Luke 15:1 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
3 So he told them this parable: 4 “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? 5 When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to then, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ 7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
8 Or what woman having ten silver coins (drachmas, each worth about a day’s wage for a laborer), if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 9 When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ 10 Just so, I tell you, there is more joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Stories of the “lost and found.”
Luke’s 15 th chapter is reserved for three stories of the “lost and found,” the first two of which are told today. The third, and more famous, known to some as the story of the “Prodigal Son” or “Waiting Father”, or perhaps better than either, the story of the “Bitter Brother”, is reserved for the season of Lent. But all three stories are addressed to the same issue: the grumbling of the Pharisees and scribes over Jesus behavior toward those who are considered unfit for the Messiah’s reign. We know these stories, and we relate to them, by and large, as stories about how God treats us when we are lost, seeks for us, finds us, and rejoices over us. And just so.
Jesus starts with a story of a lost sheep, something that would have been a very common thing, I’m sure, in his day. Today not everyone can relate to sheep. For most of us, the closest we have come to knowing what sheep are like might be a movie like “Babe” which, though its point might be closer than one could imagine to Jesus stories in today’s Gospel, still doesn’t come close to the reality of sheep. A relative of mine in Minnesota had a farm when I was growing up on which he raised, among other things, sheep. When we visited, I always wanted to go out to see the sheep because they were such a novelty to me. I learned a lot listening to my older wiser relative talk about his flock. While they were not in danger by predators much anymore, they were very much a danger to themselves. He controlled them by means of electric fences, for they were prone to put their heads down to graze on the grass and not look up until they had wandered away from shelter, water, and shepherd. He moved them from field to field because they were likely to eat the grass root and all, and thus their food would be gone. Sheep were skittish, and single minded, though perhaps not stupid. Their single-mindedness would leave them vulnerable, however, and they required watching, for their own good. A lost lamb would not only have been common, but also would have brought to mind that lambs get lost for a reason.
What is uncommon in the story is a shepherd who goes looking for the lamb. Jesus asks which one of them would not look for the sheep, and leave the rest in the wilderness. I’m not sure how they would answer that question, although Jesus certainly assumes they would do it! The reality is that it is foolish to do so. Unless there are more shepherds, then for this shepherd to leave the flock unattended to search for a sheep who has been lost before and will likely get lost again is folly. Not only is the finding of the lost sheep in doubt, but the safety of the others is jeopardized. Who would do such a thing? Only God would, comes the soft but insistent answer.
Next is the story of the lost coin. A drachma, or the payment for a day’s work is a lot of money for any common person in Jesus time. It is enough money to provoke intense arguments (See the story of the workers in the vineyard in Matthew 20). It is also enough to search for. But here is the thing, unlike the sheep, the coin does not wilfully misplace itself. It is inert, does not act. But the woman, herself a stand-in for Jesus, does act, turning her house upside-down in her search. Now the grumblers in the crowd might agree to the search. They might even agree that finding a lost coin is an occasion for joy. But they might not agree that the coin represents those who live contrary to their expectations.
These stories are followed by the story of the Prodigal Brothers and loving patient Father. Here again, the main character dishonors his father and leaves, wastes his portion of the family’s fortune, decides to come back, not as a member of the family, but as a slave. The father welcomes the son and celebrates his return, much to the shame of the older brother. Everyone relates to one or another of these characters. Now the younger brothers actions are clearly reprehensible, and older brother is clearly justifiably upset, and the father is extravagantly accepting and forgiving. Just when we think we know what point Jesus is trying to make, the point shifts and we are left wondering, what it all means.
Grumbling Revisited
In today’s contentious religious and political climate, there seems to have been a slow rise to an unhealthy loud volume on the grumbling meter of late. By grumbling, I mean words of the same sort as the Pharisees were speaking to Jesus. Those people are “sinners” by our definition, and are outside of God’s love. Surely you know that, Jesus? It seems to me inevitable that I will find some reason to find myself acceptable to God when others are not. It should not surprise me that others do the same thing.
What is surprising is that even when we read such things we are hardly aware that we are joining the Pharisees in their resentment. We are not only convinced that we are right in our thoughts, but we are getting louder in our articulation. Some preachers who use Television media as their soapbox, are getting bolder with the message that the disapproval of their condemnation by the sinners themselves is a sign that they are truly God’s prophets. They are not “pleasing sinful men” they say, and so are genuine. I wonder if it has occurred to them that they ARE pleasing the masses who would be Pharisees with them, masses who send them lots of money for saying what they want to hear. I am certainly aware of the danger of making my congregation angry in my sermons, lest they withdraw financial support from me. I wonder if Jesus would think of them and me as lost or found? In fact, I wonder what Jesus would say to our grumbling at all? Would he tell the same parables? If so, what would we hear?
Whether we are grumbling about the apparent lack of a moral center in society today or whether we grumble about the intolerance of others, I think we all represent an abandonment of the basic kingdom message that Jesus is proclaiming in this set of stories. As such, we all must be offended by Jesus words in order to hear them properly. We must hear them calling into question the rhetoric that proposes that any of us have arrived sufficiently to make a morally superior claim against another at all. We all stand under Judgement, capital J intended.
God’s Unbounded Grace
The good news in these stories for all of us is that God’s grace does not know the boundaries of our fear or our prejudice. Each one of the stories makes that clear in its own way. Whether we are lost through our folly (like the sheep) or inertia (like the coin) or wilfulness (like either brother) God searches for us and reorients us. It is a reckless, frantic, patient and understanding God who is portrayed in these stories, precisely to prevent us from figuring God out and trying to place ourselves as found while others are clearly still lost. God’s ways are unknowable, except in relentless grace.
What is clear from each of the stories is that the sheep, the coin, and brothers are all in positions that they cannot get themselves out of. Without intervention on the part of the shepherd, the woman, the father, all are lost, permanently. It should not surprise us that God acts this way. Was God, not, after all, acting to reach a lost humanity in Jesus? Did Jesus not seek out the lost in his day? Are we not still all lost without God? (Perhaps some, like me, still tend to get lost even with God!) Jesus point may be to try to help us see the radical nature of God’s project to leave no one behind. If God is indeed a God of amazing grace, and I for one trust that above all else, then there can indeed be no one beyond the reach of that grace.
It is for that reason that I hope that this chapter of Luke can become the new interpretive center of the Church’s current debate on who is in and who is out in many arenas, not the least of which are the debates on human sexuality that are going on in my own denomination, the ELCA, and in many other denominations both in the USA and around the world. Whatever else this chapter suggests, it clearly points us beyond the petty bickering and grumbling to a God who seems to be making an end run around our questions of morality in favor of the greater inclusive love that encompasses all, no matter what our circumstances. It will be noted that before the prodigal can repent, the father has already welcomed him; that before the older brother finishes his tirade, the father has stopped him and declared his love for him. It seems to matter little that we are either lost or found. It matters greatly that God goes to great lengths to draw near to us, no matter where we may be, and turn us again toward him.
Rev. Dr. Luke Bouman, Pastor,
Tree of Life Lutheran Church, Conroe, Texas
lbouman@treeoflifelutheran.org