Strictly speaking, this poem (written for a post in October of 2010) isn’t about the gospel text for tomorrow and, therefore, isn’t in the sermon. If I remember correctly, it is actually about the healing of ten lepers in Luke 17. However, the parables of the lost sheep, lost coin, and lost son, two of which are in the gospel text for tomorrow, always leave me with images of Jesus calling out, hunting, searching ceaselessly for us. In a recent bible study about the parable of the lost coin, I was amazed at how quickly we all wanted to jump to the last line about repentance and seemed so eager to make the entire parable not about Jesus’ action but about ours. Indeed, we should ponder and act upon the ways in which we can turn around our lives, but these parables are about Jesus’ action; Jesus‘ search for us. Even here, in the face of such grace as a God who leaves everything to search for, reclaim and bring home the lost for no other reason than the fact that he loves us, we concern ourselves with ourselves so much as to miss it entirely.

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It seems that God has always been calling to us:
Where Are You? Where Are You?
It started in the garden.
Adam and Eve, they wanted to know more,
They wanted to be like God.
Then they became ashamed.
Knew they had done wrong.
And hid from God.
And God who came for his evening stroll,
Called out to his most precious children:
Where are you? Where are you?
God called out to Samuel,
But it had been so long since anyone had listened
To the voice of God that he did not know who it was.
He didn’t even know to say
Here am I.
God called the prophets
And through their fleshly mouths
He called to his precious children:
Where are you? Where are you?
Time and again, we wondered off the path.
Down some dark and lonely road
Or up some high and bright hill.
Left God calling out:
Where are you? Where are you?
But the hound of heaven never lets us go.
Never ceases the hunt.
The Shepherd climbs the endless hills over and over.
Where are you? Where are you?
He does seek us, even when we think ourselves a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God.
We are prone to wander Lord, we feel it.
Prone to leave the God we love.
And so ten lepers with their priceless gift of health,
But a word from Jesus and it was done.
Made whole and clean.
Though only one gives thanks.
Leaves the savior saying again:
Where are you? Where are you?