"Where the Lost Boys Go"
Mark 5:1-20
I was helping someone get some food from our small food pantry this past week.
We got to talking and I encouraged her to come to church.
She replied, "I really should go. Maybe I'll come some day."
I asked her: "What stops you from coming?"
She answered: "The devil."
According to a Pew Research Study released last month the Christian percentage of the population is dropping fast.
Almost every major branch of Christianity in the United States has lost a significant number of members, mainly because millennials are leaving the fold.
More than one-third of millennials now say they are unaffiliated with any faith.
The rate of their exodus surprises even seasoned experts.
Greg Smith, Pew's associate director of religion research and the lead researcher on the new study said, "We've known that the religiously unaffiliated has been growing for decades, but the pace at which they've continued to grow is really astounding."
The fastest growing group in America are the "Nones" the religiously unaffiliated.
About this group and one reason they are leaving the church, a young Christian writes in a blog: "Millinials support individual growth, tolerance and giving back, among many other positive values.
Are our churches supporting those same values (along with all the other stuff the culture at large can't provide)? That's certainly not the message millennials have been getting.
What they've been getting largely is intolerance and hypocrisy."
Whether that is true or not, the facts are that church attendance, especially among the young is in rapid decline.
And while all this is happening, our crime rates are shooting through the roof.
I don't want to over-simplify things, but I do think there is a connection.
For instance, when I was growing up in the 1980's there were no school shootings, guards in school nor metal detectors.
We weren't angels by any means, but the thought of bringing a weapon to school wasn't even on our radar screen.
Things weren't so extreme.
Young people didn't take things as far as they do now.
It wasn't a perfect world by any means, but it was different.
Most people I knew attended a church.
Saying this, some things have changed for the better, some things, not so much.
I've been around a lot of lost young people.
I used to be very lost myself.
And the more lost I became, the more judgmental the older folks seemed to become toward me--which only made me feel more lost, more broken, more of a freak.
And then, 20 years ago, after a short career in t-v news, I started and owned a Rock and Roll Tee Shirt Shop in a mall which became a kind of magnet for the lost kids living in that area.
And as an adult, it was in getting to know them, empathizing with them, and loving and caring about them--that God grabbed ahold of me--
--changed my direction and my life--
--it's why I finally went to seminary and into full-time ministry.
Lost kids aren't "bad kids."
They are just "lost."
It may be that they don't fit in well with the so-called "popular" kids in their peer group.
There might be mental issues involved, or shyness.
It could be that they lack good role models.
Whatever it is, when you get past the tough exterior, there is usually a very confused, lonely, fearful but wonderful human being inside.
That's kind of how I see the man who "lived among the tombs" from our Gospel Lesson for this morning.
Talk about a tough exterior.
We are told that "No one was ever strong enough to restrain him, even with a chain."
"And night and day in the tombs and the hills, he would howl and cut himself with stones."
And Jesus came to him and Jesus asked him: "What is your name?"
You know, more than anything else in all the world, people want to be recognized and treated with dignity and respect--even if they don't act as if they do at first--even if they put up all kinds of defense mechanisms.
More than anything else, people want to be loved...
...accepted...
...embraced...
...unconditionally.
When people are judged, that is when the defense mechanisms get even thicker and the loneliness and isolation becomes even more dark.
When people are marginalized, left out, hated, bullied and not accepted--that is when they strike out in violence and anger.
After all, bad attention is more desirable than no attention at all.
Look at the demon possessed man.
He got all kinds of attention from the townsfolk.
They tried to stop him with "leg irons and chains, but he broke the chains and smashed the leg irons."
People tried to control him, but "No one was tough enough to control him."
And to make sure everyone knew he was still around, he would howl night and day.
That is one hurt and broken person--calling out for "help" if I ever heard of one.
And so Jesus came to help.
Jesus saved the man by sending the demons, the unclean spirits which had infiltrated his life into a heard of pigs which then "rushed down the cliff into the lake and drowned."
And when the people came to see what had happened, they saw the man who used to be demon-possessed "sitting...fully dressed and completely sane..."
And the man who had been demon-possessed pleaded with Jesus to "let him come along as one of his disciples."
Under all that craziness, under all that lost-ness, under that howling and raving exterior was a beautiful human being.
And that human being was able to come out as a result of being loved, touched, accepted and healed by an encounter with Jesus.
And after that happened, he "in essence" wanted to join Jesus' church.
And, Jesus sent him out as a missionary.
"Go home to your own people,' Jesus said, 'and tell them what the Lord has done for you and how he has shown you mercy.'"
And so we are told that "The man went away and began to proclaim...all that Jesus had done for him, and everyone was amazed."
Why would Jesus tell Him to do that instead of asking him to jump in the boat with the rest of the disciples?
You see, Jesus and His disciples had taken a boat to the "other side of the lake" or today we might say "to the other side of the tracks."
They, being Jews, had gone into the territory of the non-Jews.
This just didn't happen back then.
The non-Jews and the Jews didn't get along with one another.
The Jews felt as if the non-Jews were not even worth the time of day.
In their mind, the Jews were "God's Chosen Race" and no one else really mattered.
Non-Jews were considered unclean, less than human...
...dead, basically; beyond redemption.
But Jesus took His disciples to the other side...
...Jesus came to save the lost, whether the lost be His own people or folks of other races.
This was unheard of until Jesus came along.
That's why the townsfolk "pleaded with Jesus to leave the region."
That's also a huge reason why Jesus instructed the formerly demon-possessed man to go and be a witness for God to his own people.
And you know what?
After Jesus left the area, that's exactly what the man did.
And when Jesus returned to the area some time later, there were 4,000 people gathered to hear Him!!!
Talk about a Great Awakening--a Great Harvest of souls.
And it all came about because Jesus came and loved someone who had never experienced unconditional love before.
Jesus came and loved and saved one of the most lost people who ever lived.
And so the demons fled, and the Holy Spirit took up residence--and the true man, the human this person had been created to be shone through!!!
We have an amazing ministry through this church.
We are reaching out to a community of young people who might otherwise never have a positive experience with Christians.
And through putting up the basketball hoops each day, we are reaching out to middle school-age kids who live on the margins of society and are in the precarious and dangerous position of following in the footsteps of the only role models they have.
You and I, we have been given the greatest gift imaginable.
We have been called by Jesus to tell these people and kids "what the Lord has done for" us, not only with words--especially through actions.
We have been called by Jesus to get to know them, to love on them--not to judge them...
...and to call them by name.
Their lives might just be changed forever through what you do for them.
Many of the kids I speak with who come to play basketball in our parking lot have never even been in a church.
On the night we had the neighborhood party in the parking lot a few weeks ago, a few kids told one of you that their dad "won't allow them to go to church."
It's as if they are being chained and shackled with leg irons.
What will become of them?
I became extremely lost as a young person, but I grew up going to church and knowing about Jesus Christ.
Even though I moved away from the church for a while, I still loved and respected it.
When I was saved, much of the way Jesus finally got through to me came from my upbringing in the church.
Again, what will happen to the lost youth of today who know nothing about the church, Jesus, and unconditional love?
Where will they turn when life becomes unbearably tough and difficult--which it will?
Where will their guidance come from?
How will they know about God unless someone shows God to them?
How will they know that the Church is a good and saving place unless they are loved and treated with unconditional, non-judgmental love and grace by us?
What if all they know of churches are "no trespassing signs, angry looks, no skateboarding signs, no this, no that?"
Why would they want to have anything to do with us--ever?
How can we reach them if we don't go to where they are right now?
And where the middle-school kids that come to our parking lot to play basketball is...
...where they are right now is...
...is that they want a place where they can play basketball.
That's it.
And when we love on them, and provide them with what they need and want--they see Christ and experience His love.
And when people see and experience Christ--the real Christ--people tend to like what they see--especially the really, really lost, lonely and vulnerable who only want some love and positive attention.
May we be Christ to a broken world.
Let's not allow another child to be lost forever--consumed by the demons...the only ones who will give them the attention they so crave.
Amen.
