This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to ponder Luke 15:1-10. The English Standard Version supplies the selection with two headings. The first heading, for verses 1-7, is “The Parable of the Lost Sheep.” The second heading, for verses 8-10, is “The Parable of the Lost Coin.”
I used to think the first story is absurd. Imagine. You’re rich. You’ve got 100 sheep, while your richest neighbour’s got only 15 sheep. The countryside’s full of wolves and human thieves. You count your sheep. You see that one is missing. What would you do?
If I had five young children, I expect my wife’s words to me, when she hears that story, would be “If you’re out with all the kids and one of them goes missing, don’t you dare leave the four and go looking for the one.”
But of course, we city dwellers assume the owner of the sheep was alone with all the sheep. That’s not likely. He probably had other shepherds, and dogs, to help him. The point of the story is that the owner went out and relentlessly looked for the sheep. He found it. He rejoiced. He celebrated.
The star of the second story is a poor woman, a widow. She had ten silver coins. That’s about ten days wages. One coin was missing. For her, it’s a massive loss. She went out and relentlessly looked for it. Even though it’s night. Hurray! She found it. She rejoiced. She celebrated.
What’s the point of these two stories Jesus told? The point lies in what brings joy to God. The stories have to be read alongside the account of the Pharisees and the scribes, the leading ones, the learned ones, the elites, who joined the crowds to hear Jesus.
Luke tells us in verses 1 and 2 that they grumbled about the “tax collectors and sinners” who ringed Jesus, even touched him. Polluted him! They said, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
They didn’t agree with Jesus on many things. But they agreed he knew the scriptures well and was a good teacher. Ironically, they respected him. Even invited him to join them for dinner. Several times. But they just couldn’t stand the fact that he associated with poor, dirty, hungry people.
They thought they pleased God by separating themselves from people of ill repute – people like tax collectors, who worked for the occupiers. Who collected taxes from the local people, for the occupation forces. Some used force, used gangsters, to collect the taxes.
The social status of tax collectors was as bad as that of prostitutes.
How would you react if, at a dinner in the Prime Minister’s residence, you asked a guest what she does for a living and she answers, “I supply gangsters to loan sharks,” or “I’m a prostitute”?
Jesus’ point is that we rate people according to what they are; according to how high up the social ladder they are – by where they live, how they speak, what they drive. But God rates people according to what they can be, and he relentlessly draws them into paths of peace and joy.
The point of the two stories Jesus told lies in the rejoicing, by God himself. Most important is the back story of God’s rejoicing.
God rejoices like a lover who relentlessly looks for and attracts his beloved to return to him. Francis Thompson[1] caught the energy God expends in the title of his poem, Hound of Heaven. Hounds are hunting dogs. They run relentlessly until they find their target.
Thompson had failed to become a priest or a doctor. Became very sick. Got addicted to opium.[2] Became penniless. Slept on the streets. Sold matches and newspapers to survive. He despised himself. He fled God for years. But one day, he came to himself. He saw that everywhere he’d been, God was right behind him, waiting for him to turn to him. He saw that God had relentlessly followed him. He called God “the hound of heaven,” the hunting dog who never gives up looking for the prey.
A Christian editor, Wilfrid Meynell,[3] “discovered” Thompson, who had dropped into his mailbox a few of his writings, and a note which said:
“I must ask your pardon for the soiled state of the manuscript. It is due not to slovenliness, but to the strange places and circumstances under which it has been written.”
In a documentary, which I highly recommend, Meynell’s great grandson has described how his ancestor discovered Thompson, who hadn’t included a return address.
Meynell published Thompson’s work, with a note inviting him to visit.
Thompson responded with a letter, listing a pharmacy[4] in London as his return address. It was where Thompson bought his opium.
Meynell went to the pharmacy. He settled Thompson’s unpaid bills and left word with the pharmacist for Thompson to visit him.
A few days later, Meynell, well dressed, was sitting in his plush office. His staff escorted in a “completely derelict, skeletal character who had no shirt on under his jacket. … extremely unwashed, no socks, terrified …”
The elite Wilfrid Meynell and his wife Alice[5] relentlessly helped Thompson. He recovered. He wrote more. He wrote the Hound of Heaven, a poem which has touched so many hearts and yielded so much praise for God.
God rejoiced when he found this lost sheep, this lost coin. He continues his relentless pursuit of the lost. And invites us to join him both in the pursuit and in the rejoicing.
Peace be with you.
[1] 1859-1907.
[2] In the form of Laudanum, a legal blend of ethanol and opium.
[3] 1852-1948.
[4] Called a Chemist, then and now.
[5] 1847-1922, a distinguished writer, poet, and activist.
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