Luke and the Lost

We have a family story about our son who was about eight years old at the time of our youngest daughter’s birthday party to celebrate five years old. The party was larger than the regular family only with friends from school and church. As Carrie was opening up all her presents and cards, Sam was in a corner of the room counting…and reporting. While she opened the pretty cards, he caught the money and checks that fell out. As a helpful brother, he kept and running total and told this five year old what she had…every few seconds. We had to put an embarrassing stop to that, but had to laugh at his accounting skills. There was not going to be anyway that any coins or dollars would be lost under his watch! He high-fived his sister on the final total.

I smile as I remember that precious moment in time as we read the next passage from Luke’s concise reporting of another kind. It seems the woman in Jesus’ story lost one of her coins, but soon found it.

Luke 15, The Message

The Story of the Lost Coin
8-10 “Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it? And when she finds it you can be sure she’ll call her friends and neighbors: ‘Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!’ Count on it—that’s the kind of party God’s angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God.”

The woman’s coins were probably more than “grocery money”. The woman was frantic. These coins could have been her dowry, her life savings, that would sustain her life. She loses one. She stops everything to find it. She stops life to look for one of these precious coins until she finds it and returns it to a safe place with the others.

Are you lost? Have you lost one of your family members to the world?

These parables introduce the importance of sinners for Jesus, and thus for disciples. The parable’s drama is built on the tension of an attempt to find something that has been lost. Anyone who has lost anything or loses anything on a regular basis can identify with this tension. In our house it is keys and the remote control for the television that most often go AWOL. At such times an all-points bulletin sends my children on a hunt for what their mom has misplaced. When it is found, all are relieved. So in these parables with the sheep and the coin.

Jesus tells these parables to tax collectors and sinners. Thus the stories offer comfort, especially in the face of the Pharisees and scribes’ grumbling that Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them (compare 5:30, 37; 7:34, 39). The fact that tax collectors and sinners listen to Jesus while the leadership does not is a cultural reversal of expectation. Sometimes hearers are found in surprising places. The issue of listening to Jesus is a major one in Luke (5:1, 15; 6:17, 27, 47, 49; 7:29; 8:8-18, 21; 9:35; 10:16, 24, 39; 11:28, 31; L. T. Johnson 1991:235). To experience God’s blessing, we need to listen to him.

Again, do we know someone who is lost who needs to desperately be found?

Is there any significant difference between the two parables? At their most basic level they make the same point. The second parable, however, stresses the search a little more than the first. Recovering a lost sinner can take diligent effort. But the effort is worth it when the lost is found. Sinners should know that God is diligently looking for them. Disciples should diligently engage in the search for sinners on behalf of the Master they serve.

Jesus provides a clear example for us to follow. Finding lost “sheep” and missing “coins” is a disciple’s priority. Jesus involved himself with sinners; so should disciples.

Dear Heavenly Father, We understand the point you are making through Your challenging and convicting Word this morning. Lost people are tough when they seemingly don’t have a desire to be found. But You know that. You came to earth and dealt with that. You have shown us how to seek the lost and love them back to You. We are all sinners in need of a Savior. Save us, Lord from ourselves. Lead us to others who need You, too. May the celebration be tremendous when the lost are found…as it is in heaven. In Jesus Name, Amen