Prostitutes Before Pastors

Luke 15:1-10 The Parable of the Lost Sheep

1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? 5 And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders 6 and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

The Parable of the Lost Coin

8 “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ 10 In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

There once was a boy who had ten favorite Pokémon cards. Out of all of his many cards, these were the best. One day, that boy’s mother took away the boy’s ten favorite Pokémon cards because he was misbehaving. She told the boy he could have them back the next day.

However, when the boy awoke the next morning, his mother had already left for work, and the boy wanted to take his ten favorite Pokémon cards to school. And the boy’s father was never aware that the boy had lost his Pokémon cards.

The boy, his sister, father, and dog, all go out to the bus stop at 8:00 in the morning. Not 8:01; not 7:59. 8:00. At 8:00 the father informed the children it was time to go, and it was then that the boy realized he didn’t have his favorite Pokémon cards. The father sent text messages to the mother, who was not available, while the boy searched frantically through his bedroom. The father searched throughout the kitchen, looking under items left on the kitchen table, opening every backpack and handbag he could find. Finally, the father found the Pokémon cards, and the family rejoiced as they ran out to catch the bus.

Then the father realized he forgot to send note with the children to explain their absences from school the previous week. Sigh.

Not only are the parables from our scripture for this morning familiar to us, the entire concept is something with which we can probably relate. We lose things all the time in our house, sometimes not finding them for months, sometimes finding them by accident. (Hey, there’s that Christmas cookie I set down while I tied my shoe last December.) But today’s lesson isn’t just about losing something. If I lose a cookie, I know where to get another. Today’s lesson is about losing something special. This is about losing not just any Pokémon cards, but your favorite, your most valued, cards.

To understand the parables in today’s lesson we need to remember the context found in verse 1-2. “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’”

Recall that to eat with someone in the first century wasn’t just an issue of convenience. Jesus wasn’t just saying, “Hey, wanna grab a bite together over at the coffee shop?” No, this is more like the scene in a high school cafeteria. People ate with other people at their social status, people who were like them. To eat with the tax collectors and sinners was to say, “I accept you as one of us.”

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law draw attention to Jesus’s dinner guests in order to discredit him. Jesus sits with the tax collectors and sinners, not because they are on the same level as us, but because he is on the same level as them.

This is what prompts Jesus to tell the parables we find in Luke 15. Our worship leader read two of the three parables from this chapter because that is how the Lectionary divides up this text. If you aren’t familiar with the Revised Common Lectionary, it is an approach to reading and preaching from the Bible, which offers one passage from the Psalms, one Old Testament passage, a Gospel reading, and a reading from the Epistles each week. The Lectionary is a tool meant to help churches preach through the Bible in three years, and keep pastors from just preaching on their own favorite texts or getting on their soapbox each week.

So the Lectionary divides chapter 15, with the first two parables in today’s reading. Want to guess what next week’s Gospel reading is? Luke 16:1-13. The third parable is separated off and dedicated to a Sunday in Lent. Here’s my concern: we need to understand each of these parables together as a unit to get what’s going on here. Jesus told three parables in response to the Pharisees’ critique because each one explains the situation in a slightly different way. So we are going to look briefly at each of these parables, which I will call the Parables of the Lost Sheep, Lost Coin, and Lost Son, which we often refer to as the Parable of the Prodigal Son. I want to look at each of these parables, point out the shortcoming and advantage of each parable, and show how when we read them together, the shortcomings disappear.

The first parable Jesus tells involves a shepherd who is watching over 100 sheep, but one wanders off. What are you going to do? Jesus says there is only one thing to do! You go looking for the lost sheep, leaving the other 99 behind! Wait a second…

I heard my friend Taylor share a story recently. Taylor is also a pastor, and he was leading a youth group trip, which included a stop at a museum. Before I go any further, keep in mind that these were probably teenagers, not preschoolers. But still. If you’ve ever chaperoned a group of students, you know very well exactly how many children are in your group, and you count them frequently. But sure enough, one child had slipped away from the group, and Taylor didn’t realize it until it was too late. So he told the remaining children to stay put while he went back to find the lost student. And just when we found the lost student…the fire alarm went off. Everyone had to leave the museum, and Taylor and the formerly lost student were forced to search all over the parking lot until the found the others.

Taylor said that first thing that went through his mind was the Parable of the Lost Sheep. And he thought to himself, “That was terrible advice, Jesus!”

There is a God figure in each of these parables. In the parable of the lost sheep, that character is the shepherd. The problem with this parable is that God appears to leave those of us who are a part of the church, a part of his kingdom, to go and search for those who have wandered off. Keep that in mind, and we will circle back to it shortly.

The second parable has a similar theme, but different actors. Actually, there is just one actor, that is a woman. This is kind of surprising for the first century. Jesus was using a woman as the main character, especially when I ask the question again, who is representing God in this passage? A woman. Recall that both men and women are created in the image of God, and it appears that Jesus is a bit of a feminist.

The parable includes these lines from verse 8: “Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?”

The shepherd lost 1% of his sheep; the woman loses 10% of all the money she has to live off. The Greek tells us that the coin was a drachma, the equivalent of one day’s earning for a laboring person. The woman knows that the coin is in her house, so moves the carpets and rugs, picks up the mail that’s been sitting on the kitchen table for a week. Finally, she checks the couch cushions, and finds the coin. It was in the last place she looked, because, why would you keep looking if you already found it? J

The concern I have with this parable comes down to the cause. The coin didn’t wander off on its own like a sheep can. Coins don’t have free will. So who is at fault for the coin being lost? No one but the woman. And when to connect that person to God, is Jesus saying the reason these people are lost are because of some mistake, or even worse, by God’s choice? Hold on to the concern, and we will circle back.

Third and final parable, third and final concern. The Parable of the Prodigal Son is one that we probably all know well. A father has two sons, and the younger son goes to the father and asks for his inheritance, even though the father is still alive and well. That’s disrespectful, but for some reason, the father does as his son requests. The younger son would have been entitled to 1/3 of the father’s total estate, according to tradition. The son takes his new-found fortune, and blows it all. Luke suggests that he didn’t necessarily spend it on bubble gum and Pokémon cards, but on things that are not approved of by many in the church. The boy eventually has to get a job feeding pigs, an animal considered unclean by the Jews. All this time, the father and the older son are working back home on what remains of the father’s farm.

My problem with the Parable of the Prodigal Son is that the God figure, the father, does nothing to bring the son back. Sure, he wants the younger son to return, but he seems too preoccupied with his work to do anything.

Naming my concerns again, the shepherd leaves the 99 behind, unattended. Don’t they have need for a shepherd? The coin has no free will; it is the woman who is to blame. And the father seems to just go about his unrelated work while the son wanders off and struggles to put food on the table. And let’s add one more: the coin and the sheep never repent or show remorse for what they’ve done, or what they put their owners through.

But those concerns disappear when you read the parables together. Yes, God searches for the lost sheep, but because God is not limited by space or location, God can be with both the lost and the found, as he is in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Maybe a coin doesn’t have free will to choose to wander off, but sheep and children do. We choose to stray. And while the father in the story of the Prodigal Son seems to be happily attending to his farm while his son is dying of hunger, we also need to balance that with an image of both the shepherd and the woman who are searching high and low for that which is lost. And no, the coin and the sheep never repent, but the son returns with an apology on his lips.

Any metaphor or parable will break down. We are trying to understand the infinite with our limited minds and language. This is why I think Jesus tells, not one, but three parables in a row. Our God is one who searches for us, like a shepherd who has lost his sheep, or a woman who has lost her coin. Our God gives us the free will to choose to follow him or not. And our God is ever present, with those of us in the church, and those who have chosen to wander.

But of course, that was never the point of Jesus telling these parables in the first place. There is a common conclusion at the end of each story: a party. The shepherd and the woman call their friends and neighbors together and say, “Rejoice with me, I have found my lost sheep; I have found my lost coin.” The father takes it even further. The son who was lost, is now found; he is treated like royalty. And how do you celebrate the return of a king? You have a barbeque.

Jesus tells these parables when he is criticized for eating with the tax collectors and the sinners. Jesus is celebrating that what once was lost is now found, and he seems pretty disappointed that others aren’t willing to join in the celebration.

Okay, let’s get practical here. I think the language of “lost” and “found” can be challenging. We in the church way too often make this into binary and mutually exclusive terms. Some churches focus on a single prayer; if you pray in such a way, you are found. Or to use different language, pray this prayer, and you will be saved.

When considering the entire text of the New Testament, I don’t think this is about saying a prayer. I think being found is about radically orienting your life to the way of Jesus. Being found is to join the community of believers as a disciple of Jesus. In the text just before these parables, Jesus speaks about the cost of discipleship. To be found is to be a disciple of Jesus. It is to be on a journey of learning to live as Jesus lived and as he taught. To be found is to practice things like forgiveness and grace. To be found is to love your enemies, and do good to those who hate you. To be found is to give radically to those in need, whether they be from this country or another. To be found is to lay down your life for someone else. To be found is to spend time with society’s outcasts and rejects.

That is why Jesus can imply to these Pharisees that even though they have kept the Law and followed all of the rules, they are lost. They are like the older brother who won’t join the party thrown in honor of the younger brother’s return.

I think within each of us there is a little bit of lost, and a little bit of found. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you are under his grace, and that is something to be celebrated. But every time we turn up our noses and try to decide who else is in and who is out based on our own criteria, we are showing just how lost we are.

I’ve not experienced this in our congregation, but how many times are people not welcomed into a group because they don’t have the right clothes, drive the right car, or didn’t go to the right school? How many times has the church rejected people who are eagerly seeking Jesus because of something in their past?

It isn’t easy for us to be in community with people who are vastly different from us. But we are all invited to the same party. Even I, as a pastor, have to remember Jesus’s words from Matthew 21:31. The clergy in the temple are asking Jesus a bunch of questions, trying to stump him like the Pharisees in our story from today. And Jesus concludes by telling these clergymen, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.”

Prostitutes before pastors. Truly, this is not what it expected. But that’s the way it is with God’s love. Throughout scripture, God regularly does the unlikely in the name of love. God does the unlikely because in the end, everyone counts. In the end, everyone is loved. And like we see in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, in the end, Dad just wants everyone at the table.

So when someone returns who we don’t think belongs, remember that we are here to celebrate. For what was once lost, is now found.