Lost and Found- Sermon on Job and Bartimeaus

Lectionary Texts: Job 42: 1-6, 10-16; Mark 10:46-52 (preached 25 October 2015, St. John's Aberdeen)

What does it mean to be lost?

When we say that we are lost, we almost always mean that in the course of getting from destination A to destination B we’ve lost our way. There was a path to be on and that path disappeared a few left turns ago. I’m particularly bad at getting lost between a start and a finish. Even with the advent of Google Maps, I’m more than likely going to get myself misplaced. Case in point- my first time navigating to St. John’s, I made it all the way to the Crown Terrace Baptist Church and couldn’t figure out for the life of me what google wanted me to do. While I, theoretically, understand maps- but truth be told if I had been in charge of leading the Israelites to the Promised Land, we would either still be wandering or landed somewhere closer to South Africa because that turn “felt right.”

But being lost has a much deeper meaning. Merriam-Webster gives the full definition of lost as:

-       Unable to be found

-       Not knowing where you are or how to get where you want to go: unable to find your way

-       No longer held, owned, or possessed

Lost is where we find Job. We’re introduced to the story with a dialogue between God and Satan- “shatain”, the accuser. Satan tells God that Job’s piety would cease if he lost everything and a divine bet between God and Satan emerges whereby Job is stripped of everything. Job loses land, fortune, children, and by the end his esteem by his friends. If it is correct that Job was one of the earliest written books in the Old Testament, as several biblical scholars believe it was, then the reason for writing it makes sense. It’s the classic question of why do bad things happen to good people, how do we respond to evil, where is God in the midst of being lost? Does misfortune equivocate to bad behavior? Where is God when we suffer?

But Job knows where God is. His loss isn’t God’s punishment- “Naked I came out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return: the Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

Job refuses to curse God- but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have a few questions. He maintains his righteousness as a man, but wants to ask God why this punishment has been sent down upon him. While Job’s monologues are far from “hopeful” in the majority of the verses, he holds fast to the belief that God knows what’s going on and what’s going to happen to him (whether good or bad).

Job calls to God in the midst of being lost.

This past weekend we were chatting with a friend and she was telling us of a story where one of the children she was baby-sitting became separated from our friend and her siblings while visiting a castle. The rule about getting lost was that you were supposed to stay where you were and start yelling at the top of your lungs. The child only remembered the screaming part. She was running around the castle screaming until finally our friend was able to trace her yelling and find her.

And this story got me thinking. There is great faith behind screaming out when you’re lost. It’s a cry that says that we may not be able to find our way or know where we are headed, but one that says we are still held, owned, possessed. A four-year-old screams because she knows her caretaker can only find her if she knows where to locate her. Children remember what we slowly forget. Being lost is temporary when we believe someone is looking for us.

In the Gospel reading we find Jesus in Jericho. Here he encounters Bartimeaus, a blind, beggar. Bartimeaus had heard of Jesus. And Bartimeaus shouts. He shouts out to Jesus. He shouts out for mercy. He shouts even when those around him tell him to be quiet. He shouts until Jesus calls him. He shouts and when he draws close to Christ he gains his sight back. His sight returns not in the ways other blind men have regained their sight in the Gospels. There is no paste put on the eyes, there is only the faith of Bartimeaus to shout out to the Lord. He was blind but now he sees. He was lost but now is found.

Jesus responds in mercy to those who call out to him in desperation. The bleeding women who reaches out in the hope that by merely touching his garment will be made well. The friends of the paralytic man that lower him into the house Jesus is in because they couldn’t get through the crowds. The Syrophonecian women. Jairus. The Roman centurion. Job calls out because he hoped that God would eventually respond. Bartimeaus shouted because he believed Jesus had the power to heal. There’s faith in these stories. The absurdity of their faith and their willingness to be made foolish healed them. Theirs is a desperation of faith- not that they despair of faith, rather that in the midst of suffering they are desperately clinging to their faith. They are crying out to God to heal them, to find them, to set them back on the path they thought they were on.

But what do we do when we’re lost?

Each week we pray to God that when we were still far off and lost, God sought us and brought us back home. We need to say that because we need the reminder that too often we rely on ourselves to not be lost. I’m often baffled that people go away to find themselves. If you’re lost how can you find yourself? You’re the one lost! I know that when I’m lost I can yell at Google Maps for as long as I want, but trying to find myself when I have no idea where I am is not going to get me anywhere (physically or metaphorically).

And that’s a silly example because when it comes to maps and simply being lost between point A and point B, I may be able to locate myself within my context and get back on the path.

But what about when I’m lost at my core? How can I find myself when all the context for reference has gone away? How do I even attempt to find myself when the earth is trembling and darkness has fallen and I feel utterly alone?

And that’s a terrifying lost-ness. Over the course of our lives I expect each of us had something akin to what John of the Cross calls the dark night of the soul- when we are profoundly lost and overwhelmed by how lost we are. I came across the story this week of the BBC Reporter John Sweeney’s search for Azam, a Syrian refugee boy that he met in Belgrade. Azam was injured and traveling with a man claiming to be his father. Concerned about the boy’s health and the suddenness of his disappearance before receiving treatment, Sweeney has launched a campaign to find him. In the course of this search, Sweeney has entered a figurative dark night of the soul and a literal hell in the refugee camps- all in what many consider to be a futile attempt to rescue one child. Azam is lost, but he isn’t beyond being found. Our own lost-ness may never rival his, or it may be worse- but someone is searching for us.

We would do well to remember that even though Merriam Webster says that being lost involves no longer being owned, possessed, or held- we’re never not held by God. In our most lost state God is not far from us, walking with us and but a cry away- ready to be revealed in a way that we cannot yet imagine- “I had heard of you through the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you.”

Job cried out and finally saw God. Bartimeaus called out and regained his sight. Being blind and lost go hand in hand sometimes, but its not always a physical blindness. Sometimes those that can’t see the world, see God most clearly. Sometimes its our blindness to God that keeps us from being found. And sometimes things just happen and we lose our way, but we’re never truly lost.

A four-year-old knows to look for her keeper and to cry out until she’s found. Shouldn’t we attune ourselves to both look and cry out when we’re lost? In the most desperate of times it may be the only thing we can do to be found again. Because while the world spins madly on, God is seeking us out to bring us home, to put us back on our paths. And when we dare to cry out, we profess the faith that when we’re lost we will be found again.