Sermon Prepared for Messiah Lutheran Church

The 2^nd Sunday in Lent, Morning Promise and 11:00 traditional services – 3/11/01

by Gregory S. Kaurin

Associate Pastor for Spiritual Care and Development

Text: Luke 13:31-35

The Sermon:

A popular group called Matchbox 20 has a song on the radio. The singer is singing to someone and trying to get some point across, but his verses meander around. At one point he lashes out at the person, in the next he is self-reflective.

It’s not until the chorus that you really get the point of his song. He sings, "If you’re gone, then maybe it’s time to come home." The person he is singing to is right there, within arms’ reach, but at the very same time, eternally far away. Worse than being physically gone, emotionally and spiritually absent. "If you’re gone, then, baby, it’s time to come home."

In the gospel lesson Jesus shows two strong emotions in rapid succession. First, he speaks in great confidence from the faith his Father gives him. He hears the threat from Herod and responds, "You tell that fox that he has nothing to fear. I’ll do my work here and then I will be gone. But tell him that it’s got nothing to do with him; he has no power over the life or death of any prophet of God."

Then, in the very next breath, Jesus moves from confidence to reveal the heart of God, the broken heart of God: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, city that kills her prophets and stones those sent to her, how I’ve wanted to gather you as a hen gathers her brood under her wings. You are not willing."

The heart of God has not changed since Jesus said those words, and Jerusalem includes every one of us. "How I’ve longed to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks." "If you’re gone, then maybe it’s time to come home!"

My only experience with chicks was in my high school biology class. (I should say, my only experience with baby chickens was in biology class!) We had this experiment where we gave chicks various applications of the hormone testosterone and observed the results. I remember very little of the results of the experiment itself.

I do remember learning that it is next to impossible to herd a group of orphaned chicks. We had these great big tables and we’d put a bunch of our chicks on the table to let them scurry about. We’d have to stand around and block them because they’d often run straight off the table.

You’ve heard of "imprinting," where chicks sometimes see someone or something after they hatch, and that becomes "imprinted" on the chick. They’ll follow the person or thing as if it’s their mother hen. These chicks had nothing like that; they each hatched alone. We tried it—set our chick on the floor and would start walking away, but it did nothing. It only stood there on that big wide floor looking confused. When we came toward it, it would often try to scurry away, or sometimes it only stood frozen.

Chicks without a mother hen are like the lost children of Jerusalem, like the lost children of today. But how much worse it is than those chicks to feel and act orphaned while living under the watchful gaze of the most loving parent, under the gaze of God himself, to live as if orphaned from God when he’s standing right here with us.

I think we can all relate to the lost child syndrome. We’ve all felt it at some point, and cried out, "God, where are you? Where are you in this?" And often we know, really know, that he’s right here. Still, we feel that emotional, spiritual, or even eternal distance.

I guess the question, then, is: who’s really absent? Is it God …or are we? I have a sense that it is not God who is so distant from us, but that—even right here in his presence—we are the ones distant from him! And it is God who sings to us: "If you’re gone, then maybe it’s time to come home."

Something that has brought this sense of being lost and distant to the surface for me was the shooting in Santé, California. The young boy who did the shooting is Andy. The scene that has really stuck in my mind was when a reporter was interviewing Andy’s mother as she peered around her partially opened front door.

She was saying something like, "My heart goes out to all those people who were hurt and killed, and their families. I can’t say enough how sorry I am for them…"

Then the reporter asked about Andy.

She answered, "He’s lost."

"Lost?"

"He has no future. It’s all gone."

In some sense she is absolutely right, in the same sense that Andy has probably been ‘lost’ for some time now. And it’s true, whatever future he could have had—before he made this horrible decision—that future is gone. What Andy did placed him on a path on which he can’t back up. He is a lost boy amid the hubbub of the court, lawyers, anger and hate. He certainly looks lost on those cameras.

There was a vampire movie that came out in the 80’s titled Lost Boys. I have a sense that it was about much more than teen vampires, blood and such. Underneath, it was about being lost, lost in the wrong crowd, and feeling lost even in the ‘right’ crowd. It was about what and who are needed to pull us back in, and the dangers of not having those supports and anchors.

There was a theme song to that movie that really described that whole feeling of lost-ness very well: When You’re Strange. One of the verses sings, "When you’re strange, no one remembers your name." Your name. How very important it is to have someone, to have people who know you by name, and know at least a part of your story. Ask college students in big universities where their name is an I.D. number how important it is to be called by name. "When you’re strange, no one remembers your name." Orphaned.

A couple years ago, I bought a book. It has no direct connection to the movie, except its title: Lost Boys. It went to press sometime between the Springfield, Oregon and the Columbine High School shootings. I got the book to help me try to understand what might be behind, what may have led to the tragedy in Colorado. I read it again this past week after the shooting in California.

Dr. Garbarino calls them "Lost Boys," but he takes an odd view of the devastation. He knows that what happened cannot be made right. These violent youth may live (may have to live) locked up, and yet Dr. Garbarino sits down with them…individually…not just to analyze them, but to learn their names, and hear their stories…often for the first time. He tries to help them salvage what little hope they may have, and looks for ways that schools, parents and others might avoid these tragedies down the line.

For Dr. Garbarino, they are lost, but they are not without hope of being found. He is a psychologist in line with Carl Jung. He believes that real health, mental and otherwise, involves the whole person including the spirit. You cannot be healthy if your spirit is unhealthy.

So, when he sits down with these young boys, he states quite openly that he sits down to look for their souls. Even with these violent boys, he believes there is a soul within. And hope can be found—even when there is no hope of ever getting out of prison alive—hope can be found if he can help them begin to heal in soul.

He asks rhetorically, "Can a soul be murdered?" and expects the answer, "No, one person cannot kill another’s soul." He follows it by asking, "Can a soul be wounded?" and expects the answer, "Yes, one person can wound another’s soul." So, if these boys have wounded souls, if they have consciences, then why do they often look so unemotional, lost and empty of soul?

Let me read a section from his book:

The most common connection in all of this is the feelings of abandonment or separation. Many violent people feel abandoned and separate. Whether it’s anger, grief disguised as anger, or grief disguised as unemotive violence, they want to punish the world, or even to punish God, by being violent against God’s world. But even in this extreme, with these mentally, physically and spiritually lost boys, Dr. Garbarino finds hope, not to rectify what they did, but hope to find what may be all that can be salvaged: their souls.

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kill your prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I’ve wanted to gather your children as a hen gathers her brood…an you were unwilling."

What of us? I know I’m probably not talking or preaching to future mass-slaughterers, but I do know there are a few of you who can relate to this sense of separation from others and from God. I am suggesting that, if God can love and save these most lost children of all, then he most certainly can find, love and save you!

Some of you may have been coming to and going from church week after week and yet you still feel spiritually dry. You know that God is supposed to be here, but, lately, you haven’t felt him, like he’s hiding. God is not hiding from you, nor is he sternly staring down at you with a ruler in his hand!

Perhaps you’ve been afraid to really deal with and consider his presence lately. Maybe you’re the one who’s been afraid to look him in the face or stand alone before him. Maybe, like the chick alone on the floor, you’re the one running or standing frozen.

Maybe you’ve forgotten to listen to what he keeps telling you in worship, in the Bible, from the cross and from this altar: "I did this for you, and I have always stood here right beside you, ready to scoop you up in my wing, because—no matter what happens—I created you, and I love what I have made: body and soul."

From the murderer to the saint, from Judas to Mother Theresa, God’s grace spreads wide enough to scoop every one of us into his wings. He stands present right here and now. He is not absent in our songs, liturgy, or our lives.

I challenge you, then, to listen more carefully, to sing more soulfully, and to live more full of soul. These words in our song and liturgy that speak of grace and forgiveness they are full of life. If you’re listening to them, if you make yourself present in them, then you will hear the voice of God talking directly to you! asking you to let him enter the rest of your life in more obvious and expressive ways.

So, if you’re gone now …then, maybe it’s time to come home!