Luke
15:1-10
It probably
doesn’t come as a surprise to you that I am no shepherd. And I don’t even know
anyone who is a shepherd. So call me crazy, but I’m still pretty sure that I
know the answer to the question that Jesus poses today. “Which one of you,” he
asks, “having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the
ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds
it?” My answer? No one. No one that is because who in their right mind would
put at risk 99 of something that they already have for the sake of one that
they may or may not recover? No one. In
that situation you just move on.
But that’s not
the only question for today. “What woman,” Jesus wonders, “having ten silver
coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and
search carefully until she finds it?” Now Jesus is talking about a world I
totally get given that I am a regular loser of inanimate objects - keys,
glasses, cell phones, remotes regularly go missing around my house. And when they
do the hunt begins. The more valuable the item is to me the more desperately I
will search for it. However, there comes a point where if the lost item is
seemingly nowhere to be found, no matter how precious, I give up. I stop
looking, cut my losses and move on.
Because that’s
the way the world works. But that is not the way that God works. Jesus isn’t
asking these questions today to poll us for our answers but to reveal to us the
wonder of how God works in the world. Even more than the shepherd who single
mindedly sets out to find the one sheep or the woman who thoroughly scours her
home for the valuable coin, God is absolutely committed to searching and
searching and searching until all who are lost are found. Found not in order to
be judged, punished, and condemn, but found so that they may be nourished,
healed, and restored.
That is what
makes the Gospel message such Good News for all of us. Because who among us
hasn’t known what it is to be lost - lost in the wilderness of worry, grief,
fear, anger, sickness, pain? We’ve all been there. And if that is where you
find yourself today, lost in one way or another, know that there is hope. God
is seeking you even now and will find you, guaranteed. And the same goes for
those whom we love and care about, the ones for whom we pray, who are
struggling, who are suffering, who are living in the dark. God will not fail
them. God will relentlessly pursue them with love all who are lost until they
are found.
But as comforting
as that message is I can’t help but notice that Jesus isn’t telling the story
of the lost sheep and coin primarily to the tax collectors and the sinners of
his day - those who would have clearly identified with being lost and have
taken great comfort in these parables. Rather Jesus is talking to the Pharisees
and the scribes, the religious insiders of his day, people like us. People who
have a beef with Jesus because he is welcoming to sinners and not only that,
but he’s eating with them, too. Meaning that he isn’t just being nice and polite
to the riffraff of society, maybe offering some kind of generous handout or
donation. No, he’s going further than that, much further. He’s hanging out with
these people like they’re friends. He’s connecting with them, even accepting
them. And that is just too much.
We get that,
don’t we? I mean, we love it when the Good News is about how much God loves us
and those whom we love. But when Jesus tells us that that same love and mercy
extends to people we don’t love. People we don’t approve of. People that may
even threaten or hurt us. Then the news of God pursuing and welcoming and even
rejoicing over people like that sounds rather offensive.
Likely that is
the reason that Jesus is talking to folks like us because it turns out that we,
along with the Pharisees and the scribes, who identify as being relatively good
people need to be challenged. Challenged because we - good people like us - have
a tendency to judge. I know I do. I don’t mean too. I know I shouldn’t but I
still catch my mind thinking things along the lines of, “Well, if she just did
it my way she’d be a lot better off,” or “Sure, he’s in that mess because he
made bad choices.” When we think that way, good people, it’s all too easy to
completely miss the fact that we are actually just as lost as everyone else and
in equal need of being found and repenting. Just like the one sinner that Jesus
speaks of who repents, sparking joy in the heavenly realm. But when I speak of
repenting, I don’t mean flaying ourselves with regret or guilt or shame. What I
mean is repenting in the original sense of the word. The Greek is metanoia
which means to change one’s mind, to turn in a new direction. For when God’s
love finds us we repent by turning towards that love, that grace, that mercy,
that forgiveness, letting it transform us so that we are no longer lost in the
wilderness or stuck in a false sense of righteousness. Instead we are restored
to wholeness.
For the truth is
that we are all sheep - lost and found. All coins - lost and found, too. All of
us beloved and belonging to God. The God of the lost who welcomes sinners and
even eats with them. The One who will never call off the search until we are
all fully found and able to join in the extravagant and abundant joy of heaven
rejoicing.
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