This week as I listened the the Gospel reading for Sunday being read aloud, I was struck with a different kind of chord than I have been while listening to this in the past. Typically, when I hear these two parables (and the one that follows - popularly known as the Prodigal Son) I have always thought about it from the place of the lost sheep/coin/son, after all, the context and Jesus' commentary on the parable itself is about sinners repenting (and heaven's response) and being received by him. I've also considered what it says about repentance as an act of God (the shepherd who finds the sheep, the women who seeks until she has her coin, the father who runs out to his son). But this week I heard it differently, and differently because like Jesus, who is responding to people reacting to his welcome of sinners, I have heard it in response to the reaction I find so prevalent when people learn I have welcomed from the foster system a teenager into my home.Now I should be clear the response is not the same. The Pharisees are contemptuous towards Jesus. Most people are more filled with pity or surprise for me when they learn about the change in our home this year.
"Wow! I don't know how you do it. I could never do that." is a typical reaction we get.
"How's it going? I mean, a teenager in general. But then one with baggage..."
Or before we had a child placed but were willing to take older children, "You know they have so many issues, right?"
Now to be clear, these are not malicious statements. They are from people who care for us. And with them have come phenomenal support for our family and with those fears has also come a lot of understanding and help with our adjustment. But the point I am making is this: while this is not the same as the Pharisees' attitude towards Jesus' reception of the sinners it came with the same social reality: just as the Pharisees had no intention of welcoming such people into their table fellowship, most people feel the same about children who have been placed in the foster system, especially older children. And as a result, there are a lot of Jesus' little lambs who are lost in this world, aging out with little to no social safety net in life.
When my wife and I first got into this program we had two thoughts: be open, and if possible keep sibling groups together. As a boy who was once removed from his home as a kid and had the fear of being separated from his brother if we left our relative placement I wanted to prevent other kids from having to go through that. We were licensed to take up to three kids and we were looking to get a sibling group. But as we waited longer we noticed something: the kids who languished most without a home were often older individuals. Some had siblings who were already placed and sometimes already adopted elsewhere, but the large amount of older kids waiting for a forever family and rapidly running out of time was overwhelming. Soon our conversations went more towards whether this was where God was leading us.
Why is this? Why do older kids not get adopted nearly as frequently as younger kids? Well, for one they are assumed to be more behaviorally challenged (after all, it's a teenager too!). Additionally, as people would mention to us when we were considering older kids that's not a whole lot of time to have them. Of course, our response is that these kids need a family for life, not just for high school. They need a place to go for thanksgiving and someone to call when their heart gets broken or their car breaks down. Lastly, it is the greater realization that you have more life experience you are pushing up against. A 14 year old has 14 years of habits and experiences before you came into their life. That's more opportunity for clashes of values, styles, vocabularies, or even tv shows. That's more adjustment. Couple all that with the fact that many people who enter into this are doing so envisioning getting a baby/toddler.
But as I heard the parable of the Lost Sheep, all I could think about was the little lamb in my home and amidst all the struggles (don't just wear rose color glasses, this is challenging parenting) and all the concern people have all I wanted in that moment was to say "Rejoice with me, for I found my lost sheep." Because my kid is home. And my kid is precious to me, and - as this parable reminds me - to God. The parable by shaping the sinners as lost sheep reshapes the way we see them. The way we see past the label to their needs and God's means to addressing them in Jesus. And I know kids in "the system" need that same reshaping. And what might help that is what I am captivated by most - the joy of the shepherd as a mark for the joy of heaven. It's the joy of Jesus to get to eat with those sinners that day. It's the joy my wife and I had the day we were told our kid would be moving in. It's the joy that looks past everything else and just says "Rejoice with me."
And it has meant a lot when people have. Whether it has been family, friends, or my church it has meant a lot to have people rejoice with me. While I appreciate the concern people have for us (and have needed the accompanying patience/support), what I also need and love so much is that rejoicing. I don't want there to be an expectation for my child to fail or to foster the stereotype that older kids in the system are bad kids. They are hurting kids, sometimes with behaviors that to us at first glace don't match the hurt but they are deeply connected. They need people to welcome or eat with them. Just as sinners need Jesus to welcome them and eat with them. And it is the church's mission as the body of Christ to capture this, to preach this, and embody this incarnationally. Because the Father is rejoicing, and one thing I can relate with that, is that God wants us to rejoice with him.
Thank you to those who continue to rejoice with us, support us, and open up their hearts to my kid.
Thank you to those who do the same in the church for any lost sinner the Lord carries home.
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