The Parable of Our Lost Humanity

 I think I lost it, let me know if you come across it

Let me know if I let it fall along a back road somewhere

Money can't replace it, no memory can erase it

And I know I'm never gonna find another one to compare

So sings Lucinda Williams on track 8 of her seminal 1998 album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. The lyrics never make it clear what exactly has been lost. The listener is allowed to fill in the blank—was it an object of personal significance? A true love? Or an attribute of a relationship, such as trust?

I had this song running in my head last Sunday morning as we heard the Gospel Lesson from Luke: Jesus’s parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. Kevin’s sermon aptly directed us to focus on the lovingly persistent nature of our God, who searches high and low for each of us every time we manage to get lost along our earthly journeys.

Thank God for this, because it seems that our society is currently in a state of profound lost-ness. Or perhaps, more accurately—we have managed to lose something very important. Something that cannot be replaced but rather must be recovered.

Is Jesus trying to tell us the parable of our lost humanity?

We are living through another distressing chapter in our nation’s story. Between the horrors of politically motivated violence, multiple school shootings, and the recent brutal act of violence on the light rail here in our own region, tensions are running at all-time high and the divisions among us are becoming further cemented.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk has ignited a collective grief as well as a collective fury, but it is clear that there are some differences in the nature of our mourning and anger, depending on which ideological “camp” we tend to hang out in.

I have watched with deep dismay as some have celebrated the abhorrent murder of a fellow human being, while others have been unwilling to even acknowledge that his legacy is difficult for those who were targeted by his viewpoints.

How might we find our way back to ourselves, to each other, and to God? Can we ever recover the compassion and love that seem to have vanished from the body politic?

I wish I had simple, straightforward solutions for finding our lost humanity. I only know what helps bring me back to a place of empathy when I’m struggling:

-       Worshiping with my church family

-       Praying for my loved ones, but also praying for those who I find most difficult to love.

-       Breaking bread (or sipping coffee) with someone who might have a different perspective from my own.

-       Stepping out of my comfort zone and finding opportunities to serve in my community.

-       Consciously looking for the face of Jesus in every human face I encounter.

I cannot promise that these actions will allow us to find everything that has become lost, but I think they might help. I know they can’t hurt.

Mostly what I can offer is the assurance that God is always searching with us. Maybe that promise is enough to sustain us for today. I pray that, together, we can find what has been lost, before it is gone forever.

Yours in Christ,

Carmen