Lost and Found
Luke 15: 1-10
3/31/19
As we wade deeper into the season of Lent,
A season set apart for reflection and repentance,
The lectionary puts before us the story of the Prodigal Son –
Which we will save, annually, for parent’s weekend,
For obvious reasons.
And instead ponder those two little parables
About lost sheep and coins,
That pave the prodigal’s way.
I don’t know a lot about shepherding,
I’ll admit.
but it seems to me a poor shepherding choice to abandon 99 sheep,
for the sake of one who was lost.
That’s just bad math.
“Which one of you?”
Jesus’ asked, “wouldn’t do the same?”
None. No one.
Who does that?
His audience probably thought.
I think these parables are meant to make us laugh a little bit.
To ponder to the absurd,
To poke funny at the stodgy Pharisees and scribes.
The lay and professional religious leaders of his day.
as we ponder the ridiculous possibility,
of an all-forgiving God,
an actual all-loving, all-forgiving God.
This pair of parables is but a prelude,
to perhaps Jesus’ most famous –
the story of the Prodigal Son,
Charles Dickens called it the “best short story ever told.”
And so naturally, most weeks,
We skim over the sheep
And the coins.
In favor of those insufferable sons,
With whom it’s a bit more palatable to identify.
And the three stories together
Are framed, importantly,
By grumbling.
Sinners and tax-collectors keep coming to Jesus,
and the Pharisees and Scribes
are grumbling,
“He associates with the wrong people.”
And to be totally fair,
they are totally right.
On the one hand, the tax collectors,
are wealthy traitors.
Those who have taken up with the evil Roman Empire,
and make money because of it.
They are outcast,
because they have chosen power and wealth,
over community and family.
And “sinners” would refer to those living, known,
in a state of wrong.
This isn’t sort of “we’re all sinners”
type of language.
These are adulterers,
and people working unclean jobs,
prostitutes,
and people who were known as the wrong sorts.
Living in public sin.
And the act of eating together,
wasn’t a question of sitting adjacently,
as one stops into the Terrace Room for 15 minutes between classes,
spending the entire time looking at one’s phone.
Eating was a long, intimate act.
An act of acceptance,
and familiarity, and closeness.
And the Pharisees and the Scribes,
who are the right people.
The people who go to worship,
and have clean fingernails,
and shirts buttoned properly.
They led the bible studies,
and served on the PTA,
and were concerned with righteousness,
and order.
And they couldn’t help but grumble,
that Jesus was hanging about,
with these other sorts,
and daring to speak about the Reign of God.
And so he put before them some parables,
about stuff, and people who were lost.
And Luke cleverly,
leaves the phrase,
“So he told them a parable”
ambiguous.
Leaving us to assume it was,
perhaps, addressed to the Pharisees,
and the Tax Collectors and the sinners,
And perhaps even to us.
Then begins this simple triad of parables.
“Which one of you, 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?”
And we might think to ourselves,
I guess I might do that.”
100 is sort of a lot of sheep,
to notice 1 missing.
And 99 is surely a lot of sheep to leave unattended.
But I suppose,
if I noticed,
and felt really strongly about that sheep,
I suppose I might go find it.
And place it on my shoulders,
and bring it back…
And then do some rejoicing
with all my friends.
And neighbors.
“Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.”
“And what woman, having 10 coins…”
And at this point,
we’re likely a little skeptical.
Thinking,
sure, I’d get all my lights on.
And sweep and clean until I found my lost coin.
But I’m reasonably certain I wouldn’t throw a party afterward.
That’s…odd.
‘Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.’
And since we have our skeptical faces on already,
we probably can’t help but notice,
that these little stories aren’t really about things that sin.
They’re about things that are lost.
And they’re definitely not about things that repent.
They’re about things that are found.
I don’t know if you’ve ever met any sheep in your life.
But they are really, profoundly stupid animals.
clinging to the herd for life.
Not critical thinkers,
or actors.
And even if we suspend our disbelief,
the account before us belies any sense of repentance, right?
In Matthew’s version of this parable,
there is a faint sense that the sheep was led astray.
And the Gospel of John paints, occasionally,
an image of a sheep hearing the voice of the Good Shepherd,
and entering the gate.
But this sheep in Luke,
even when her shepherd appears,
must be lifted on the shoulders of the shepherd,
and carried to safety.
Which, I’m led to believe,
is a violent and unpleasant act,
Meaning this sheep was either hurt, sick,
or especially stupid
even by sheep standards.
That beatific metal face up there,
Probably doesn’t do much justice,
To what this would have looked like.
To say nothing of coins,
which don’t even give the possibility of a hint of repentance,
right?
Sheep don’t really repent.
And neither do coins
(and – for what it’s worth –
neither, I think, does the prodigal son)
And yet still, they are found,
and there is rejoicing.
Now we should make no mistake here.
For all of Jesus’ radical sense of welcome for all sorts of strange sorts.
He does not mince words when it comes to certain expectations of behavior.
But,
as usual,
we (and the Pharisees with whom we should probably empathize most)
get the order wrong.
The point is not that we are lost sheep,
that need to return to the shepherd.
The point is that God is searching for us, already, always.
The point is that God is keeping track of each of us,
even amidst a large herd
(or tall stack of money, if you’d prefer being a coin to a sheep).
The point is, God is seeking us.
And ready to welcome us.
And a good measure of the good news of this story,
Is how remarkably these ordinary folks,
Can do God’s work.
Shepherds were not,
You might imagine,
The top of the social heap.
And this woman of limited means,
Clinging to her last 10 coins,
They are Christ,
And so might we be,
If we are willing to admit that we might be lost,
And that we might find ourselves in seeking and meeting others,
In their lostness.
The world is a hard and unjust place,
But ordinary folk,
Like you and me,
And shepherds and women of limited means,
We can be God’s hands and feet in the world.
And that’s a wonderful thing.
I suspect many of us grew up with the language,
“We’re all sinners.”
(Which, for the record, I think is true).
But this succession of parables
especially in light of the two audiences listening,
The grumblers and the avowed sinners,
points us to a different question,
Instead of “are we sinners in need of forgiveness?
We are pushed toward the question:
“Is it possible to live a righteous-seeming life,
and still be lost?”
And I think our unequivocal answer must be, ‘yes.’
And we often are.
We who seek after the right major,
and job, and lifestyle,
so hard as to lose sight of everything else.
We who get so caught up in our own drama,
as to leave no space for others.
We who try so hard to fit in,
as to compromise ourselves.
We who cling to our goodness, and power,
and righteousness, and privilege,
(even in the veil of the justified sinner)
We who think we have it figured out,
And post on Instagram as if it were so.
We are lost.
And a great symptom of our being lost,
may well be our unwillingness,
like the shepherd, and the woman,
and indeed like Jesus,
to seek and welcome others who are lost around us.
And so today, perhaps,
We can admit it.
And know that God is waiting.
And not only waiting, but seeking us.
And this seeking,
forgiving,
radically loving God,
is both our destination
and our orientation.
For it is clearly the message of Luke’s Gospel,
that none are so lost,
as those who think they are already right,
and are thus unwilling to welcome,
for God’s sake.
And finally,
in the end,
as we are found and forgiven,
again and again,
there is joy.
Not guilt.
Sheep don’t feel bad for being lost and found.
And coins feel, so far as I can tell,
Nothing.
The only feeling is the joy of the finder.
As in the joy of a parent,
When you pause in the grocery store aisle,
To look at the sugar content,
Of the various spaghetti sauces,
And for an instant lose yourself in the thought,
“why is there so much sugar in spaghetti sauce?”
And your toddler is gone.
Gleefully wandering the cereal aisle.
You panic, and then go searching,
And your mind wanders to manifold terrible possibilities,
For the 10 seconds it takes to find your child.
And in that moment,
Before the instinct to chastise,
Or the feelings of guilt and recklessness,
There is only joy.
Only relief.
God is ever the shepherd or woman or parent,
Seeking.
And not only seeking,
but ready to throw a big ol’ party.
Joy,
not guilt or shame,
is the watchword of being lost and found.
Joy,
In the midst of a hard and unjust
And sometimes cruel world,
Deep, authentic joy is at the center of it.
We are, often lost,
disoriented,
But we count and are counted.
And are never so lost –
In sin or apathy or self-righteousness,
Or anything else,
that we the good shepherd doesn’t come looking for us.
Ready to throw a little party,
when we’re found,
with all our friends and neighbors.