Lost and Found

Dr. Yoshiro Ishida is an international church leader in the Lutheran Church. He began his service to the church as a pastor in his church in Japan. He was spotted as a very promising young man and the church arranged for him to attend graduate school in the United States. He returned to Japan as a professor in the theological seminary.

After these years of service in Japan, Dr. Ishida was called to serve at the headquarters of the Lutheran World Federation in Geneva, Switzerland. He gave dedicated service to the global church in Geneva in a variety of positions. He was next called to head up a new "Institute of Global Mission" in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Ishida and his American-born wife, therefore, moved to Chicago. Just a year ago he was called again, now almost at retirement age, to come…

From time to time I have, as most pastors do, a conversation with someone about his or her relationship with God. Most often it is during pre-baptism or pre-marital counseling. Quite often it becomes rather apparent that while these people believe in God they feel very far from him. For many there is a certain amount of fear in their understanding of how God wants to relate to them. It then is my joy to share with them how the incarnate God came to die so that they might be forgiven and receive eternal life. At this po…

Let me tell you a true story. Back in 1893 there were a group of four sisters, the Cherry Sisters they called themselves, who made their stage debut in Cedar Rapids in a skit they wrote themselves. For three years, the Cherry Sisters performed to packed theaters throughout the Midwest. People came to see them to find out if they were as bad as they had heard. Their unbelievably atrocious acting enraged critics and provoked the audience to throw vegetables at the would-be actresses. Wisely, the sisters thought it best to travel with an iron screen which they wou…

I remember reading a Peanuts cartoon strip in which Lucy comes up to her brother Charlie Brown and does something that is very unusual for her. She says - I love you. But Charlie Brown keeps responding by saying: no you don't. And each time Lucy answers a little louder: yes I do, I really love you. But Charli …

I majored in philosophy in college. One thing I discovered was that in an attempt to be intellectually respectable, God got turned into an impersonal being or force. God became an "it" in most philosophical systems. One thing that helped me m…

Who is lost? It reminds me of a story of a husband and wife who had been married for 15 years and the wife is sitting buckled in on her side o…

There was a man by the name of Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher back in the 19th century. The interesting thing is that his writings did not make a real impact on thought and religion until the 20th century. In some of his writings he talks about several different steps that we as human beings take in the religious quest. The first level he talks about is the aesthetic level. Now you do not have to worry about the technical name. Just trust me that the first level is called the aesthetic level. What he talks about is that in this level people dabble in life, trying to enjoy its pleasures. The key word of this level is pleasure-seeking. The second level of life is the ethical level. That is when people begin to take li…

Jesus is telling this parable to a group of people who are self-righteous "elder brothers," people who were angry with him for celebrating life with the down-and-out poor.

Remember the old Amos and Andy radio program? In one episode, Kingfish, instead of shaking hands to greet Andy, affectionately slapped h…

A little boy who cried out in the night. "Daddy, I'm scared!" Half awake Daddy said, "Don't be afraid, Daddy's right across the hall." There was a brief pause and the little boy called out, "I'm still scared." So Daddy pulled out the big guns, "You don't have to be afraid G…

In church the other Sunday I was intent on a small child who was turning around smiling at everyone. He wasn't gurgling, spitting, humming, kicking, tearing the hymnals, or rummaging through his mother's handbag. He was just smiling. Finally, …

Everyone has lost something at one time or another. There is even a website now at www.lostandfound.com that acts as a global ‘lost and found' box.  Users can report items missing and users can report items found. It is a good example of how technology can help people connect in a useful way.  This is a gateway site for all of the physical things that can be retrieved and retur…

In 1988, the poet Carol Wimmer, became concerned about the self-righteous, judgmental spirit she was seeing in some people because she felt strongly that being judgmental is a perversion of the Christian faith. So, she wrote a poem about this. It's called "When I say I am a Christian" and it reads like this:

"When I say, ‘I am a Christian,' I'm not shouting, ‘I've been saved!' I'm
whispering, ‘I get lost!' That's why I c…

In Dr. R. Alan Culpepper's commentary on Luke, he ends the first two parables in Luke 15 with the following observation:

In both parables, rejoicing calls for celebration, and the note of celebration may be exaggerated to emphasize the point. Neither sheep nor coins can repent, but the parable aims not at calling the "s…

The phone rings and a little boy answers in a whisper: "Hello?" The caller says: "Hi, is your Mommy there?

"Yes!"

"Can I talk to her?"

"No!"

"Why not?"

"She's busy."

"What about your Daddy, can I talk to him?"

"No! He's busy."

"Well, is there anyone else there?"

"My little sis…

"I saw them eating and I knew who they were." That saying, or some version of it, is well-known now. And it certainly describes the Pharisees whom we encounter in Luke 15:1-2. Jesus was welcoming the very folks whom the religious establishment had written off. Worse, he was at table with them, which was an intimate act of fellowship that implied a kind of personal bond and connection. So we'…

Christian thinking about salvation has divided itself into two main streams which I like to think of as: "Monkey-hold" salvation or "Cat-hold" salvation. The difference in theological viewpoint is seen in how monkeys and cats protect their young. A mother monkey will sound the alarm when danger lurks. The baby monkeys come running to her and hold tightly to her fur as she runs to safety. A mother cat, on…

The sea squirt is a strange creature. It seems to be a backward oriented creature. The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. When it finds its spot and takes root, it somehow figures it doesn't need a brain anymore. So it eats it.

The analogy between the sea squirt and some tenured professors has been pointed out on numerous occasions—but the church ought not laugh too loudly. I…

In this single chapter there are four views of the same God: A coin lost through no choice of its own; a sheep that strays because it hasn't the sense to know better; a boy who chooses to get lost but learns the hard way what real love means; and a brother who rejects pure love and chooses hatred and self-righteousness when h…

An inner city church, located in an area of the downtown where there were few residents, was forced to a decision. A large corporation was offering them a great deal of money for their site, on which the corporation wanted to put a parking lot. The money would enable the church to move to another part of the inner city where they would find many more people to serve. Even though this was exciting to some of the congregation, other members were resistant to the idea. They pointed out that the church was the guardian of a building whose history and architecture reached back into the early part of the nineteenth century. Denominational history had been made in that building, …

Ralph Milton tells of the teacher who, for reasons of her own, asked the kids one day, "If all the bad children were painted red and all the good children were painted green, which color would you be?"

Think about it.  What color would you be?  Red or Green? It is a tough question isn't it when you pose only two options.

One very wise child answered the teacher: "Striped"

It seems to me that in the frame of the story - everyone but Jesus is…

There was once an old man who had a little spotted dog. The dog was a mixture of spaniel, collie, terrier and dachshund. He was a street-bred mutt, but the old man loved him because he was all he had. They were constant companions, going everywhere and doing everything together. Every night the dog slept at the foot of the old man's bed.

Then one day the dog disappeared. He was playing in the yard one moment, and the next thing the old man knew he was gone. He searched everywhere…

Is there a better picture of forgiveness in the whole Bible? It reminds me of a story about a woman who had upset her pastor because she claimed that she had conversations with God. She had attracted quite a following in the church and every day people gathered at her house, got on their knees, prayed, …

While visiting in the hospital I met a little nine-year-old girl who was a patient. I thought I recognized her name, so I asked her if she was the little girl by that name who went to our Sunday church school. She replied, "No, Sir. I don't go anywhere to Sunday church school."

I told her who I was and said, "While I'm here perhaps we could have a prayer."…

John Newton, who wrote the hymn Amazing Grace back in 1779 certainly identified with the younger son, the son who wasted his inheritance. As a young man he left home and went to sea and there lived wildly and free. Like many people who abandon God, he was highly critical of the Christian faith, and spent much time tearing down the faith of the people he met as he went from place to place. It was only i…

You can never escape criticism. Anyone who stands up and does something will be criticized. You'll be criticized fairly and unfairly. And if you retreat in weariness, then you'l…

The most successful companies aren't successful because of charismatic leadership or because they found some "great idea" that no one else came up with. Instead, these highly successful companies share three distinct characteristics:

• First, the focus of each one had always been on a set of core values that never changed.
• Second, each company…

There is a wonderful story about Maya Angelou. She was an active member of Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco before her death. She wrote that when she first came to San Francisco as a young woman she became sophisticated. She said that was what you were supposed to do when you go to San Francisco, you become sophisticated. And for that reason she said she became agnostic. She thought the two went together. She said that it wasn't that she stopped believing in God, just t…

On a cold, dreary December evening, several hundred people gathered at a large downtown church in Winston-Salem to celebrate the Christmas season. Bishop Ernest Fitzgerald, present that evening, had gone down a long hallway to help a small boy who was pushing against massive oak doors trying to get outside. The boy was about 2 years old and as he pushed he was crying as if his heart would break.

The Bishop picked him up, thinking he belonged to someone at one of the Christmas parties but as he opened the doors and looked outside he spotted an old-model car speeding away in the darkness. Gradually, it dawned on him that the child he held in his arms had been abandoned.

Phone ca…

The love of God is indescribable but a old Jewish legend does a pretty good job. It describes what happened when God created man. The legend says God took into counsel the Angels that stood about his throne. The Angel of Justice said; 'Create him not … for if you do he will commit all kinds of wickedness aga…

H.H. Staton in his book, "A Guide To the Parables of Jesus" tells the story of having been on an ocean liner headed to the Middle East.

Nine hundred miles out to sea a sail was sighted on the horizon. As the liner drew closer, the passengers saw that the boat - a small sloop flying a Turkish flag - had run up a distress signal and other flags asking for its position at sea. Through a faulty chronometer or imma…

In 2000 a homeless man by the name of William Wallace Brown, Jr. was buried in the graveyard of the prestigious St. John's Episcopal Church, across from the White House. This would not be unusual except that St. John's is called the "church of presidents." Since 1808, the time of the James Madison presidency, nearly every U.S. leader has worshiped there. So how is it, that this street bum was laid to rest in a prominent burial garden? It all began one Sunday morning when the homeless man spotted George H. W. Bush entering the church and asked the president to pray for him. Bush looked…

Pastor Mike Milton of Savannah, GA tells about two photos that appeared together on the front page of a local newspaper, the Camden, Maine Herald. One photo was of the board of aldermen and the town manager huddled together at a meeting. The other photo was a flock of sheep. Unintentionally, the captions were reversed. Under the picture of the sheep, the cap…

What is your view of God? The scowling judge waiting to convict you? The disapproving parent whose love you have to earn? Your view of God affects every decision and relationship in your life. Kathleen Chesto wrote to Catholic Digest to tell them about an incident that occurred in her family. Her five-year-old child approached her one day in the kitchen and asked, "Mom, is God a grown-up or a parent?"

Mom was a little puzzled by the question. "I'm not s…

A marine tells about a field exercise he was participating in at Camp Lejeune, N.C. His squad was on a night patrol making their way through some thick brush. Halfway through, they realized they’d lost their map. The patrol navigator informed …

A new school teacher in a farming community in Texas asked her class, "If there were 12 sheep in a field and one jumped over the fe…

Norman Vincent Peale once told about addressing a Methodist conference in Atlanta, Georgia along with a fine preacher, Bishop Noah Moore, and Pierce Harris, a much-loved local pastor. In his message Peale said that he believed that Jesus Christ could come into a life and change it, no matter how hopeless it seemed.

After the service, when he and the other guest preachers were gathered in the minister's office, they were told that a man wanted to see them. A somewhat disreputable-looking man, they were warned "unshaven, unwashed, poorly…

While working as a court-appointed attorney, Emory Potter was assigned a client who had been accused of criminal trespass. Mr. Potter probed his client with some general questions of background. He asked if he had any previous arrests or convictio…

A slightly inebriated man on his hands and knees underneath a street lamp is searching the sidewalk. A friend came by and said, "Sam, what in the world are you doing out here on your hands and knees?" "I'm hunting my house key ," Sam replied. "I lost my house…

You've all probably heard the old story about the town drunk who was down on his hands and knees one night underneath the streetlight searching and searching for something. The preacher happened to be walking by and asked him, "Sam, what in the world are you doing out here on your hands and knees?"

Sam looked up and said, "Oh, Hi Preacher, I'm hunting for my keys. I lost my keys."

The preacher, being kind hearted, got down on his hands and knees to help and said, "Show me where you dropped them and I'll help you find them."

Sam pointed off about 5…

Let us fabricate a situation in order to refer to an actual circumstance. Suppose that your family doctor spent the better part of his time enjoying the company of his cohorts, all of them healthy, sharing a common interest, and preserving the clinic by keeping it in good repair, yet never associated with persons beset by maladies. The clinic has been the medical center for as long as anyone can remember, but is used primarily for research and as a place to house medical books. The doctors are far too involved with perusing the records, studying cures, and maintaining the dignity of medicine to bother themselves with the sick and infirm. To carry this hypothetical situation further, let us say that a new doctor appears in town, totally unrelated to the time-honored clinic, independent of t…

There is a beautiful and important scene in the movie Dr. Zhivago. The Comrade General is talking with Tanya. He asks her, How did you come to be lost?" She replies, "Well, I was just lost." He asks again, "No, how did you come to be lost?" Tanya doesn't want to say. She says simply, "I was just lost. My father and I were running through the city and it was on fire. The revolution ha…

Jesus doesn't call us to be "convenient Christians", he calls us to be committed Christians who put Him first above everything else — even if that means dad, mom, siblings, kids, work, vacations, playtime, money, homes, friends. This is where the Living Bible translation fits in. Jesus is saying to us as His followers, "Sit down, count your blessings and then renounce them all for me." Would you still be His disciple if you lost your job? If you lost your sav…

The story is told of a farmer who had just rescued a lost sheep. When asked how the sheep got lost, the farmer replied, "They just nibble themselves lost. They go from one tuft of grass to another, until at last they've lost their way.…

A persistent judgment leveled against parents today is this: they gladly provide their children with every resource: Leaders, coaches, teachers, tutors, and youth workers. Certainly children should be happy and well-adjusted. They have everything money can buy. But they do not have the listening ear of Mom and Dad. "Too busy, later, not no…