Readings:
Exodus 32:1-14
Psalm 51:1-11
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-10

Collect:
Gracious God, you are our Mother who loves us to eternity.
You give us new life when we have none,
and you make us your children and siblings to each other in Jesus Christ our Lord.
As you look upon us in your love,
we continue to look to the inheritance promised to all creation,
which you grant through Jesus Christ, your Son. Amen

Reflection

Lost and found – three short stories in Luke’s gospel. This week we read only two of them, the so-called lost sheep and the lost coin. The third is … we’ll, I’m not too sure what to call it! We probably know it best as the Prodigal Son, but it has also been called the Lost Son, or the Waiting Father. At least one person I know calls it just plain unfair! But this one is for another Sunday.

Today we’re offered stories of a lost sheep and a lost coin, and it occurs to me how unexpectedly negative these descriptions are. We understand that any headings to parables and bible stories are provided by the current editors of the version we use. While they are not in any of our oldest texts, headings do reflect how we’re being encouraged or directed to read the stories. They also tell something about ourselves – in this case “lost”. I hadn’t really noticed till I read the parables in the Common English Bible (published in 2011). Its heading is a simple “Occasions for Celebration”. Not about loss, but about joy, and this captures so well the devotion of the shepherd and woman to finding what was missing.

Yes, the stories imagine significant effort put in to find that which was lost. Yes, the stories imagine they went searching only because it was important, even precious, and worth the effort. I can imagine myself looking for something important which I’ve lost and then being very pleased with myself when I find it. The greatness of my pleasure is likely to be in direct proportion to the real risk that I may not find it.

And then I remember why Luke places these stories here. Check again the opening verse (Lk 15:1): “Now all the tax-collectors and wrongdoers came near [Jesus] to listen to him” (translation by Sarah Ruden). John Henson and the One Community for Christian Exploration explains this verse a little as: “Jesus had a special attraction for all those excluded from respectable society. They listened to what he had to say”. Outcome is this upset the religious people. Don’t be lured into being sentimental about tax-collectors and sinners (most translations). These descriptions are deliberately used of people who are not nice, who would deliberately take advantage of people and had little or no respect for others. They typically did not give a fig about anyone else. And they listened to Jesus.

Why should Luke be telling us these not-nice people are listening to what Jesus had to say? Surely Jesus was not encouraging them or even accepting their not-niceness, was he? I can’t think he was. There is something else Luke is highlighting here, which is the opposite of lost, and this is a returning or repenting sinner (Lk 15:7, 10), someone who changes for the better. I think it’s the clear recognition of the humanity of even those who are not nice, and more, that people can and do change. I wonder if there is even and undertone that they (we?) need to change. And the change then leads to joyful celebrations, even feasting.   So, maybe these are not stories about loss after all, but about cherishing, about seeking and finding … and the joy and celebrations that follow.

Barry Lotz