In the early 1930s, George Burns and Gracie Allen were enjoying moderate success with their new television show, but they weren't drawing in the audiences like they wanted to. They needed some way to get people interested in the show. The solution came, improbably enough, from one of Gracie's scatterbrained comedy routines. George knew that one way to get the comedic juices flowing was to ask Gracie about her brother, George. Gracie was a master at weaving dizzyingly tall tales about her brother, who was actually an accountant at an oil company. Burns hit upon the idea of starting a search for George, as if he were missing. It became a running gag line on their show, and even carried over into other popular shows. Gracie would pop up unexpectedly on some other star's show, telling people that she was looking for her missing brother, George. Viewers never knew when Gracie would pop up, in the midst of other show's story lines, and announce her search. People all over the country were charmed by the joke, and "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show" became wildly popular.
But there was one unfortunate sideeffect to this publicity stunt: George Allen, Jr., Gracie's brother, wasn't in on the joke. He was a private man, not used to publicity. Suddenly, his sister's gag had yanked him out of obscurity and made him the center of national attention. He was so uncomfortable that at one time he actually did leave town and disappear for a while, causing a repentant Gracie to try to quell the publicity. Finally, George Allen came out of hiding and resumed his life as an accountant, but he remained the butt of jokes for a long time afterwards. (1) One of the problems with looking for lost coins or lost sheep in the 1990s is that a lot of those coins or sheep do not want to be found. Isn't that your experience?
The busybodies were criticizing Jesus again this time for the kind of people he associated with. Tax collectors and other sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This irked the religious leaders. So Jesus told the religious leaders a couple of parables. The first was about a shepherd who left ninetynine sheep in the wilderness to find one that had gone astray. The other was about a woman who swept out her house to find a lost coin. His point was that the best way to make God happy is to find someone who is hurting lonely, desperate, out of relationship with Christ and bring that lost one home.
Let's begin here: THE WORLD IS FULL OF LOST PEOPLE. They're everywhere. People who have lost their goals in life, their enthusiasm, their joy, their hope.
Back in 1982 there was an amusing article in the newspapers about Atlanta Braves righthander Pascual Perez. Not only did Perez receive national attention but he also got stuck with the nickname I285 after he got lost driving to Atlanta's Fulton County Stadium. Heading for a scheduled start during the pennant race, he circled Atlanta for hours. He finally arrived at the stadium after the game had begun, missing his starting assignment. (2)
The world is full of lost people. Most of these lost souls have problems far worse than missing an exit on the Interstate. They've missed the meaning of life. In his book, BLUE HIGHWAYS, William Least HeatMoon says that Native Americans believe the road of life is always a series of irregular journeys deeply shaped by cosmic forces. He explains that the Hopi Indians believe that all humankind evolves through four worlds:
The first, a shadowy realm of contentment
The second, a place where people worship material goods
The third, a place where people forget their history and fear their future.
A mysterious being called the spider grandmother then comes to tell them they are lost and must begin a long and difficult journey.
In the fourth, the Hopi struggle to find their true way.
That sounds like many people you and I know. Contented worshiping material goods forgetting their history and fearing the future struggling to find their way. The world is full of lost people. (3) They're everywhere. They look at you with hollow eyes on the street. They slink into alleyways so you won't notice them. They hunch over in the halls as if they are carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. The church is one enterprise that will never go out of business for lack of prospects.
But we are confronted with this question. If there are so many lost souls in this world, why then are we doing such a lousy job reaching them for Christ? ONE REASON IS THAT WE'VE BEEN LOOKING IN THE WRONG PLACES. We have been focusing on making converts rather than finding lost people. We have been trying to find people who will fit in with our group and build up our church rather than asking, where are the people in need?
Actually, we don't even like lost people. They look different from us. They talk different from us. They may even smell different from us. And, boy, can they get their life in a mess! Family problems like you cannot believe. And dangerous dependencies. They have a tendency to be ruled by their emotions rather than good sense. That is one reason they are lost. In short, they are not our kind of people. And that is why we avoid them. That's right, we avoid them. We would rather focus on winning people who are like us. After all, they have problems, too. Isn't it possible to be upandout as well as downandout? We can think of plenty of reasons to focus on our own kind of people. Meanwhile, the one hundredth sheep wanders farther and farther from the fold. And the lost coin lies under the cabinet, slowly corroding of selfesteem and hope.
But there is another reason we are not very good at finding lost sheep and coins. THEY DON'T WANT TO BE FOUND. Where's George? They don't want to be found. At least, not by us. For some reason, they don't perceive our concern as real. Some anonymous cynic put it like this:
- I was hungry and you formed a humanities club and discussed my hunger, Thank you.
- I was imprisoned and you crept off quietly to your chapel in the cellar and prayed for my release.
- I was naked and in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance.
- I was sick and you knelt and thanked God for your health.
- I was homeless and you preached to me of a spiritual shelter of the love of God.
- I was lonely and you left me alone to pray for me.
You seemed so holy, so close to God, but I'm still very hungry and lonely and cold.
That hurts. A recovering alcoholic said that, after his lifechanging experience in Alcoholics Anonymous, his local church was unbearable.
"After I had at last been part of a real community where we loved each other enough to be honest, to sacrifice our time and energy to aid others in their struggle with alcohol, the sweet superficiality of my church was repulsive. When I tried to share with them some of the insights gained from my own struggles, they looked at me like I was crazy, like my struggle was a purely personal problem." (4)
Could he be talking about our church?
We are faced with a dilemma, aren't we? The world is filled with lost people if we are willing to look for them. And we have what the world needs mostthe love, forgiveness and lifechanging power of Jesus Christ. But we are doing a poor job of communicating to the world that we are for real. What is the solution? MAYBE IT IS FOR US TO ALLOW OURSELVES TO BE FOUND BY CHRIST.
The reason we do not have hearts pierced with the world's need is, to a certain extent, due to our own lostness. We have never given our own hearts completely to Jesus. Therefore, we do not have his passion for the lost sheep and the lost coins of the world.
It was a cold and snowy night in January. On the floor of the hospital where Nurse Sue Kidd worked, things were pretty quiet. She stopped by Room 712 to check on a new patient, Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams had been admitted with a heart attack, and he had seemed restless and anxious all evening. He perked up when the door to his room opened, but then looked disappointed to see Sue walk in. As Sue checked Mr. Williams chart and asked about his condition, she sensed that he wanted very much to ask her something. Finally, with tears in his eyes, Mr.
Williams asked Sue to call his daughter and tell her of his heart attack. She was the only family he had left, and he seemed very anxious that she know of his condition. Sue promised to call right away. Before she left, Mr. Williams asked for a piece of paper and a pencil, which Sue provided.
When Sue reached Mr. Williams' daughter, Janie, with news of her father's heart attack, she was startled by the woman's reaction. Janie screamed, "No!" In a panic, she asked, "He's not dying, is he?" She blurted out that she and her father hadn't communicated in a year. An argument over a boyfriend had led them to close off communication with each other. Janie's last words to her father had been, "I hate you!" All this time, she had wanted forgiveness.
After reassuring Janie, Sue hung up and began to pray. If only God would allow Mr. Williams and his daughter to reconcile! Her heart was so burdened by her phone conversation that Sue felt an urgent need to return to Mr. Williams' room. She found him unconscious, suffering from another heart attack. Within seconds, Sue's code 99 alerted the staff, and doctors and nurses filled the room to work on Mr. Williams. As Sue performed CPR on his lifeless form, she sent up a desperate prayer to God that Mr. Williams wouldn't die before he found peace with his daughter. But no amount of medical attention would restart his heart. Mr. Williams was dead.
In the hallway of the hospital, Sue saw a doctor talking with a young woman. Shock and grief mingled on her face. It was Janie. Sue ushered her into a lounge area and tried to comfort her. "I never hated him, you know. I loved him," the young woman said. Although Sue thought it unwise, Janie insisted on seeing her father. As she leaned over his body and cried, Sue glanced around the room. She happened to see a piece of paper on Mr. Williams' night stand. Sue picked it up, glanced at the name on top, and handed it to Janie. The young woman read it aloud: "My dearest Janie, I forgive you. I pray you will also forgive me. I know that you love me. I love you too. Daddy." Where grief and shock had contorted Janie's features and filled her eyes, now there was only peace. Sue Kidd slipped out of the room and headed to a telephone, to call her own father.
If we could go back in time to Golgotha and gaze on the cross that held Jesus' dying body, we would see a sign mounted above his head. On it we would read, "This man is the Son of God." If we could read the back side of the sign, we might find these words, "My dearest [and there our name would appear], I forgive you. I know that you love me. I love you, too. Jesus." (5)
Have you lost a sense of the meaning of your own salvation from sin and death? Jesus has a passion for the lost of the world. That includes us. And it includes everyone with whom we come into contact. Are we doing our part to reach out to the least and lowly as Christ has reached out to us? "My dearest, I forgive you. I know that you love me. I love you, too. Jesus."
1. Martin Gottfried, George Burns: The Hundred Year Dash (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 92-94.
2. Elliot Johnson, The Point After (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Daybreak Books, Zondervan Publishing House, 1987).
3. Paul G. Ashdown, American Journeys and General Washington's Ghost," Vital Speeches of the Day, November 1, 1994, p. 60.
4. Naylor, Thomas H., William H. Willimon, and Magdalena R. Naylor, The Search For Meaning (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 209.
5. Guideposts Magazine, 1979.