Lost and Found

Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28
Psalm 14
1Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen

I don’t often do this, but I would like us to reconsider where we begin reading our gospel story today. I want us to begin with the last part of Luke 14:35, the verse that immediately precedes our gospel reading today: “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” This is a wonderful command of Jesus, and a favorite of several of my seminary professors. I imagine those of you who have been teachers have used a variation of this in class. When I was in high school, my teachers would say “this will be on the test” to mean the same thing. “Pay attention” is another variation, though my French teacher used to say “faite attention.”

What follows in the gospel is a reaction to that very command, “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming hear to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” Now, there is no way for us to know whether in first century Palestine these two events immediately followed one another or not. The way that the gospel is structured and the events are reported, we can’t know, a time frame is missing from these readings. But one thing is certain, the readers and listeners of this gospel were most certainly intended to connect these dots: “Jesus says ‘listen,’ sinners come, the temple leaders grumble.” Jesus then uses three parables to enlighten his listeners. The first is the parable of the missing sheep, followed by the parable of the lost coin, and finishing with the parable of the prodigal; which we read a couple of weeks before Easter.

There’s a problem inherent to preaching parables. It begins when parables literally dare preachers to create a sermon around them.[1] Preaching often takes familiar bible stories and tries to interpret them for the congregation by means of illustration and allegory. As you know, I often tell stories that tie, or at least try to tie, the Word of God into something meaningful for us, for this community of Christ, for this congregation. The problem with trying to do this with parables is that in a parable, Jesus is all ready making a point and using stories with more layers of illustration and allegory than a piece of baklava to make a point for his community, for his listeners. Frankly, trying to preach a parable is like trying to tell a story twice removed. It’s like trying to explain a joke. Trying to reinterpret a parable is often like trying to put a tuxedo on a pig. It ruins the tux and annoys the pig.

So today, rather than beginning by focusing on the parables, I want us to focus on what surrounds the parables. We have all ready begun with Jesus’ command to listen and the reaction of those around him. What follows next is amazing.

Jesus begins by telling anyone with ears to hear that there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. He ends this group of sayings by telling anyone with ears to hear that there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.

Joy; wonderful, glorious, bountiful joy! When there is repentance, joy follows in heaven and is experienced by the angels. This is what Jesus is trying to teach anyone with ears to hear, through repentance there is joy in heaven.

So trying to relate these parables to these conclusions are where they get a little weird. In the New Testament, the word repent means “change of mind”[2] or perhaps “change of heart.” In neither of these parables does the object of the parable, the sheep or the coin, change its mind or heart. A sheep doesn’t have the faculties to change its mind in a repenting way. For a coin, repenting is impossible unless silver has some special ability I’m not familiar with. So if heaven rejoices when repentance abounds, and the objects of these parables are not able to repent, then what’s the use of telling them?

Here is, in my opinion, the distinction. In parables, we listeners often try to put ourselves into the parable. I think this is a mistake in these two parables. Rather, let’s consider the subjects of the parables instead of their objects.

Hold on, I’m about to try to get a pig ready for prom.

We begin with the shepherd. In the ancient of days, the shepherds were often young boys who were trusted with tending the flocks. They often had to put their lives on the line to protect the sheep from predators. The hours were long and the times were difficult. And because the sheep were so valuable, one missing was important to the community. It is the shepherd who takes the risk of going to find the lost. It is the shepherd who takes the time to find the lost. It is the shepherd who walks through I don’t know what to find the lost. And I can just imagine, if a sheep is lost, missing the call of its mother, it is undoubtedly in a place it shouldn’t be.

The shepherd risks what we cannot imagine to find one sheep whose relative value is one percent of the flock. It’s just a little thing, and yet the shepherd risks his life and his flock to retrieve the one. And when he does there is great rejoicing.

The parable of the woman and the coin also has its share of cultural history that is lost on us. In the day, when a woman left her parent’s home to be married, she received a dowry of ten silver coins. Since a silver coin, the denarius, was the going wage for one day’s work at the time, it would take quite a while to save that much. A significant sacrifice is needed to save enough to provide this dowry. Also, it was the possession of the woman. The coins were usually given attached to a chain which was worn across the forehead as a sort of a headband. If she were ever put out of the home by her husband, she would have at least these ten coins to start a new life. It was a savings account. It was a form of financial security. But if one of the coins was missing, it was not good. Her financial security would be less and since it was worn as jewelry, everyone in the community would know the coin was missing. And why it was missing would be fodder for gossips for generations to come.

So she lights the lamp and turns her household inside out looking for the missing coin. And when she does find it, she calls her friends together and says, “Rejoice with me for I have found the coin that I had lost.”

Both of these stories feature as its subject a person who has found what was lost, and in finding the one and returning it to the group calls the community together to rejoice. As I said, often as listeners we try to plug ourselves into the parable to see who we are in the Word of God. In this case, in these parables, that’s not appropriate. These parables are not about who we are. These parables are about who God is.

God is the one who seeks the lost. God is the one who scours the countryside to find the one who has lost its way. God is the one who risks all to return the one to the fold. God is the one who goes where angels fear to tread to find the one who had gone astray. God is the one who lights the lamp. God is the one who scours the home. God is the one who sweeps the dust to find the one of great value and sacrifice.

God is the one who makes the sacrifice in the first place that we may be one of the hundred or one of the ten.

God is the one who celebrates with the angels in heaven. Amazingly, the shepherd and the woman invite neighbors over to celebrate the return of the one to the others. It is entirely possible that the celebration that follows will cost more than the value of the one that was lost. If the lamb or the coin are worth in our money say $100.00,[3] it would be very easy for us to spend far more than that having the neighbors over to celebrate. In our economy, this isn’t a very good return on investment. But in God’s economy, only in God’s economics of plenty and extravagance, this makes sense. The ruler of the universe is willing and able to finance such a celebration and does it rejoicing because what was once lost is now found. What is once lost is returned to the community God created for us in the first place.

There is no better way to explain these parables. This is why the only things I have done to “explain” these parables are to help us better understand first their historical context and that they are not about us. There is no way I can retell them that doesn’t lessen them. My words, my stories, my allusions can only detract from the wonderful and glorious word of God as God tells anyone with ears to hear who he is, and what he expects in return.

My only hope is that I didn’t ruin the tux too badly or annoy the pig too much.

Jesus preceded these parables with the instruction: “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!” Listening has a special meaning in the original language of scripture that the English language doesn’t. In scripture, in Hebrew and in Greek, the definitions of the words for “listen” include the special element of responding to the word, not just hearing it. The words of life are to do more than wash over us like the breeze on a spring day; they are to soak through us like a shower. The words or life are to become a part of us like water is vital for our survival.

It is these very words we need to seek. The word of God written in scripture tells those with eyes to see the story of who God is and what God has done in the world. It is up to us to continue to seek the living word of God in Jesus Christ. It is up to us to seek the word revealed to us through the work and word of the Holy Spirit who was sent to walk with us and reveal God to us still. He is the God who seeks us when we are in places we shouldn’t be; the God who seeks us where we are. He is the God who scours the house to find us. He is the God who rejoices when he does, and celebrates this with the heavenly host.

We are to use our prayer and worship tuned senses to experience who God is and what God continues to do. Through the word and work of God we are to change and continue to be changed by it; to be neither the sinners nor the hypocrites surrounding Jesus at the beginning of this passage. And it is up to us to take these experiences in the word and share them with a world that longs to hear them.

Jesus tells those with ears to hear who he is. Jesus tells us to use our voices to share the good news of his extravagant grace of God with a world that thirsts for the word. Our instruction is simple: come to the Lord our God, listen to the Word, be changed by the Good News, share his overflowing grace with the world, and rejoice—rejoice with the Lord and the entire heavenly host. Listen, share and rejoice.

[1] Duke, Paul Simpson, The Parables. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2005, page 97.
[2] Repentance in the NT, Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. 21st Printing, 1992, Buttrick, George A., Editor. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1962, electronic version 2002.
[3] I come up with this figure for the coin based on an income of $30,000 over 300 working days per year. This is a low-ball salary average divided by a first century work year. As for the price of a whole lamb, I have no idea.