A Lost Sheep and a Lost Coin

A Lost Sheep and a Lost Coin

September 11, 2022

Luke 15: 1 - 10

This morning we consider a lost sheep and a lost coin.  Here in the fifteenth chapter, Luke shares these two parables along with The Prodigal Son – the lost son.  But he doesn’t start out focusing on something that is lost; the opening two verses report that the scribes and pharisees were grumbling because tax collectors and sinners were coming to hear Jesus and, horror of horrors,   Jesus was welcoming them and even eating with them.

            Now that doesn’t sound so bad to us, but in first century Judaism that was an absolute “no-no.”  And I suspect that you, too, might complain if I brought too many “sinners” and “tax collectors” into our worship services and fellowship luncheons.

I think that we can all decide who the “sinners” are – male and female -- in our own society whom I might invite, so use your imagination to figure out who might be sitting next to you.  Thankfully we don’t have much sense of who the “tax collectors” are.  They are the people who “sold out” to the awful Roman occupation, forcing us to pay the taxes that pay for the foreign (enemy) troops and governmental processes that abuse us so badly and make us long for the hoped-for Messiah who will drive out those Roman troops and administrators so that we can get back to God’s kingdom.

That is, Jesus gathered the sinners, tax collectors, and riffraff; the scribes and pharisees were “grumbling” about it.  There was absolutely no separation of Church and State in that society, so when the religious and political leaders and authorities were “grumbling” about the nature of the crowds Jesus gathered, it was a big deal.  And Jesus even ate with them, treating them as equals, as if they were proper and upright Jewish citizens.  It was an absolute challenge to the way things were supposed to be.

Luke says at the beginning – in the first and second verses -- that that is the situation that caused Jesus to tell the parable of the lost sheep.  But as he tells the story he shifts the meaning to a real issue of the early Church in the last couple decades of the first century.  Some of the “saints,” the members of the little churches, were giving up waiting for Jesus’ long delayed return and drifting away from the gatherings of the faithful Christians.  So, Luke’s understanding of this parable – turned metaphor – is “7So, 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.”  Luke’s point is that Jesus searches for the lost to bring them back into full relationship with God -- through the ministry of the church.

In a collection of brief teachings, Matthew, too, treats this parable as a metaphor, giving it the same kind of interpretation, concluding, Mt18:14“And so it is the intention of your Father in heaven that not one of these little souls be lost.”  So it could be that the hypothetical Q Gospel carried this metaphorical meaning or that both Luke and Matthew read it this way because of the situation of the early church at the time that they were composing their gospels – about year 85 C.E. – 55 years after Jesus’ active ministry.

But Jesus typically taught through parables that did not have such clear-cut meanings.  His teachings gave general directions that needed to be internalized and then applied in each person’s life situation.  And this process is confirmed by looking at this same parable in the Gospel of Thomas.  Thomas reports the parable with a very different metaphoric meaning:  Thomas chapter 107 reads:

1The (Father’s) imperial rule [or kingdom of God] is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep.  2One of them, the largest, went astray.  He left the ninety-nine and looked for the one until he found it.  3After he had toiled, he said to the sheep.  I love you more than the ninety-nine.”

The same parable, but a very different usage or interpretation of it.  Another interpretation that does not sound like it goes back to Jesus.

            We have this parable that Jesus told, but we probably do not have the context in which he told it.  And like most of the parables, it is open to a variety of uses.  But as a parable it makes one point and the sheep and shepherd do not simply represent sinners and God as in a metaphoric understanding.

            Let’s include the lost coin – maybe or maybe not told as the same time.  The coin did not wander off like the sheep and, as it were, be responsible for its being lost; the woman dropped it or misplaced it.  In both cases a successful search was followed by a celebration.

            And typical of Jesus’ teachings, there is exaggeration to highlight the story line.  We are not shepherds, but the folks who heard this parable knew that a shepherd would not leave 99 sheep subject to packs of wolves or wild dogs; he might lose half his flock while he is away searching for that lost sheep.  So, this is not an action plan for the shepherds in the crowd.  It would carry a symbolic, not literal meaning.

[[Let’s have some conversation – help complete the sermon.]]

            What is it that these parables are really about?

            Let’s guess how Jesus might have used this parable.  (“The ______ ____________ is like a shepherd who had 100 sheep.  One wondered away, so he left the 99 to search for that lost one until he found it.  He happily put it on his shoulders and carried it back to the flock.  And when he came in for night he gathered his friends to celebrate finding it.

            And, the coin:  Jesus said that the _____________________ is like a woman who lost a coin in her house.  She searched even sweeping the house until she found it.  Then rejoicing, she called her friends to celebrate with her that she had found her lost coin.

            [The lost coin is an experience with which we can identify.  We lose keys, our phones, our wallets, our coins all the time.]  Shepherd…..

            Now let’s try to listen to these parables in our situations today.  How do we hear them?  What do we learn about ourselves or our values through these stories?

            The ______________________ is like finding the lost sheep . . . .

            The ______________________ is like finding the lost coin. . . .

Lose our way   --   symbolically lose your life

Lose your relationship to the Church or to God

Lose your family

Not losing:

                                                                                    Finding the Kingdom of God

                                                                                    Encountering the Sacred

                                                                                    Learning to love your neighbor

It has to do with the joy (celebration) of finding

            So might Jesus say that ___________(what) ___________ is like the shepherd finding his lost sheep . . . .

            Or Jesus might say that ___________(what) ___________ is like

The woman finding her lost coin . . . .

             Let’s say it that way.

                                                                                                Amen

Sermons/Lk15_1-10.9b22