Being lost and knowing it, like this sheep, foretells being found.
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
So he told them this parable: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.’ Just so, 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.
“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:1-10).
My Dreams of Being Lost
A theme recurs in many of my dreams: Being lost. I stroll to a bathroom or classroom or even a worship space. Suddenly I find myself in a labyrinth of hallways or walking by a busy highway, no map in hand. I have a deadline to meet. The more I hurry, the longer the route stretches. When I ask directions, the other answers cryptically or seems as lost as me. With my heart racing, I awaken with a start in a cold sweat. Then I slow down and deepen my rapid, shallow breaths, relieved that it was just a dream.
I call them stress dreams, not really nightmares because no ominous beast chases me, no villain wields a weapon. Rather, the dream symbolizes the day before with computer malfunctions and too many unwelcome surprises. Or it expresses my anxiety about the day to come with too much to do.
Entering Into the Lostness with the Lost
A third possible influence: It expresses my vicarious anxiety built up after a day of listening to people in distress. They visit me in various stages of being lost. You see, I am a psychotherapist. I spend my days walking alongside people who lost their map. Or they use a poorly constructed one that took them down a wrong road. Perhaps they just forgot to use the map at a critical juncture. Maybe they just don’t like maps.
Sometimes the map is not the problem. They don’t know their destination or did not choose one. Many settled somewhere, built a house, and tended a family. They expected never to need a map again. But lo and behold, a sudden storm or loss set them on the road again. I walk with them as they tell their disrupted story and hear their confessions of apprehension, exhaustion, or forgetfulness.
To help them find their way, I must first enter into their lostness. If I arrive on a white horse with a map in hand and a sure answer to their questions about where they are going and where they are coming from, I do not help them. I rob them. For to borrow from Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one must live one’s life as if it was a work of art. So to live an authentic life with integrity, one must face a blank canvas or page, a jagged rock or waiting keyboard and make something new, something one’s own. So I listen with empathy, ask socratic questions, and make provisional suggestions. In time the artist gets so ensconced in her work that she does not need me anymore.
It is good work, but sometimes the part of my brain that walks with the lost does not turn off. Then I find myself at 3:00 a.m. waking from one of those dreams. Not that my own confusion navigating my journey does not play a part. It definitely does.
The Lost Who Know It and the Lost Who Don’t
There are two kinds of people: Those who are lost and know it, and those who are lost and don’t. Lost people who know it – “tax collectors and sinners” in our text – gather around Jesus. They listen, eager to hear some wisdom for the road, to see a sign pointing the way. Better yet, they hope to follow someone who knows how to travel to the destination for which they yearn. He poetically describes the reality of this kingdom of their dreams. His images of a Good Samaritan, of wedding banquets and vineyards and mustard seeds seem to pack as much power as his miraculous healings and feedings. He gives them hope that maybe they will not be lost forever.
Also in our text we meet others who are lost and do not know it, the Pharisees and scribes. Those who think they found the answers and themselves regard scornfully the crowd of the lost gathered around him. Moreover, they consider Jesus a fraud for his friendly association with them. And Jesus, the only one not lost, knows where they are better than they do.
Two Parables of the Lost
So to the lost who do not know they are lost, he gives two simple parables. A shepherd of 100 sheep counts 99 and ventures out into the brush and brambles in search of the missing one. So much does he prize the one lost that he leaves the rest on his search. He thus risks the loss of more. He searches single-mindedly and finally retrieves the lost one. His shouts of contagious joy bring folks from fields and dwellings all about for a party.
Bringing into sharper focus the worthiness of the lost, Jesus tells a parallel parable: A woman cannot find her 10 coins, likely her dowry – in today’s terms, her inheritance, her retirement account. She not only turns over all the furniture, she even sweeps away every speck of dust in her search until she finds it. And again, her joy starts a block party. With everything to gain and nothing to lose, everybody understands her passionate desire to find, just as everyone understands the shepherd’s passionate desire to take a gamble and find.
Everyone gets the motivation to find the lost sheep and coin. But Jesus vexes those who are lost and do not know it, the scribes and Pharisees, with his words about the party, the actual party going on over the tax collectors and sinners. Yes, even as he speaks, as the scribes and Pharisees grouse and grumble, there is a party in heaven right now over the lost ones who know it and step up to repent. Those who think that they are not lost assume God throws parties to celebrate them. They think their knowledge of sacred scriptures and adherence to divine laws mean that they already arrived.
Being Found: Turn Around and Change Your Mind
Repentance derives from the Hebrew, shuv, meaning “to turn around,” and the Greek, metanoia, meaning to change one’s mindset. Turn around and change your mind. If you do not consider yourself lost, why take seriously a command to turn around? If you think you have it all figured it all out, why change your mindset?
But that attitude underestimates God’s love. It imagines God as a quality control bureaucrat with a clipboard evaluating your performance. In other words, the lost who do not realize it consider themselves just fine because no news is good news from such a supervisor-god. A god of conditional love would think so too.
But Jesus presents them with the one true God of unconditional love who rejoices upon finding the lost. This God loves the lost with a single-minded, self-abandoned passion like a shepherd beating the bushes until the one lost sheep appears, like a woman sweeping away everything else until the precious coins turn up. This God does not pause to reflect whether the beloved deserves love and does not count the cost of searching.
The Joy of Knowing Who Finds You
So the scribes and Pharisees need to turn and change their mind because they worship a God too small. They are lost. When Jesus says there is more rejoicing in heaven over one lost and then found than over 99 not lost, he uses irony. Everyone is lost. He came to save the scribes and Pharisees too. But those lost who do not know it resist their own salvation even to the point of killing the savior.
Meanwhile, the lost who know they are lost gather around God’s Son, fully aware. Repentance is not a command to them. It is an invitation. Let the party begin!
An authentic Christian is lost and knows it. Yes, as the baptized, we are, in a sense, found. But we experience Christ finding us as he walks with us on the uncharted road. Christ, our companion and God, finds us still journeying, still erring, still taking wrong turns from which to turn around. He finds us still discovering that, however we understand God and God’s blessings, we have to revise it every step of the way. For God seems bigger and the way more wonderful with every step in God’s direction. And God is love.
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Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven….Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled (Matthew 5:3,6).
Public domain photo by Robinson Recalde on Unsplash.
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