'All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."
So he told them this parable: "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? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, `Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' 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.
"Or what woman 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? 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.' Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."'
I lose things. Like, a lot. I’ve lost my high school ring – which was miraculously found in another state six months later – my father’s college ring from the Citadel – which was never found, sadly – and a lot of other accessories, besides just rings, whose stories could fill up the rest of this sermon time. While I was serving at a church in South Carolina I lost my sunglasses, and our wonderful parish administrator, who was a devout Roman Catholic taught me a short, simple prayer to Saint Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of lost items:
Something is lost and cannot be found.
I never found that particular pair of sunglasses, but if and when you do find the thing you’ve lost, you’re supposed to show your gratitude by praying:
Maybe you called on Saint Anthony when you were little, or maybe you did last week. Assuming you did find the thing you were looking for, do you remember how overjoyed you were to find it?
Saint Anthony of Padua, patron saint of lost items.
The entire 15th chapter of the Gospel of Luke is made up of three parables about lost things – lost sheep, lost coin, and lost child, which is the parable of the prodigal son that we don’t hear this week because we actually heard it way back on the Fourth Sunday in Lent. Each of these parables follows the same pattern: a sheep is lost from the fold, and the shepherd goes to find it and rejoices when it is returned; a woman turns her house upside down to find a coin that is equivalent to a whole day’s wages, and when she finds it she throws a party to celebrate; and of course, in the parable of the prodigal, a son squanders his inheritance and comes home in shame, only to have his father meet him and have a great celebration with wine and beef and fancy robes. Something is lost, someone searches for the something, and joy abounds when the something is found.
Jesus’ use of parables was common among rabbis of his day, as most of us know. They were meant to teach an important lesson about God and about ourselves, and they invited the hearer to identify who is whom in the story. It’s not too hard to figure out, then, that in these parables God is pretty clearly the shepherd searching for the sheep and the woman searching for the coin. The sheep and the coin, therefore, are you. They’re me. They’re every person whom God loves. To some that might sound a bit like low-hanging fruit, but it’s true, and it’s important to remember. Our shame often gets in the way and whispers to us in the voice of the Enemy “Maybe everyone else, but not you. Not after what you’ve done, the life you’ve led, and the decisions you’ve made. God couldn’t possibly love you that much, to seek you out, to throw you a party. Anybody but you.” I’ve been guilty of hearing that voice. Maybe you have, too. So it matters, it really matters, that we can hear Jesus tell us today, through these stories, that yes indeed, God loves you and is searching for you, like a shepherd searching for a lost sheep, like a woman searching for that lost coin, and when God finds you, God’s enthusiasm abounds so much that there is a party in heaven, just for you!
Wow! That is some good news, indeed, ain’t it? Yet even when they hear this kind of good news, the religious authorities and elites still grumble. Grumblers gonna grumble, I guess, no matter what good news they hear. The parables, then, are a plea to them to remember that rejoicing is the proper response to God’s abundant love, not grumbling.
This brings up an interesting point about these parables and this exchange between Jesus and the authorities. The chapter starts by pointing out that the tax collectors and other notorious sinners have come to Jesus, and rather than turning them away, he has welcomed them and shared table fellowship with them. They seem to get it. The sinners understand Jesus and the parables, they get that they have been lost and are now found and their hearts have been strangely warmed in such a way that they can accept God’s grace and Jesus’ love. But the authorities? They don’t see that they are also lost. All they can do is grumble about this unorthodox – we’ve never done that before – behavior from Jesus, and so they grumble. These so-called righteous folks are blinded by what they think they’re supposed to do, how they have been taught to believe and act. Now they’re spiritually lost, and even when Jesus is standing in front of them, they still think they’re the shepherd and the woman in the stories, not the sheep and the coin.
That’s how we get lost, when we start believing that we’ve got it figured out, that we are the righteous ones. This is when the Gospel ceases to be enough for us, when the grace of God and love of Jesus are just ideas that are nice but not really significant to our lives; we need more. I’d propose, to paraphrase David Lose, the Sr. Pastor of Mt. Olivet Lutheran Church in Minneapolis: “might the parents who want their children to succeed so much that they wrap their whole lives around sports games and recitals be lost; might the career-minded individual who has made moving up the ladder the only priority be lost; might folks who work jobs they hate just to give their families things be lost; might the earnest Christian who is constantly grumbling about the affairs of their neighbor be lost?"
To truly be lost is to act as if the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the grace and love of God aren’t enough; that we need to make some sort of meaningful contribution to society that others can validate, otherwise we don’t really matter. To be lost is to forget that we are children of a God who passionately searches for us, who is active in history and in the world today, who never gives up on us, even if we give up on ourselves, each other, and God. You are loved, my sisters and brothers, so very much! You are of more value than a sheep or coin or any other object. And God is seeking you out, to love you and remind you of that love everyday, but it is only when we can admit to our own lostness that we can truly be found. It is in acknowledging, not so much to God or others, but to ourselves, that we don’t have it all figured out, that we are frail and vulnerable and in need of love, that we can let God in to welcome us back to the place we’ve always been, where God celebrates the precious possession that is us.
