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2024
Lost and foundWednesday, April 23, 2014
Luke 24:15-16 Not just money, but authenticity. How can I prove myself without a picture ID? Who will use my credit card and drivers' license instead of me? What will happen tomorrow? The end of the world is near! God has me right where he wants me. His gifts have been taken away, and now in extremis I fix my eyes on Jesus. At first there's nothing. All I can see are trees moving around, but then with a second more my eyes clear, and there is Jesus. The pearl of great price. When I learn to respond with "silence" to catastrophe, an unexpected act is added to the end of the play. It is the act of mercy, of presence, of what Jesus calls the kingdom of Heaven. Nothing else is needed. I didn't have this mystical experience last night. Instead, after digging frantically through my bag and every corner of our red rental car and giving up hope, we stepped out of the car and suddenly saw my wallet on the roof. Where it surely was the whole time, but neither of us looked at that most obvious place. In the not-so-quiet magic of the way God gets my attention, it was given back to me. My desperate St. Anthony-like prayers nothwithstanding, the miracle came in seeing Jesus. In the shattering of my entitlement and renewal of gratitude for what I don't deserve, for mercy, God's impossibly unconditioned gift. In the evening hour that we were away from the car, no one took the wallet that sat there waiting to be taken. Or could it be that it fell from the sky ... and here Shakespeare finds the best words ... "The quality of mercy is not strained; it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath." Over and over we feel how alone we are, Lord, and then there you are. Forgive me for settling time after time for less than you want to give me. Your goodness and mercy endure forever. |
Last night I lost my wallet. In Las Vegas that is a cardinal Sin. Heck, it's a cardinal sin wherever you are. I hope you don't know how it feels, but I'm guessing that you do. "Catastrophized" describes my mind exactly when I lose my identity like this.