HOPE FOR ALL OF US: #2 Hope For The Abandoned

By Dr. Gilbert W. Stafford
Scripture: Luke 10:30-35

“OH, MY BEAUTIFUL, LITTLE BOY” 

Thomas Boyce is a pediatrician in San Francisco, California. He tells about a young boy who was deformed, retarded and terminally ill. Dr. Boyce describes him this way: “His eyes were clouded and protruded from his face as did his tongue, like the overstuffed contents of a pastry shell too small to contain it.” Boyce goes on to tell about his swollen gums which bled frequently. His massively enlarged heart was failing. He was always in the throes of drowning from the secretions which flooded his windpipe. His chest and belly had become a single, massive globe from which four largely useless limbs projected. He was, in Boyce’s words, “a small, grotesque tomato-of-a-boy whose appearance turned away even the most forgiving eyes.”

Not only was it hard to look at his physical condition; it was also difficult to handle his emotional outbursts. Whenever hospital personnel came in to provide basic care they were always met by a “raspy incoherent grunt and a flailing motion of his arm.” Nobody liked taking care of him. And so, while not legally and medically abandoned, he was nevertheless, very much abandoned emotionally by the hospital staff.

One evening, however, the doctor went to the room later than usual. The boy’s mother, who, because of her job, was never able to be there when he usually made his rounds, was sitting on the edge of the bed, deeply immersed in a conversation with her son. The doctor, never having seen the mother interacting with the boy, paused at the door and watched for awhile. As she stroked his forehead and hair, she told him about her day at work, and wondered out loud how things had gone with him that day. In the darkened room, Dr. Boyce could see tears in the boy’s eyes. For the first time he saw a calm patient gazing intently into his mother’s eyes, following her every movement. As she stroked his round, swollen face, she said, “Oh, my beautiful, little boy.”

“Suddenly,” Boyce writes, “I understood what I had not understood: When this mother gazed at her bloated, dying son, she physically saw a person I had never seen. Transformed by her eyes’ willingness to see the child beyond the disease...[the boy] had become a different being, an individual no longer diseased and distorted, but a frightened child visibly changed by his mother’s love.”1 


HOPE DAWNS WHEN? 

There are many kinds of abandonment. One, of course, is physical abandonment. But another is the kind of emotional abandonment this seven year old boy experience from the hospital staff. Most of us have experienced some form of emotional abandonment at one time or another. I am talking about when we feel deserted by those whom we thought would never forsake us, whether family, friends, or close associates.

Is there any hope when we feel abandoned? Yes, there is. Hope dawns when somebody discovers, or rediscovers, us, as the case may be, and cherishes us. Hope dawns for a physically abandoned child when someone discovers and cherishes her. Hope dawned for the grotesque boy in the hospital when his mother, night after night, rediscovered her precious child and cherished him. Hope dawns for you and me, regardless of the nature of our abandonment, whenever someone either discovers, or rediscovers us, and cherishes us. That, my friend, is precisely what Jesus Christ does. He is in business of discovering the abandoned people of the world and cherishing them.

JESUS, THE GOOD SAMARITAN

Luke 10:30-35 tells about an abandoned man: He “was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. [They abandoned him.] Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. [The priest abandoned him.] So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. [He, too, abandoned him.] But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’”2 You see, the good Samaritan did not abandon him. Instead, he discovered and cherished the abandoned man.

Jesus, the one who told this parable, is for us the good Samaritan. He comes along the road wherever we experience abandonment, discovering and cherishing us.

And, thank God, this eternally good Samaritan has many helpers.

WHY HAD BLISS TALLEY COME INTO THE ROOM? 

Let me tell you about one of them. Bliss Talley was a teacher and later the principal of my high school in Mount Carmel, Illinois. Mr. Talley was a Christian who was an active member in the local Free Methodist Church. Our family had just moved to town from Birmingham, Alabama. I was a junior in high school. Friendship groups were, of course, already well established by the time I got there. Not being naturally gregarious, I didn’t know how to break into such groups. As I went to school day after day, I felt totally abandoned.

I still vividly remember the day when I was sitting in study hall, and in walked Bliss Talley—tall, balding, protruding stomach, a little slouchy, but with a big heart and sensitive spirit. I thought that probably he was coming in to reprimand someone. I knew that he wasn’t coming for me because I never, absolutely never, transgressed the rules. But maybe he wasn’t coming to reprimand anyone. Even if he weren’t, I still knew that he wasn’t coming to see me because I felt that I wasn’t that important. I doubted that he even knew I existed. Like the Levite and the priest in the parable, I was sure that he had more important things to do than to talk with the likes of me. I expected him to pass by on the other side, so to speak.

But as these thoughts raced through my mind, he came closer and closer. I looked around to see who, sitting near me, was either so bad or, as the case might be, important enough, for Mr. Talley to seek them out. And then, it happened. He came to my desk. After stumbling through introductory conversation, he told me that he was the debate coach and that he believed that I would do well on the school’s varsity debate team. He wanted me to join them.

That day, new life was born in me. As a team, we went all over Southern Illinois, and beyond, debating. I made wonderful friends. We had lots of fun as we worked together, traveled and entered into debate competition. No longer did I feel emotionally and socially abandoned. Why? Because one of Jesus’ good Samaritan helpers had stopped along the road where I felt abandoned. The fact that Bliss Talley discovered and cherished me gave me hope which changed me.

JESUS IS THERE EVEN WHEN OTHERS ARE NOT

There have been other times in my life when, although I felt equally abandoned, there was no Bliss Talley around. I remember when within a matter of minutes important parts of my life were irrevocably changed. In those moments, I felt totally abandoned. For days and weeks I wandered about in a fog. There was a thud of emptiness in the pit of my soul. You know what I mean, don’t you? You may have experienced it when a spouse literally abandoned you. Or, when your parents emotionally abandoned you. Or, when you were abandoned by your closest associates just when you thought all was well. What do you do when no Bliss Talley seeks you out?

I’m glad to tell you that the good Samaritan himself, Jesus the Christ, is there, nevertheless. He is there to discover and cherish you. He tells you that you are his precious child. He is there to offer provision for you.

The wonderful thing about the risen Lord is that he is not limited to any one geographical location on the globe. He is everywhere. There is no place, no circumstance where he is absent. He is the good Samaritan who walks the roads of life wherever they are, seeking the abandoned. Others may disregard you, as the Levite and the priest disregarded the man alongside the road to Jericho. Others, having what they consider to be more important things to do, may be quite willing to leave you well enough alone.

But not Jesus, the eternally good Samaritan. He always discovers those who have been abandoned. You can count on him. He is there to pick you up from the side of the road, and with a heart of compassion, will bear you to a place of healing and restoration. He cherishes you. He has not given up on you and will go to any extent to see that you are restored to life.

Don’t run away from Jesus. He is the best friend you have. You may think about Jesus what I thought about Bliss Talley, that He couldn’t possibly be interested in you, but he is. He sees in you what no one else can see. Regardless of how marred you are; regardless of how repugnant you are to those who have abandoned you, in the eyes of Jesus you are God’s beautiful child. He looks beyond the outward circumstances and sees the inward heart cry.

Regardless of the nature of your abandonment, my friend, hope is on the way. His name is Jesus. When Jesus comes, it is always the dawning of hope.

PRAYER

Let us pray:

Gracious God, we know you to be the source of any hope which gives eternal blessing. Open our eyes that we may see Jesus kneeling over us, discovering and cherishing us. Heal our wounded spirits and restore us to our rightful minds. In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen.

1 W. Thomas Boyce, “Beyond the Clinical Gaze,” The Crisis of Care, ed. Susan S. Phillips and Patricia Benner (Washington: Georgetown University, 1994), p. 145 ƒ.
2 New Revised Standard version used here and throughout.

Script 2580 (GWS)
June 9, 1996
SERIES: HOPE FOR ALL OF US
2. Hope for the Abandoned
Scripture: Luke 10:30-35