The Lost Cause

Last night was Maundy Thursday. Our scripture was John 13:1-20. This is the homily I preached... (You may be able to hear it here)

The Lost Cause

The Gospel of Luke has been called the Gospel of the Lost. It contains parables about lost sheep, lost coins and lost people. In Luke, Jesus says his mission is to seek and save the lost. However, I think it could just as easily be said that the Gospel of John… is the Gospel of the Lost Cause.

The Bible is full of tales of bad men and women, evil deeds and awful circumstances. Cruelty and betrayal are common themes. Perhaps one of the greatest examples is Judas. At this time of the year, we are pretty tough on Judas. We’re pretty tough on Peter too. And yet we find when we read the Easter story… Jesus… is not. Judas betrays Jesus. Peter denies Jesus. Jesus knows they are both going to let him down tremendously. In Chapter 13, we learn Jesus knows Judas will betray him. He knows Peter will deny him. He knows they will all abandon him.

And yet, does Jesus spend his last night lecturing his disciples, his merry band of screw ups and cowards? Does he spend it begging them not abandon and betray him? No. As the writer of John tells us, he loves them till the end. Jesus spends this time sharing a meal and washing their feet. Jesus spends this time serving them. He spends this time loving them.

After leaving seminary, I worked as a summer school teacher for an inner city ministry in Richmond, teaching Math and English. This neighborhood, Church Hill is one of the ten most dangerous neighborhoods in America, having improved in recent years from number four to number eight on that list. The ministry with which I worked had two main goals: to educate and encourage the kids and families in Church Hill, helping in any way possible… and to work toward racial reconciliation. The kids in the school and tutoring programs and camp are kids who would otherwise fall through the cracks, most of whom would never complete high school, let alone attend college, and many of whom would fall victim to drug and gang violence. There was a murder every day for our first two weeks in the neighborhood that summer.

With so much need and so few resources in time, money and manpower, it was tempting to feel overwhelmed. It was tempting to affect a sort of emotional triage. It was tempting to do what so many before us had done, to focus on the kids with the best chance or even those with the worst chance and devote our time and energy to those few. It was tempting to identify the Lost Cause and to steel ourselves for the inevitable failure, the countless let downs, the ongoing disappointment.

That was the temptation. The reality, most days, was that the people in this ministry knew we’d never make any progress, if we succumbed to that mindset. Our example is Jesus, and triage was a foreign concept to him. He loved them to the end. Jesus didn’t suspect that Peter would deny him. He knew it. Jesus didn’t suspect that Judas was a Lost Cause. He knew he was. And yet… Jesus washed each disciples’ feet… even… Peter… and Judas.

In that ministry in the heart of Church Hill, they knew that example didn’t let them off the hook. The example Christ gave us in knowing what he knew and loving them till the very end is our example in every moment of our lives. Because the real hook is this… Jesus knew who was a Lost Cause… and he served them just the same. No more, no less, with no exasperation, with no defeat or surrender. And brothers and sisters, as wise as we may believe ourselves to be, we do not know who the Lost Causes are. And we cannot. And Jesus shows us that even if we did, we are to serve them… to love them… in spite of this.

My mother, a lifelong school teacher, has always told me that, “you cannot reach someone you don’t love.” And it’s far too difficult to love someone you believe is a Lost Cause. And yet, this is precisely what Jesus does. Our Lord, our teacher and our example doesn’t abandon or vilify those who will betray him. We completely vilify Judas. And if we didn’t read all the way to the end of our Gospel, we’d string Peter right up alongside Judas. How dare he?! But Peter, Lost Cause number two… he becomes the rock upon whom Jesus builds his church.

How different is Peter from the convict who sits on death row or the college dropout heavy into drugs or the unwed pregnant teen or any one of us in our darkest hours? He isn’t. The Peter of our Gospel accounts between this night, Maundy Thursday, and Sunday morning is a story whose ending has not been written, whose hope is not in this day, but in the Jesus who comes looking for him, the Jesus who comes to seek and save the lost. What are we, each of us, if not lost? Who are you? Who am I, if not a Lost Cause who Jesus has refused to give up on, no matter the outcome? And who are we, if not a people called to go and do the same?

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Benediction:
As you go forth in silence tonight from the Chapel, go forth in the knowledge that no one you meet is a Lost Cause, not one. God has only granted one person the knowledge of who is a Lost Cause, and his example to you is that this knowledge is irrelevant. Go forth loving and serving, knowing that no one’s story is finished yet.