Keep loving each other like family. Do not neglect to open your homes to guests, because by doing this some have been hosts to angels without knowing it. Angels. Messengers. Those who will show us the things of the Kingdom.
Have you ever jumped from some place really high and there's a point midair when you feel like you really should have hit water by that point? That's kind of what these last two years have felt like. When I left Concoxions, it was truly a leap of faith. I knew that I was being called into something else but I didn't know exactly what. There has been much wandering, difficulty, lesson learning, and the testing of patience in that time. A serious test of patience. It's like I leapt and I just kept falling, drifting.
As I have been watching the Olympics these last couple of weeks, it's hard to ignore the seedy underbelly of the games. People will be quick to point out the rampant commercialism of the Olympics. Or the corruption that has been associated with IOC. Others will remind that thousands of men, women, and children on the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum were displaced from their neighborhoods to build sporting venues that will likely sit vacant after the flame is extinguished. How could you like the Olympics?
Clerk: Next.
Christian: Hi. Uh...I don't know if I'm in the right place. You see...
Clerk: Do you have your paperwork?
Christian: Uh...yes! This right here. I'm not sure if I completely filled it out right. I'm not even sure what a CI-83 form is...
Clerk: Compassion Index Form 83.
Christian: What exactly is this place?
Clerk: We're here to make sure you don't help the wrong people in the wrong way.
I wonder if he was tired or angry when Jesus spoke of casting fire upon the earth. He sounds fed up. It's one of those moments when he makes us uncomfortable. When he reminds us that he is not just the smiling, laughing guy sitting with the kids and holding a fluffy lamb. Even that first statement shows that I'm trying to make some sort of excuse for him. "Surely something was bothering Jesus." We're quick to make the teacher more palatable.
