For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search and find my sheep. I will be like a shepherd looking for his scattered flock. I will find my sheep and rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on that dark and cloudy day. … I myself will tend my sheep and give them a place to lie down in peace, says the Sovereign Lord. I will search for my lost ones who strayed away, and I will bring them safely home again. [Ezekiel 34:11-12,15 (NLT)]
Walking along the shoreline, I was surprised to see a baby opossum on the beach. A man with a large bucket was trying to scoop him up to return him to the safety of the mangroves but the little guy would have none of it. Lost and in danger of dying of thirst or becoming dinner for an osprey or eagle, I’m sure he thought he was on a wonderful adventure. Meanwhile, his mother was probably frantically searching the mangroves for her wayward child.
Thinking of frantic mothers and wayward children reminded me of Monica’s story. Back in 352, she gave birth to a baby boy—the man we know as St. Augustine. As a young man, however, Augustine was anything but a saint; he was disobedient, strong-willed, self-indulgent, and immoral. Although he’d been raised in the faith, he abandoned Christianity for the world of sin to pursue paganism and pleasure. Rather than lost on the beach, Augustine was lost in his hedonistic life. The original “helicopter” parent, Monica never gave up on her dissolute son and, as distressed as she was by his bad behavior, she pursued and prayed for him. Her persistence was rewarded and, after seventeen years of praying for her lost boy, Augustine converted to Christianity. After being baptized, he founded a religious order, was ordained as a priest, and was appointed as the bishop of Hippo. Devoting the rest of his life to serving the Church, he used his brilliant mind to establish the intellectual foundations of Christianity in the West. A prolific writer, Augustine is often called the most significant Christian writer after the Apostle Paul. What would his story be if his mother Monica had thought her sinful son was a lost cause? What if she’d stopped praying for her lost son’s soul?
There are some names on my prayer list that I’ve begun to think of as “lost causes”—people for whom I’ve been praying for several years. Due to an unfortunate combination of bad choices and bad circumstances, they are people whose lives have been wasted, people who have sunk so deep that rising from the depths seems impossible, people whose redemption seems hopeless, people who are so lost even their loved ones don’t know where they are. I was ready to delete them from my prayer list before seeing the opossum baby. The man with the bucket didn’t give up trying to save the animal, Monica never gave up on Augustine, and God will never stop trying to rescue the lost. Those names and others like them will stay in my prayers. You see, for God, there are no lost causes, only lost children.
When I came across this revised version of the 23rd Psalm, I was sure it was written by a cynic as a way of mocking God, Christianity, and many of today’s popular evangelists. Imagine my surprise when I learned that it was written in all seriousness by Charles Fillmore, the founder of Unity, a church within the New Thought movement. The “revised” psalm was published in Fillmore’s book Prosperity in 1938. Although we may associate the beginnings of prosperity or “health and wealth” theology with televangelists like Jimmy Swaggart and Jim and Tammy Bakker in the 1970s, the movement began in the late 19th century. Sadly, in one form or another, it still is preached today.
Even though this last year has been one of sorrow and loss for us, I smiled when I recognized the Sorrowless Tree’s bright orange and yellow flowers at the botanical garden. Although its scientific name is Saraca asoca, the Ashoka is commonly called the Sorrowless Tree. Sometimes I wish such a tree actually existed. Even though the tree can’t prevent sorrow, its beautiful foliage and sweet fragrance were just what I needed to lift my spirits as I mourned yet another friend’s death. The flowers reminded me to find joy and gladness in the day God had given me.
Last month, there were sentencing hearings for two politicians in a northern state. One pled guilty to bribery and the other pled guilty to wire fraud and money laundering. Even though both men abused their positions and betrayed the public’s trust, both of their lawyers argued that their clients’ crimes really weren’t that bad so they didn’t deserve time in jail. In direct reference to the crimes of a former governor of their state, one lawyer argued that wire fraud and money laundering were insignificant when compared to bribing government officials to get lucrative contracts, trying to buy a Senate seat, or shaking down hospitals to get campaign contributions. After the other lawyer pointed out how little money his client actually pocketed from his crime, he called his client’s bribery “a brief dalliance with corruption,” cast the blame on another corrupt official who encouraged him, and assured the court that his client wasn’t a bad person but just a “good person who made a mistake in judgment.”
Devotions of the Heart 