The Parable of Lost Things

Luke 15:1-32

Did you all know that is my one of my top two favorite passages in the Bible? I know it is one of those passages that some of you have heard over and over again, and so have I. But still, it is one of my favorites. There is so much hidden in this passage, so many things to look at, so many things to think about, many things that can help us grow and encourage us in our relationships with God. It is about stubbornness and self-centeredness, and it is about the forgiveness and steadfast love of God almighty. It is truly one of the most beautiful passages in the whole Bible, well in my opinion at least.
So here we have Jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners. They are all gathered around. Perhaps they are reclining after the delicious meal provided by their host and as they lean back in their seats, Jesus begins to teach. Now these are tax collectors and sinners Jesus is hanging out with here, they are not the kind of people one would expect to sit around and listen to a sermon. But since they are there, well fed and in good spirits, they decided to listen, to see what this radical new teacher had to say.
You and I might think this is great. A bunch of sinners have decided to sit around after dinner and listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees, the self appointed maintainers of all that is good and right in Jewish society don’t think this is such a good idea. They knew that bad company corrupts good character; their Mama’s told them that, just like yours and mine told us. They also knew that birds of a feather flock together. Jesus is keeping bad company. One of two things can happen. First of all Jesus could be a bad bird. He could be hanging out with this undesirable crowd because he like them is undesirable. It would not be good if this new teacher whom everyone seems so keen on following was the bad sort. But even if Jesus is not a bad bird, if he continues to hang around with this bad sort, sooner or later their character is going to rub off on him and even if he is not so bad now, pretty soon he will be just like those with whom he is associating.
And as all this is going on; the sinners hanging out listening to him teach and the Pharisees upset because Jesus is spending all this time with these sinners, Jesus decides to tell a parable. But the scripture does not tell us to whom he is telling the parable. Is he telling it to the sinners with whom he is spending his time, or the Pharisees who are all up in arms over the company he is keeping? Knowing to whom a parable is directed really does help us when we are trying to really come to an understanding of what the parable is truly about. And usually the text is pretty clear, whether Jesus told a parable to the 12, or the great number of disciples who followed him, or to the crowds in general. But with this parable we are not told to whom Jesus is directing it. Can we assume he is talking to the sinners? Should we assume he is talking to the Pharisees? Perhaps, he is talking to both.
It tells us that Jesus tells them a parable. The Bible does not tell us that Jesus told them three parables; it says that he told them a parable, just one. But this is a really complex parable that has three parts, three episodes, so to speak. The first two are really short and sound really similar, but tell us two slightly different things, the third is much longer and sums up the points of the first two parables in one of the most well known stories in all of the New Testament. If someone knows only two parables, I would bet that they know the Parable of the Good Samaritan and the (so called) Parable of the Prodigal Son. Although this is one parable with three episodes, let us begin by looking at each episode separately.

The Lost Sheep
Shepherd – 100 sheep; Losses 1 – goes and searches for it; Find it and rejoices; Calls friends together to rejoice with him; Joy in Heaven over one lost sheep, not over the ones that are found.
Retelling: The Lost Coin
Woman – 10 coins; Losses 1 – searches for it; Lights a lamp; Sweeps the house; Keeps looking until it is found; Calls together her friends to rejoice with her; There is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents.
Retelling: The Two Lost Sons
The Younger Son
Asks for his inheritance – “I wish you were dead pops!”; Squanders his entire inheritance; Famine in the land and he takes a job feeding pigs – highly disgraceful for a Jew; Comes to himself and decided to go home – a slave in his Father’s house is better off than he is; as he goes home he practices his sheep; Father is waiting for him – runs to greet his son and hugs and kisses him – not a respectful thing for a grown man to do; Takes his son back and throws a party for him.
The Elder Son
Is out in the field when his brother comes home; Gets angry when he hears what is going on; Father leaves his guest to go plead with his son; Father simply wants the son to rejoice with him; We do not know what the son does in the end, Jesus does not tell us.

As I look at the three parts of this parable I am drawn to the similarities between them. It seems to me that there for each of the characters in the third episode that there is someone or something that it can be matched up with in one or both of the first two episodes.

So there it is one parable in three parts. When you lay them side by side the three parts are actually very similar. Each one is slightly different one from another.
But they have many similarities. You have the Shepherd, the Woman, and the Father, who are all looking for something which has been lost. Then there is the sheep, the coin, the younger son and the older son, who are all lost. And in each of the sections there are friends who will celebrate with the one who finds what has been lost.
One of the things about parables is that they are simple stories which serve as mirrors to real life, not just the real life of the people to whom Jesus speaking to back then, but parable show us reflections of our lives as well. When Jesus told this parable he intended for the people who were listening to see themselves in the parable just as one would see oneself in a mirror. So as we continue to look at this parable the question is in what way do we see ourselves reflected?
Let us look at our cast of characters. Are we the shepherd, the woman, the father?
Although, I think we all can stand to be more like the shepherd, the woman or the father, I would say, “no.” When we look at scripture and passages in the Old Testament, the shepherd is an image reserved for God. Both the Psalmist and Isaiah speak of God as a shepherd who is good and kind and caring. Therefore, in this parable the, shepherd, the woman, and the father are also representative of God. (The woman is God! How cool is that?) God is the one who has lost something precious which is beloved. And last time I checked neither of you nor me, were God.
So, we are not God, who else can we be? Are we the Sheep, or the Younger son? The sheep and the son are people who have wandered far from the place where God wants them to be. They have chosen their own path over that which God would have them choose and they are now living life far differently than they were created to live life. So, the answer to the question of whether you and I are the sheep or the younger son, is not as clear cut, but my guess is, if you are a good church going Christian who is currently striving to live the way Jesus has called you to live.
Then, although at some point in your life you might have been, we are most likely not one of these two characters. Both of these characters have wandered away, they are living lives that are full of sin and disrespect for God. My guess is that if you are in a pew here this morning, you are not wandering.
This leaves two other characters with whom we might find similarities in ourselves, the coin and the younger son. Are we the coin or the elder son? Hmmm….The interesting thing about both the coin and the elder son is that they have not left home. They are lost but they do not know they are lost. Elder sons live by the rules. He is doing everything right. He does all the right things. He works hard to further the kingdom. He works hard at church. He tries his best. But the elder son has completely lost sight of the love of the father. People who are the elder son do what they are supposed to do. From the outside in they look like they have what it means to be a Christian under control. They appear to be the prime example of everything someone who is striving to be the person God calls them to be, but do not do it out of love. They are not living the way God wants them to live, out of obligation, because it is a chore. They do not strive to love God and then allow that love to bath the way they live in every aspect of their lives. Their lives are not marked by love of God and neighbor their lives are marked by obligation to God and then all other aspects flow out of that obligation instead of flowing out of their love of God. They are caught up in the how of Christianity but have forgotten the “why?” The, “why,” is because we love God and God loves us.
Too often that is who we are as Christians. We are the ones striving and trying to please God. Working to be the people God wants us to be. We set about making life as God calls us to live it and obligation a chore which must be completely and completed with due diligence. But God does not call us to live diligently, God calls us to love.
The elder son in the parable is just as lost, perhaps even more so than the younger son. He is so lost that he has forgotten he is a son at all, but has come to see himself as a slave who works for his father to do what needs to be done. He has completely lost sight of the father and the love the father has for him. At the end of the parable the father is reaching out to the lost elder son, calling for the son to return to him, to once again accept his place as a beloved son. And the parable ends there. We don’t know what the elder son decides. Jesus walks away from the story at that point. We know from the parable of the lost coin what would happen if the elder son is found but we do not know if the elder son is ever found. We are left with the father’s plea to his son. God’s call to the elder son is to leave all that behind and rejoice with him. If we are the elder son this morning and I suspect many of us might be, this is the call God is putting before us. God is calling those of us who find ourselves seeing ourselves as slaves in God’s home to remember that we are beloved Sons. God is calling us out of relationships with God which is based on drudgery and obligation back into glorious, joyful relationships of love. We are lost this morning and God wants us to be found. What will we do? What will we say? How will we respond to God’s love today?