Lost And Found
Being lost can be frightening. Years ago, as a seminary student, I lost my way while traveling late one Saturday night through Cleveland, Ohio. I was on my way to lead a week of services at a small church when I realized that I hadn't made the proper connection to the main thoroughfare leading out of Cleveland.
As I checked my maps, hoping to find the main road, it became evident that I was in a part of the city I did not know. I was alone and lost. When I finally saw a highway sign ahead pointing me in the right direction, I breathed a huge sigh of relief and said fervently, "Thank You, Lord."
Being lost can be frightening--and being lost spiritually can be even more frightening.
Lostness
In Luke 15:1-10 we find large numbers of publicans (tax-collectors) and sinners--people who from the viewpoint of official religion were spiritually lost--regularly going out to hear what Jesus had to say. These people were outcasts, people who painfully felt the rejection and .ridicule of the religious leaders of their day.
These people did not adhere to the rigorous standards of religious devotion. They were ceremonially impure. They had contact with Gentiles. Consequently, in the minds of religious authorities these people deserved nothing but contempt and scorn.
The emptiness within them and their hunger for acceptance--especially from God--evidently prompted these individuals in large numbers to respond to the preaching of Jesus that God indeed cared for them, even if no one else did.
The Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling because Jesus welcomed and enjoyed table fellowship with these "sinners." To have any contact with these outcasts was to them a clear indication of Jesus' lack of religious commitment! To welcome the outcasts was bad enough, but to have table fellowship with them was the ultimate violation of God'sLaw.
In the Pharisees' fellowship groups, called "havurah," the rules of ritual purity expected in the Temple were applied to their common meals as well. In an eating process that involved placing hands in common dishes to retrieve food, the purity of everyone present at the meal became crucially important. Table fellowship, then, with publicans and sinners who were ritually impure was clearly out of the question for the .Pharisees. To engage in a meal like this suggested calloused rejection of God's Laws. No genuinely religious person would dare to eat with sinners!
The preoccupation of the Pharisees and the scribes with adherence to religious rules blinded them not only to their own "lostness" but also to what God was doing and to the spiritual needs of the outcasts.
One of the great dangers for Christians today is the same kind of trap that the Pharisees experienced. Outward conformity to established religious indicators doesn't guarantee a heart conformed to God's will. Genuine commitment to God is much deeper than external signals that are based on tradition. This is particularly the case when those outward indicators are based on questionable applications of biblical principles as were the Pharisees'. That kind of temptation continues to this very day to us Christians, even though our commitment is to the One who was put to death.
Compassion
Jesus made contact with outcasts a priority in his ministry. In the Gospel of Luke, beginning with the account of Levi in chapter five, Jesus regularly enjoyed table fellowship with outcasts such as Zaccheus, who was a tax collector. Jesus did not hesitate to come into direct contact with these people.
That which made Jesus risk the wrath of the religious leaders was his mission to reclaim people for the Kingdom of God: "I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance"; "Your sins are forgiven"; "The Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost." These rejected ones represented to Jesus the invaluable people who needed to be reclaimed--even if it meant facing the scorn and the rejection of the religious leaders.
In the background lay the Old Testament images of God as the Great Shepherd, reaching out to the nation of Israel. "Thus says the Lord God:
I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness."
Added to this and other shepherd passages were the Messianic banquet traditions in the Old Testament: "On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear."
These important Old Testament images and principles became the basis of Jesus' actions of reaching out to the outcasts, as well as his telling the parable of the lost sheep.
Lost Sheep
Drawing from the rich scriptural imagery of sheep and shepherds, Jesus told a story to his accusers to illustrate his contact with outcasts. In the parable the shepherd discovered that one sheep was missing out of his flock of 100. His concern for that sheep rather than for his own safety or for economic interests prompted him to make an extensive search for the one lost sheep.
Each individual animal was of great importance to the shepherd, just as each person is of great value to the heavenly Father. After extensive searching, the shepherd found the missing sheep and lovingly lifted it up to his shoulders to carry the animal back to the fold, away from danger. But his joy of discovery was so great that he called in friends and neighbors for a great celebration.
Both the good shepherd and the Messianic banquet images from the Old Testament were woven together as a rejoinder to Jesus' critics: Jesus was doing the work of God in welcoming and eating with publicans and sinners. The heavenly Father celebrates the repentance of one lost sinner. Jesus' critics who scornfully rejected these individuals were false shepherds, thus opposing God. They risked exclusion from the great banquet table of God.
Lost Coin
In a similar parable about a lost coin Jesus told of a woman who had lost one of her 10 silver coins.
The usual disdain for women in that day became the method for Jesus to present her as a positive image. The woman seems to have been a peasant, and her house likely would have had few or no windows and a dirt floor.
Because the lost coin was of great value to her, the woman searched carefully, and her discovery of the coin occasioned great joy and celebration. The point of the story, her joy and celebration, Jesus applied to the joy and celebration in heaven over one repentant sinner.
Careful searching is a distinctive feature of the parable and thus provides additional insight. The heavenly Father is carefully--not casually or flippantly--seeking out the lost sinner because that person is of great value and worth.
Discovery
A major emphasis in both stories is discovery--of the lost sheep, of the lost coin. In the almost identical application statements at the end of each story, Jesus emphasizes the heavenly celebration over the repenting sinner.
As the shepherd and the woman celebrated the recovery of the lost sheep and the lost coin, God too celebrates over the outcasts who turn from their erring ways and come home to him. The divine/human interaction--God's finding and our repenting--is a climactic moment spiritually that lays the foundation for the anticipated Messianic banquet in the Kingdom.
Jesus' message, as demonstrated in his actions toward the outcasts, emphasizes that all people are worth God's finding, that all people can repent and then be included in God's big celebration. Those who don't make it have excluded themselves from the celebration by not repenting.
Jesus' stories challenge us. Those sensing their lostness should take heart. God stands as the Good Shepherd, reaching out with the invitation, "Come home to the Father." God is diligently searching for and seeking the lost. In the Father's house await a joyous celebration and a homecoming.
Likewise, the example of the Pharisees challenges us not to miss the blessing of God. Preoccupation with conformity to man-made rules and traditions can blind us to the Father's heartbeat and to his undying compassion for the lost. Are we in step more with the Pharisees, or with Jesus?
