When she finds it, she will call in her friends and neighbors and say, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost coin. Luke 15:9
The Lost One – Parables Series 4 – Part 2
Go to PART 1
(Go to Parable Series 1 or Parable Series 2 or Parable Series 3)
Luke 15:1-7.
In the parable of the Lost Sheep, we tend to give God the role of the Shepherd; the ‘saved' the role of the ninety-nine; and the lost the role of the sheep who needs saving. It's a lovely story. The fact that God would go in search of those lost to his love is 100% true. But the parable contains much more than that, and the allegory doesn’t completely fit the plot. As with most parables, to assign roles is to miss the WHOLE story. The Kingdom of God is not like a shepherd finding his lost sheep, rather the Kingdom of God is like the whole story.
The lost sheep is this parable's protagonist; The Shepherd is. And the Shepherd lost one of his flock.
Did the sheep sin and walk away? Did it slip on some rocks and fall silently into an unseen crevice? Wounded and too frightened to keep on walking? Or did it wander of absent-mindedly?
In any case, the Shepherd lost one of his sheep. They were his responsibility. And for him to have to go on such an incredible search to find the lost sheep tells us that it was lost for some time. He eventually finds his sheep, picks it up and carries it home. Perhaps the Shepherd needed saving too. He was incomplete without the one he lost and needed to find it again for his joy to be restored. How do you feel when you lose something of value to you? Finding it and saving it from its lost state, also saves you from that lost feeling.
Luke 15:8-10.
The woman who lost her coin was not a poor, destitute woman. She had ten silver coins. They were her coins and she lost one. The nine coins left were incomplete without the tenth. As was she. The woman did everything she could to find it. She lit lamps to light up all the nooks and crannies it could be hiding in. She swept under the chairs, looked in all the pots, went through all her clothes, checked underneath all the rugs, and eventually, she found the coin. And when she did, just like the shepherd, she was filled with so much joy that she invited her friends to come and celebrate with her. “Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!” (V9).
Both the shepherd and the woman lost something of value. They searched and toiled and journeyed until they found what was lost. And the reunion was cause for great celebration.
A shepherd lost one out of one hundred; a woman lost one from ten. The Shepherd claimed no responsibility, but still went on a quest to find what was missing. The woman took responsibility for her loss, “I have the piece that I lost!” There is a progression in the sequence of these parables that leads into the third.
The questions these parables tease out are not about if God will come searching for us, the lost ones. That was a truth well known by Jesus's Jewish audience. It’s written in the Torah. Moses himself said, “Yahweh is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in faithful love and truth.” Ex 34:6. God was already one who saves, who seeks the lost.
But what about us?
What is of value to us?
Do we notice when it goes missing?
What lengths would we go to find it?
It’s one thing to celebrate finding something that was lost; it's another thing to take responsibility for losing it.
Amy-Jill Levine writes, “The sheep and coin were “lost” and then “found”; they were passive objects. It is their owners, who first lost, then found, then celebrated, who should be the focus of our attention. They had the problem, and they fixed it. Thus when we turn to the third parable in Luke 15, we might want to pay attention to the father, who comes to realize what he has lost and desperately wants to find and celebrate.”
But who did the father really lose?
Go to Part 3 – Two Sons and a Prodigal Father »
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