Being Un-losable--July 22, 2020

Being Un-Losable--July 22, 2020

[Jesus said:] "My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.  No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand. The Father and I are one." [John 10:27-30]

I don't believe I can imagine a worse sentence to hear than, "You've lost me."  I'm not sure there's a harder sentence to have to speak to someone else, either.

Not merely in the sense of "I don't understand you," or "I can't follow that train of thought, so would you try and explain it again." I mean those few terrible times in life when trust is broken, or respect is lost, or a relation is severed, and you find yourself saying--or hearing--"You've lost me now."  Maybe you know that song lyric by A Great Big World that goes, "Say something, I'm giving up on you," but man, every time I hear those chords and that line, it brings me up short like a verbal punch to the gut.  I think that song clocks in at the third-saddest song I know, because it centers on that feeling of having to hear someone say, "You lost me."

Sometimes you actually say the words: there have been a couple of times in my life where a politician or elected official has so completely sold out that I have taken the time to write to their office and explicitly say, "You've lost me."  (I know, that probably doesn't mean much to whatever staff person had to read it and send back a form-letter reply, but I had to say it.) And sometimes you don't bring yourself to say the words out loud, but they are just hanging there in the air, separating you. Someone says something or does something that makes you lose respect for them, and the relationship can't recover. Or they keep throwing you away like you are disposable, and at some point you just decide not to keep coming back for more.

I shudder to think of times in my life I have been the reason for someone else to think that of me--to fear that I've been the reason someone has felt further from God, or that I've been the disappointment they've struggled with, or that I've broken a trust. However it may happen, whether it's out loud or spelled out on paper, or just out there unspoken and unnamed, it's a terrible place to feel like someone has done something so terrible, so damaging to whatever was there before, that there's no hope of going back.  Whether it's being disillusioned by a leader you had looked up to, betrayed by a close confidant, or let down by someone you depended on, being in a place of "you lost me" is just about one of the worst spots you can be in.

And if I am going to be completely honest with myself, Jesus should be saying that about me on an almost daily basis.  There are surely lots of ways I've not merely messed up, but broken Jesus' heart.  There are surely ways I have been an obstacle to Christ's work, ways I have gotten my own agenda confused with his, and ways I've brought harm to people Jesus loves dearly. There are ways where I don't merely miss the mark, but act and speak in ways that run completely counter to the way of Christ.  Every time I fall into the same old, "Me and My Interests First" mentality... every time I allow myself to be cruel to someone else... every time I preach love and practice selfishness... every time I worry about looking like a "winner" or pursuing my own "greatness" rather than being concerned about the folks who have been told they are "losers" in this life, I've done a disservice to the way I represent Jesus to the world. And yeah, if I were in the Messiah's spot and I looked at me, I'm sure I would have given up on me long ago and said, "Sorry, pal--but you've lost me."  

I would have bailed out on me for blowing it in this discipleship thing.  It's an unpleasant truth to face, but I probably need to. 

And part of the reason I need to face that truth is that it is part of the wonder of grace.  For all the ways I deserve Jesus to send me a sternly worded email telling me, "You've lost me," he doesn't ever say that.  He hasn't lost me yet.  And if I am understanding these words of Jesus from John's gospel correctly, he never will.  Jesus describes his relationship to me--and to all of us--in starkly one-sided terms of unconditionality.  "No one will snatch them out of my hand," he says of us, like we are sheep and he is our shepherd.  "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish," he says, without so much as a loophole or an escape clause for him to bail out on us for our bailing out on him.  Jesus' promise seems to be that no matter how many ways or times I deserve Jesus saying, "You have lost me," that he won't say it, and he won't lose me.... and I won't lose him.  He has chosen to be stuck with me, despite all the ways I disappoint him, sell out, give out, burn out, and walk out on him.

Part of the assurance is in the metaphor he picks.  Jesus doesn't cast himself here as a boss speaking to employees--employees can be fired for poor performance, after all.  He doesn't cast himself as a judge speaking to a defendant, either.  He doesn't use the image of a marriage, the way God was often described in the Hebrew Scriptures as being Israel's spouse--because, as it turns out over and over again in Israel's history, they were unfaithful as they turned to other gods and other loves, and that did in fact bring about exile and a breaking of the covenant.  Jesus doesn't even speak here about us as his "friends," because even friendship, for all its durability, has a certain assumed mutuality and accountability.  All of those kinds of relationships are susceptible to being broken permanently, because all of them bring a certain amount of conditionality to them.

But a shepherd's commitment to the sheep is unconditional--it doesn't depend on the lost-ness or found-ness of the sheep, and it doesn't depend on how many times the sheep goes astray.  A shepherd remains committed to the sheep even in spite of the sheep's own waywardness.  That means the shepherd never gets to a point of saying to a sheep, "You've lost me as a shepherd--I'm giving up on you."  It is not dependent upon the sheep's goodness or badness, willingness to try harder, or past history of getting lost.  It is simply a promise... a gift.  That is to say, it is grace.

This is the heart of the Christian faith, dear ones.  Ours is a Savior who refuses any "out" to walk away from us.  Jesus has thrown his parachute out the window and insists on staying with us in the plane and bringing us to a safe touchdown.  He promises, no matter how much we might bail out on him, or how quickly we would have bailed out on ourselves if we were in Jesus' sandals, not to bail out on us.  He promises that no matter how many ways and times we get ourselves lost, that he won't say back to us, "There, now you've done it.  You've lost me."  

To a world still steeped in conditionality, a world that only can conceive of sticking it out if you get something in return, that is radical.  To a world that is used to bailing out when it gets difficult or walking away when you've been hurt, here is Jesus, still bearing the wounds we have given him, saying to each of us, "You won't lose me.  In fact, you can't."

That's the message we've been entrusted to bring to the world.  Not religion as some kind of deal that says, "As long as you are reasonably good and pious you'll make it to heaven." Not faith as some kind of boss-to-employee relationship that can be ended if you don't live up to the job description.  But as a free gift and a promise, like a shepherd makes to the sheep even if they don't have a clue what lengths he will go to for their sake.  The Gospel is nothing if it is conditional, but if we hear it in all its unconditional, unshakable, scandalously un-losable unconditionality, it's everything.

When I look over the course of my life at the ways I have blown it with other people and left things in shambles... when I consider the times someone else may have left an unspoken, "You've lost me," hanging in the air between us... and even when I have said the same to others (whether they knew or cared I had said it or not), I realize what an awesome thing it is to be loved by Jesus.  At every point when we ruin things, he keeps on saying, "Nothing will snatch you from my hand."  At every point we let him down, he continues to raise us up to life again.  And for every time we have earned a "You lost me. I'm giving up on you," he keeps saying, "You are mine.  You cannot lose my love."

Somebody you know needs to hear that today.  Find them.  Tell them.  Maybe even the face in the mirror.

Lord Jesus, don't lose us.  Don't lose us.  Don't lose us.  And make us to trust your promise that you won't.