Children’s talk
Have you ever been lost?
Quite a long time ago now when I was on holiday in Melbourne my mother and I took my kids and two of my nieces into town to do some shopping and see a movie. We were in a very busy Myers store in Bourke St and the kids were playing with each other while mum and I browsed through clothes – they had been weaving in and out amongst the clothing racks playing hide and seek with each other and suddenly Elise, my five-year-old niece, wasn’t anywhere to be seen. We looked around for a while and called her name and began to get really worried when she didn’t turn up quickly. It wasn’t unusual for one of my boys to get lost, but if they did they just yelled at the top of their voices so it was easy to find them again. Elise was a different sort of child. After enlisting the help of store security we found her wandering near the main entrance – right at the other end of the store – weeping quietly to herself.
No-one likes to lose a child, and of course all sorts of scenarios go through your mind in such a situation. We had to search until she was found. It’s not like losing glasses or a piece of jewellery that might one day turn up again, with a child we don’t give up.
Some of you know we have a dog called Gilly – when we take him for walks he likes to get lost. I don’t think he ever thinks he’s lost but there have been a few times where he’s been away so long that we start to worry he has found a snake or something dangerous like that. At some point we would decide to split up and go in different directions to find him – here’s a pic of John bringing him back after we’d been searching for a long time on day. He had to carry him back on his shoulders because I had the lead with me, and he didn’t want him to run off again.
We’re going to hear some stories now from the bible and I want you to listen to them and think about what has been lost, and what is done when the lost is found.
READINGS: Ezekiel 34:11-16, Luke 15:1-10
SERMON: Lost and Found
Today we read the first two of three parables in Luke 15 that are linked together – three quite different scenes but all with the theme of lost and found. They reach a sort of climax with the third parable – the Lost Son or the Prodigal Son as it is better known, but the diligence and care of the searcher is emphasised just as strongly in the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin parables that come first. In fact this is one of the surprising aspects of the parables. A single sheep and a single coin are worth a great effort of searching, and when they are found there is a party with friends and neighbours.
Of course it is possible to speculate that those individual things were worth a lot – the coin, we are told in commentaries, was probably equivalent to a full day’s wage. That seems sensible until we realise that the woman threw a large party which must have eaten into that coin’s value fairly significantly. One lost sheep is rarely a newsworthy event in 21st century Australia where typical flocks of over 1,000 head are handled by dogs that are directed by farmers on horses or trail bikes or even helicopters. Maybe in small flocks in biblical Palestine individual sheep were known, meaning that one lost sheep was a significant event. Yet Luke’s parable tells us that the Shepherd left the 99 in the wilderness when he set off to find the lost sheep. That doesn’t seem very sensible! This story is also recorded in the Gospel of Thomas – another contemporary but non-biblical collection of Jesus’s sayings. In that version we can see that this recklessness of the shepherd needed some explanation. In the GT version we read “Jesus said the kingdom is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them, the largest, went astray. He left the 99 and looked for the one until he found it. When he had gone to such trouble, he said to the sheep: “I care for you more than the ninety-nine.” GT 107. But Luke doesn’t justify it like this in his story that we read.
So thinking about it a bit more, it is surprising. Why would the shepherd leave the majority in the wilderness to search for one? There does seem to be a message in these parables, if the shepherd and the woman are in some way representative of God, that each individual is important and worth the effort. God doesn’t assess situations the way we might, deciding on the worth of something by its physical attributes or monetary value. Rather God risks all for the safety of each individual – God counts in ones, not thousands. God searches diligently, and God works to bring back the lost – just like the shepherd carrying the sheep on his shoulders or the woman sweeping the whole house. And that is not all – others are invited to share the joy when the lost is found – by throwing open the house and having a party.
This is a pretty wonderful image, and the commentaries on Luke 15 often call the chapter “parables of love and forgiveness”. The image, particularly of God as a loving shepherd, is a familiar and sweet one. But there’s another side to these parables, because we should always keep in mind that parables were often told to shock those who were listening! They were stories aiming to turn the world upside down! So what is shocking in these parables Jesus told?
The Challenge of the Parables for the Pharisees
To answer this we need to remember the context. Luke sets the scene by telling us sinners and tax collectors were coming near to Jesus to listen. And Pharisees and scribes were coming near to grumble, to murmur, to complain. Their complaint was one they’d made often. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” The Pharisees and scribes were pursuing a life of holiness which for them meant being set apart and keeping pure before God. But here was Jesus surrounded by the unholy and treating them as his equals: tax collectors, prostitutes, people with illnesses, fishermen, farmers, women and shepherds.
Yes, women and shepherds. Jesus told those around him stories about God’s kingdom in pictures that were just like their lives. What a different and confronting sort of teaching that was. Would the Pharisees have ever likened God to a woman? At a big stretch perhaps they could tap into the background of the Matriarch Sarah or the noble warrior Deborah. But a simple woman with a broom? Women ordinarily had very little status in that society. Women were rarely taught to read. No women were needed to constitute a worshipping community. Their place was in the home, doing the domestic work, keeping quiet. But in his story Jesus was suggesting God is like a woman! God’s love is like a woman sweeping until she finds a lost coin, then raising her voice to draw attention to it. Shocking!
Now in the Hebrew bible the shepherd is a noble image: Moses and David were shepherds, Kings and priests were referred to as shepherds of the people, God was spoken of in terms of a shepherd – in Psalm 23 and the Ezekiel reading that we heard. Yet by the first century rabbis looked down on the profession of shepherd as unclean, socially inferior and untrustworthy. To quote from one of the commentaries, “shepherds in first-century Palestine were regarded with some dismay. They would come down from the hills like bikers roaring into a startled village to do some rowdy partying.” Shepherds were rough, tough men doing difficult work, not saccharine lamb-cuddlers. And Jesus was suggesting God is also like that!
So when Jesus turns to the rabbis and says “which one of you having a hundred sheep” he was speaking rather insultingly and pointedly. If he’d said “which of you who owned a hundred sheep would not send the shepherd to find one that is lost” the point would have been just as clear, but the social implications quite acceptable. But think about this: they would have known that passage in Ezekiel and would have realised he was indicting them by their own scriptures. In the verses leading up to the passage we read, God had asked the leaders of his people to be shepherds, but they were no longer fulfilling that role. God had to become the shepherd again. And in the gospels we see Jesus doing the will of God by seeking out the lost and feeding them. Before we write off the Pharisees completely, we should note that they were interested in repentance and forgiveness. One of the teachings of the Pharisees was “Come home. Repent, return to the teaching of the law, and you will be forgiven.” Come home. But Jesus wasn’t content with that. Jesus had the shepherd go out searching. For Jesus, God was a restless searcher, seeking the lost, not waiting for them to come home. And he said of himself “The Son of Man has come to seek out and to save the lost.” In fact, the image of the Shepherd with the lost sheep on its shoulders is a complete picture of God’s mission through Jesus. Jesus is both the good shepherd who seeks and finds and welcomes and the lamb who personifies the lostness of the world.
The Challenge of the Parables for us
As we hear these parables today where can we locate ourselves? You may be the lost sheep. Wandering in the wilderness, wondering if you’ve been forgotten, crying quietly to yourself or shouting out in indignation. These parables are an assurance that you will be found.
But I suppose more of us might identify with the sheep left behind, out there in the wilderness. But I’m not sure if this is where we are meant to see ourselves. It is too passive an image for Christians. We aren’t supposed to be out there waiting and doing nothing – we are asked, I think, to identify with the woman, with the Shepherd, with Jesus whom we claim to follow. It’s interesting that the version of this story in Matthew’s gospel has some subtle differences – for Matthew’s church the parable encourages them to shepherd each other in community, and that would also be a good story for us to be telling each other today. Especially when we are focused right now on learning from each other and sharing our gifts to build up this community.
But Luke’s emphasis is on seeking and welcoming the outsider. Not just providing food for the needy but sitting and eating with them as equals, welcoming them at our tables. Not waiting in our church saying “come home” but being out there in the wilderness searching.
You might have noticed that the end point of both parables is repentance. But remember the context again – the stories are being told to the Pharisees. Repentance is needed both by sinners and by righteous! By both the strayers and the stayers! In fact, it if weren’t for the Lost Son story we’d be hard pressed to find a shred of repentance in the strayers in these two parables. The lost coin and the lost sheep weren’t sorry they’d been lost. So the stories are really asking a change of heart of those of us who weren’t lost. And we see that played out in the parable of the prodigal son also when it ends up focused on the son who stayed at home.
It is not an easy thing to find the lost and welcome them home.
If we ignore those who do not measure up to our standards of righteousness -those who have lost faith may not be found.
If our apathy leaves others in the clutches of unjust structures -those who have lost hope may not be found.
If we are not committed to support those in our society weakened by poverty and injustice -those who have lost a sense of worth may not be found.
If we fail to welcome the stranger, the uprooted, the refugee -those who have lost family and friends, home and even country, may not be found.
It is not an easy thing to find the lost and welcome them home.
But don’t forget that each parable does end with a celebration. We are invited to join God’s search party for the lost, but we are also invited to join the party thrown by God and all the angels when the lost is found.
I began the service by reading Ps 23 – a much loved psalm that celebrates God as our caring, providing, protecting shepherd. We are asked to be that presence of God to others: to love others, to feed those who are hungry, to provide a resting place for those who are weary, to patiently seek those who stray, to stay beside others in their dark times, to rejoice as we meet together at table, at church, at any ordinary occasion that can be a location for God’s kingdom to become present.
Our next hymn celebrates ourselves being found, chosen, embraced, protected, and blessed. As we sing it together let it inspire us to be that welcoming presence for others.