Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten,
nor the hope of the poor be taken away.[1]

God knows the needy.
God knows the poor.
God knows their exact coordinates.

In the year 2000, a curious little phenomenon spread across the globe. It was called geocaching. Some of you may remember it, some of you may even have tried it. It depended on a new technological reality: this strange thing called the Internet, and something even more remarkable, the Global Positioning System, or GPS. The president at the time was Bill Clinton, and that year the government finally “turned on” what had been decades in the making. Since 1978, the Department of Defense had been launching satellites into orbit, dozens of them, so that one day, when the big blue button in the sky was pushed, they could work together and identify precise locations anywhere on Earth.

A computer specialist named Dave Ulmer had an idea. Now that GPS was active, he said, “I’m going to hide something of value, post its coordinates online, and see if anyone can find it.” He placed a small container in Beavercreek, Oregon, and posted the coordinates. People all over the world grabbed their devices and went hunting. There was one rule: If you took something from the cache, you had to leave something of greater value. Inside, people found a note with four letters written again and again: TFTC: “Thanks for the cache.” Not cash. Cache. A store of something valuable. [2]

At first, people thought geocaching was just a novelty. Surely it wouldn’t last. But today, we take GPS for granted. Our phones speak constantly to satellites orbiting overhead, connecting us, locating us, guiding us. Let’s play along. Imagine I give you coordinates, not to a thing, but to a person. These coordinates take you to a place that barely qualifies as a place at all. Not a city. Not a town. Not even a village. It’s an unincorporated area with a painfully honest name: Needy, Oregon. It was once called Hardscrabble. Its history is marked by conflict, bloodshed, and hardship. Today, it is one of the most impoverished places in the United States.

Zoom in a little closer, and you’ll find a woman named Rita. She has been homeless for three years. She has a seven-year-old son. She moves from place to place, hoping to find food. There is no work in Needy, Oregon. She is poor. She is needy. And in the quiet of her heart, she may wonder if she has been forgotten.
And then we hear the psalmist’s words again, words that echo in Epiphany, in Evening Prayer, and in the prayers of the Church:
“Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten,
nor the hope of the poor be taken away.”

Now here’s the irony. Since the year 2000, we no longer have just 18 GPS satellites, we have 32. And beyond that, more than 14,000 satellites orbiting our planet. Nearly 9,000 of them belong to one man: Elon Musk. They’re called Starlink. Star…link. A system meant to connect the world, yet people are still forgotten. Hope is still taken away. The poor are still poor. What is the true big blue button in the sky? The answer is not technological. It is theological. When Jesus came into the world, something came online that had never existed before. God entered creation, not from a distance, but from within. Epiphany reminds us of travelers, Magi, who followed coordinates given not by satellites, but by a star. Scripture tells us they did not arrive at a manger, but at a house. Where was that house? Bethlehem? Nazareth? Somewhere else? Maybe, just maybe, it was in a place like Needy.

God did not come to the comfortable. God came to bring comfort to the afflicted. The gift left behind was infinitely greater than the gold, frankincense, and myrrh the Magi carried.[3] Nothing is more valuable than the Christ child. Angels and archangels have always been orbiting this world of ours, but in Jesus, heaven and earth became fully connected. And what is the device we use to connect to God? It isn’t in our hands. It’s in our hearts.

Especially the hearts of the needy.
Especially the hearts of the poor.
Especially the hearts of those who feel forgotten.

When we see ourselves there, among the poor and the needy, we find that we are exactly where God’s coordinates lead. Then something else happens. We become satellites ourselves, bearers of God’s mercy, transmitters of hope, guides pointing others toward the Way, the Truth, and the Life made flesh in Jesus Christ. Some people feel disconnected. But you can give them coordinates. And when they find what God has placed there, when they encounter Christ, imagine the joy.

Because the promise remains:
The needy are not forgotten.
The hope of the poor is not taken away.
"TFTC", Thanks for the Christ.

[1] Psalm 9:18
[2] http://www.geocaching.com/about/history.aspx
[3] Matthew 2:1-12