I wander off.  I always have, even as a child.  I don’t know why, but I do.  I have heard several stories told of just disappearing when I was little.  Mom has told more than once the story of how when I was just a toddler, I got up one morning, got a chair and unlatched the front door and walked outside, down the street (our house was on Poplar) and crossed Perkins Road.  The owner of the gas station that was on the corner there at Perkins at that time recognized me and brought me home.  All this took place before mom had even awoken.  She of course was horrified when Tony (owner of the gas station) showed up at the door, and asked, “I believe this one belongs to you?”  Then there’s the story of crawling into a blanket that was draped across two clothes lines and falling asleep during a party at my grandparents’ house.  I was lost for several hours before being found.  And I still wander…away…sometimes.  At parties or big gatherings, I wander.

In today’s scripture (EZ 34: 11-16 and Lk 15:3-7), we have the prophet Ezekiel and the evangelist Luke, describing this sense of being lost specifically within the context of being found – not only found by happenstance but found by God looking for us and seeking us out.

First, in Ezekiel, God promises:

“I myself will look after and tend my sheep. As a shepherd tends his flock when he finds himself among his scattered sheep, so will I tend my sheep. I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered when it was cloudy and dark…                                                                                                                                 

 In good pastures will I pasture them, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing ground. There they shall lie down on good grazing ground, and in rich pastures shall they be pastured on the mountains of Israel. I myself will pasture my sheep; I myself will give them rest, says the Lord GOD. The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal”

Cynthia Bourgeault, in her book Mystical Hope: Trusting in the Mercy of God (Cowley Publications, 2001, p.30), discusses how the word “Barmherzigkeit” is a synonym for mercy  in the German Language.  This word seems to mean warm-heartedness and radiant love.  I feel strongly that this may be an appropriate definition of the term mercy as we hear it in the scriptures.  The prophet Ezekiel is describing God as this Shepherd who brings back the scattered.  More than a watchful Shepherd, this is one who actively gathers the scattered sheep, e.g., , all of us, bringing us back, binding our wounds, and healing our sicknesses.  The focus is not on that we strayed or why we strayed.  These seem to almost be immaterial.

I wander now also as an adult.  In my mind and in my heart, I don’t pay attention to what I’m doing very well and sometimes I have hurt those closest to me, unwittingly, but nonetheless there has been hurt.  Relationships are tough, and commitment and patience come with the price-tag of honesty and accountability.  That being said, I have experienced being brought back into the fold, after tears of sometimes hard realizations of my capacity to wander away from love and not pay attention to those whom I love and who love me.  But I am thankful when I am sought out, woken up, healed and forgiven.  And I strive to do the same for others.

IT really does come down to the context of being cared for.  This, it seems to be is the radiant love that bursts forth in pursuit of that which is lost, of those who are lost, wanting nothing more than to hold them honestly and love them into healing.  This seems to be a way of looking at this feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  The Sacred Heart is a soul-seeking rapturous embrace that can do nothing but love!  It’s ironically not about us, and all about us, because God is all about us!

“What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.‘

There is no price too high, no sacrifice too great to “leave the ninety-nine in the desert” and go after the lost one until found.  And then, not only does the Love in mercy seek us out and find us, but it embraces us and celebrates us!  It cannot get any better than that.  The eyes of mercy are not just warm-hearted, but flames of love that dance in jubilee over the lost now found.  The wanderer brought back.  The catch is…we have to want to be found.

There is a sacredness in mercy that looks at us in love in such a way that, even as we wander, the gaze is held!  It is a radiant gaze that loves us even in our wandering.  The question is will we respond to “I believe this one belongs to you?”  Do we want to be-longed for and to belong?  Do we want to be brought home?  And when we are brought back home, will we recognize it?  And perhaps most importantly, will we bring others back in a loving way that can transform the world?

Peace

Thomas

(Originally published June 3, 2016)