Reclaiming Connection

All the items in the Lost and Found are both lost and found. Each item would not be there unless it had been left somewhere and lost. Each item would not be there unless it had been found by someone of goodwill who carried it to the right spot for reclamation. There is a chance an item will never make it to the Lost and Found, and there is a chance the one who lost it will not think to check there for it. It is a very happy thing when the lost item is reclaimed.

People can feel quite lost when they lose a sense of connection to central meaning and purpose in life. Sometimes a person is drawn away by a lesser, base objective. Other times a person is pursuing a good purpose, but the nature of their effort gets twisted, and shifts to a selfish agenda. No happiness results from chasing things that are not good in themselves.

One parable of Jesus has endless aspects of life within it. There are new elements of the human experience discovered every time we revisit “The Prodigal Son” (Luke 15:11-32). In it, we meet a man with two sons, each lost in their own way. We were treated again to this parable last Sunday at the Holy Eucharist.

The younger son has lost his connection to his family because his desires drive him out into the world. He takes early withdrawal on his inheritance to fund the frivolity. He fills up for a time on the superficial thrills, but subsequent starvation drives him back to his people. He counts himself as lost and hopes at best to be tolerated as a laborer.

The older son, we might surmise, stays rigidly in line with the family code, but not joyfully. He seems to have twisted duty into a personal standard from which to judge others. His key relationships are with himself and the credit he is earning by his impeccable record. Outside of this narrow ambition, he is lost.

These two lost boys are found by their father and have a chance at least to know the wonder of being found. This brings us to the father’s response to each of them in their distinct lost states. His response to the younger son is wordless, he seems not to be listening to what the boy says, he reaches out in action. When he does speak it is to the servants, ordering up preparations for a celebration. Here is the father’s response to the son who had gone away and returned:

But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.

He saw the boy and felt the compassion welling up. He ran and embraced him and planted kisses upon him. We don’t know how the son did from there on, but within the father’s heart, his son was found, reclaimed by the family. To the older son, the father’s response is with words. Here it is:

Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.”

Regardless of the disgust the older son had registered concerning his brother’s offense, and the feast that had been called, the father reaches out to him. Ignoring the hefty wedge of separation the boy was putting between himself and the family within this circumstance, the father reclaims him. We don’t know how he does from here on, but as far as his father is concerned, at this moment this son, lost in lonely resentment about everything, has been found.

Have you ever felt lost? We do sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. It helps to look at the actions of the father of these two boys. The Great Lost and Found of the cosmos is a wonderful bustling station called “Love.” Never forget the loving parent’s reactions to the two children in the powerful story Jesus shares with us. One is a wordless response: rich compassion, running, hugging, and kissing. The other, a response rich with words: “My child you are always with me; all that is mine is yours.” God sees to it that you are found, reclaimed into the wondrous circle of love.