Whoever Finds This, I Love You

David Orendorff · Luke 10:1-2 · July 8, 2007

On a quiet street in the city a little old man walked along shuffling through the autumn afternoon, and the autumn leaves reminded him of other summers come and gone.  He had a long lonely night ahead, waiting for June.

Then among the leaves near an orphan's home a piece of paper caught his eye, and he stooped to pick it up with trembling hands.  As he read the childish writing the old man began to cry "Cause the words burned inside him like a brand.

“Whoever finds this, I love you, whoever finds this, I need you.  I ain't even got no one to talk to.  So whoever finds this, I love you!”

The old man’s eyes searched the orphan’ home and came to rest upon a child with her nose pressed up against the window pane.  And the old man knew he found a friend at last, so he waved to her and smiled.  And they both knew they’d spend the winter laughing at the rain.  And they did spend the winter laughing at the rain. Talking through the fence and exchanging little gifts they had made for each other.

The old man would carve toys for the little girl.

She would draw pictures for him of beautiful ladies surrounded by green trees and sunshine, and they laughed a lot.  But then on the first day of June the little girl ran to the fence to show the old man a picture she drew, but he wasn't there.  And somehow the little girl knew he wasn't coming back

So she went to her room, took a crayon and paper and wrote: “Whoever finds this, I love you, whoever finds this, I need you. I ain't even got no one to talk to.  So whoever finds this, I love you!” 1 Anonymous, printed in A 3rd Serving of Chicken Soup for the Soul, (Health Communications, Inc. Deerfield Beach, Florida, 1996), 65-66

What the little orphan girl knew was what Jesus was trying to teach; that most of what ails our soul is found in giving yourself away to love.  Her gift to the old man”s last winter was her need for him and her joy in sharing herself with him.  And the old man knew Jesus’ truth as well so when he stumbled upon the lonely note he was ready to need a little girl and to give himself in servant love.  Until we discover that soul healing joy comes not from taking love but from needing and giving love our souls and hence our lives remain ill.

Each of us has our own orphan. All of us are in constant need of having someone to whom we can give our servant love in the maiking of toys, the drawing of pictures, and the telling of our life.  You know in your heart and head that we live in a hurting world, a world filled with a variety of wounds to the heart.  There are hungry folks, homeless folks, the working poor, folks with diseased bodies and without insurance or other resources to seek healing.  There are folks whose minds are filled with anxiety or depression, who are afraid of the dawn and afraid to go to sleep.  There are folks, very young and very old, who do not know they are loved by God or anyone else.  There are folks, too many folks, folks you know, who suffer in body, mind and spirit.

The seventy were asked by Jesus to go ahead of him and to share their stories of needing and giving love with the villages he was about to visit.  It is to the orphans that Jesus sends the seventy.  He sends them with only their trust in God and their love of neighbor.  They are to go without money, a clean change of clothes or even a spare pair of shoes.  They are at the mercy of those they meet.  They are to not flit from relationship to relationship, or town to town, but are to stay with those who will receive them and teach of the nearness of God”s reign and the mercy of God”s love.  They are to be someone that can be talked to, that can share in servant love.  He asked the seventy to prepare his way into the minds and hearts of the people who needed love.  And the seventy went and to their surprise people listened to them and demons were cast away, and new life was born.

Jesus asks us to likewise go and share the gift of divine and servant love with a world that desperately needs what has been given to us.  The world needs servant lovers who bring peace and joy whatever the current circumstances of life.  The world needs a faith and love bigger than hunger, bigger than homelessness, bigger than depression, anxiety, divorce or death.

At Bear Creek it is our prayer that those come here will have this basic soul need filled and will no longer be an orphan.  We pray that those who come here will find someone ready to listen, someone or some ones with whom to laugh at the rain through life”s many winters.  We are not perfect here, but we faithfully worship God, and we offer to each other small groups to be with other believers of all ages to study our faith and lives, to grow in understanding and servant action; to be with other disciples laughing through each winter, to serve with compassion our world.

And it is our prayer that those who have come here will, like the seventy, now take God”s servant love into the world.  Yes, I know it is like sending lambs among the wolves, it is dangerous out there for the peacemakers, the healers, the faithful; after all, look at the price Jesus and so many martyrs since have paid for their devotion to God and servant love.  But the world will die if we do not pick up the notes of desperation scattered at our feet.

And yes I know that you’re being sent into the world for such mission and ministry with the scantest of resources, that you are totally dependent upon the orphans of the world who may receive or reject you.  But if we cannot share the making of toys and childish drawings, of being the faith and servant love of Jesus in the world then there is no hope in the world.

Each of us knows someone who is dropping notes on the sidewalk, crying for love, desperately looking for healing, for the salvation that will return joy to their lives.  We have servant love to offer.  Because we have turned our lives over to the full care of the God who loves us with abundance and healing; because we have surrendered all we are to the love of God as known in Jesus our Christ then what we know we must share.  Not just because there is a moral obligation to share whatever bread of life we have, but because our joy is made complete in the joy of others.  The more folks with whom we can laugh in the winter the deeper is our own laughter.

The reign of God is near and it is in us.  We know God”s gracious love and we know the joy of servant love.  And with this knowledge and experience we are ready to labor in the fields about us among the lonely and lost orphans; among victims of disease, famine and war; among those whose homes are not safe but are places of abuse and misuse.  Go then into the world with your story of finding the God who calls all the orphans His, offering them forgiveness and power.  Go with the blessing and support of the Bear Creek orphanage prepared by its trust in God and its loving arms.  Go transformed by amazing grace from lost and lonely souls to serene souls of great power.

Go alert to the little scraps of paper at your feet reading "Whoever finds this, I love you, whoever finds this, I need you. I ain't even got no one to talk to.  So whoever finds this, I love you!"  Offer the world servant love as if the reign of God was in it, the salvation of the world depended on it and your true joy came by it.

Shalom and Amen.