The Very Idea

Luke 15:1-10        Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 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.”

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When I was a college student at the University of lllinois, Halloween was celebrated in extravagant fashion.  The streets of campustown were shut down to traffic so students in costume could freely roam, going in and out of bars, having a great time.  Group costumes were a popular thing.  My roommate and some of her friends stuffed their pillows under colored ponchos and clustered together as Fruit of the Loom.  Another group of students wore giant student ID cards like sandwich boards.  One of them wandered away from the group and suddenly they all started shouting frantically, “We lost our ID!”  Which was funny, because losing your ID was a common problem for students, and a serious one too.  Without your ID you can do nothing.  I guess that is even more true today.

I don’t lose things that often, fortunately.  Although, as I have told you before, I did lose Joe a couple of times when he was young, so I know how frantic you feel when you realize someone is missing.  Fortunately, he was found very quickly – both times. 

I read a book years ago called The Deep End of the Ocean, about a woman who lost her young son in a crowded hotel lobby.  In the years to follow she never for a moment forgot that he was missing.  Every waking moment was consumed by the anxiety of not knowing where he was or how he was.

If Jesus is really talking about missing people in this pair of little parables, then I certainly understand the gravity of it.  We never forget a loved one who is lost to us.  Whether it is a soldier who goes missing in action, a teenager who runs away, or one of the many whose remains were lost when the twin towers fell.  We do not forget them.

No price can be placed on a human life; no statute of limitations can be applied to the effort to bring justice or reconciliation.  So if this is what he’s talking about, the search for a lost child of God, I get the seriousness of it.  At the same time, though, I have a problem with these two parables.  Let me tell you why.

The nature of a parable is to pull the listener in to the story.  It’s a powerful teaching tool because it doesn’t just tell you something – it allows you to experience something.  Draw the listeners in with some familiar scenario, something they know.

This is why Jesus’ parables so often used tales of farmers or shepherds – these were the things his listeners knew best.  So this is what he gave them, and they would think, “Ah, yes!  Sheep.  Vineyards.  Planting and harvesting.”  They can see it, feel it, smell it, hear it.  They know it so well they can even anticipate what will happen next.  Give them some content that they can really engage with, something they are sure to have an opinion about, and then throw a curve.  Give them a surprise, something new to chew on – this is how the parable works as a teaching tool.

So in this pair of stories, Jesus uses the old “which one of you” technique.  Who among you would not do this?  The subtext is this: you all are responsible, intelligent men and women.  Which one of you would not do such a simple and obvious thing as this?  And if you would do this, then how much more would your Father in heaven do? 

He uses this approach in other places, too, such as the “who among you would give your child a stone if he asked for bread?  If you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven do for you.”  It’s logical.  It makes sense.  It gets the message across.

But imagine how it might work in this case.  Speaking to people who understand shepherding even if they are not shepherds, Jesus proposes to them, “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the 99 and go in search of the one that has gone missing?” 

The bait here is the phrase “which one of you.”  It says of course, it goes without saying, that you would do this thing, that this is the right thing.  “Which one of you would not” – well certainly not me!  But then you hear this: “which one of you would not leave the 99 and go in search of the one.”  Who, indeed, would do that?

What will happen when you leave that 99?  You put them at risk.  You abandon them to the wolves.  Who, indeed, would do that?  The very idea!

Sheep are, of course, a commodity.  As with any commodity, there is a certain amount of loss that is expected; it’s a part of doing business.  In retail, they have the concept of shrinkage.  In a bookstore, for example, some books just walk off the shelves, never to be seen again.  In any kind of business, you accept a certain amount of loss. 

So, there you are, listening to Jesus’ story.  You’re nodding along as he speaks.  Then suddenly you stop nodding, and you’re thinking.  Would I do that?  Should I do that?  You see, the “which one of you” approach is not working as it should.

Then he begins the second story.  What woman having ten coins and losing one does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?  Yes, we nod our heads, I might do that.  Although – I won’t search forever.  There are other tasks to get done.  There is a point of diminishing returns.  But I’ll go along with the premise. 

Then when you find the lost coin you are overjoyed!  Yes, that would be true, especially if I searched long and hard for it.  But then this:  You call all your neighbors and say come and celebrate with me!  Let’s have a party and celebrate the return of my lost coin! 

Right there is where he lost me.  I am not going to call together my friends and neighbors and ask them to rejoice with me because I found a lost coin.  It just doesn’t make sense.  The very idea!

After hearing these two stories, Jesus has left me feeling a little off balance.  There is now a tension between what I have always known to be the right thing and what I hear Jesus suggesting to be the right thing.  I am feeling less sure of my convictions now – and that might be okay.  But I am also left with the uneasy feeling that I am perhaps unable to be the person Jesus seems to expect me to be.

You see, I am eventually going to give up on that lost coin.  I won’t search forever, because my time is finite and, therefore, precious.  And at some point I am going to surrender, even perhaps hope that somebody will find that coin, someone who needs it, someone who might possibly rejoice even more than I would have at finding it. 

And, you know, the sheep? I am not a shepherd, but I am a mother, a wife, a friend, and a pastor. I have tried to be that shepherd who goes after the one sheep who wandered away.  I have tried.  I have tried to be the savior who flies out over the landscape and seeks the lost and swoops them up, carrying them back to safety.  I have tried launching rescues boats, standing at the helm, back turned to the remaining 99, left to feel abandoned, hurt, unloved and neglected. 

I have been the one who believes against all the evidence that she can make that one wandering sheep change against her will; that the sheer force of my will, my love, my good intentions, can override the wandering sheep’s will.

I have tried to be the shepherd.  But I am not that Shepherd.  There is only one Good Shepherd. 

In reality, I have more in common with the lost sheep than the good shepherd.  Or at times, perhaps, one of the 99 safely in the herd.  And the lesson in this parable is that the lost sheep cannot be saved by the likes of us, poor sheep that we are.  This work can only be done by the Good Shepherd – no one else. 

We know what is right and what is good, and perhaps we know what our limitations are.  Because of Jesus’ parables, we know even better that we are fully in need of the mercy and grace of the Good Shepherd.  And perhaps this is the message of these parables: not that we are good and God is better, but that God alone is good.

The power of finding and saving the lost is not ours.  But consider this: How do we welcome them when they are in our midst?  In the background of these two parables is the criticism that Jesus is welcoming sinners to the table, those who are somehow less worthy.  His answer to his critics is contained in the stories we heard. 

And now, hear this.  Which one of us, sinners that we are, would not open the door, open our arms, and extend the invitation, “Come in, sinner.  The table is set and there is a place for you.”