God On Our Scents

Are we losers?  Yes, we are.  In his 2008 book “Once Upon a Gospel,” Father William Bausch said: “Christianity is for losers: for those who have lost virtue, hope, pride, position, wealth, health, and life.  It is for those who have lost everything and found themselves, as a result, open to God’s tender mercies.”  Eventually and for all of us, we lose one or more of those things, and we need the ever-present love and mercy of God to see us through.

Today’s Gospel reading gives us parables and speaks of “losers.”  A man lost a sheep.  A woman lost a coin.  Although not mentioned, a man lost his son – the third parable in Luke 15.   But the lost can be found by the “hunter” who we know is Jesus: the shepherd, the woman, the father.   He never relents to find us when we are lost and sometimes feel as if we’re in hell and need a guide to find our way out.

Jesus’ hunt reminds us of the famous poem written by Francis Thompson (1859-1907): “The Hound of Heaven.”  It reads: “I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him…

I stand amid the dust o’ the mounded years – My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.  My days have crackled and gone up in smoke, have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a steam…

How little worthy of any love thou art! Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee, Save Me, save only Me?...Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?  ‘Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest, I am He whom thou seekest!  Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.”

This long poem is not easy to understand to be sure. [Google “dravest” to get some hints.]  The poet is sick and exhausted in a dirty alley where he sees Christ, the Hound of Heaven, panting and standing over him.   The tireless “Hound” has finally cornered his fleeing prey – the “lost” one.  This Hound is the shepherd, the woman, and the Prodigal Father, according to Father Bausch. 

If we run, God will chase us.  Trying to earn forgiveness and reconciliation is a waste of time.   God searches for us more than we search for God.   The Hound of Mercy is on our scents, always.

Deacon David Pierce