Lost and Found

Luke 15:1-10

1 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." 3 So he told them this parable: 4 "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? 5 When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' 7 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. 8 "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? 9 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.' 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."

            It was kept behind the counter in the principal’s office at College Street Elementary School. At some point in its earlier days it held a new microwave or some other small kitchen appliance. Just a simple cardboard box with a piece of orange construction paper taped to one side with the words “Lost and Found” written in magic marker. The contents of that box were never really too impressive: a comb with a few missing teeth, a pair of sunglasses with an absent lens, a box of broken crayons missing more than half the colors, maybe even a forgotten Tupperware lid that had been left behind in the lunchroom. Most of the time, it seemed that the “Lost and Found” box was just a halfway-house of sorts, a pit stop for items on their way to the trash. There were those times, however, when a student would wander into the office, fingers crossed, to ask the secretary if maybe, just maybe, they found a retainer in the lunchroom or a wallet on the playground. But those times were few and far between; most often the lost-and-found box was little more than an empty cardboard shell containing broken, forgotten items, things children simply left behind—broken, forgotten things gathering dust in a box stashed on the floor under the counter in the principal’s office.

            We learn from the lost-and-found box that not everything we lose is something we hope to find. Not everything that is lost has someone searching for it. The same can be said for those people we label “lost,” those people who find themselves in humankind’s lost-and-found.  Like a long-forgotten item rattling around the bottom of a cardboard box, those individuals are often pushed to the periphery of society, overlooked, or purposefully ignored. Throughout history we’ve found ways to justify our overlooking those we’ve named the “lost,” those we have no real desire to find. We’ve deemed them incorrigible, lazy, less-than-human. We’ve tried to justify placing our fellow humans in the lost-and-found through economics, politics, sociology, psychology, and yes, even religion. Yes, our sinful habit of ignoring our sisters and brothers in life’s lost-and-found is nothing new.

            It shouldn’t surprise you, though, to find that Jesus was often right in the middle of these kinds of people, the ones rejected by society and misguided religion, and it really shouldn’t shock us too terribly when we hear how the people in those societal and religious circles responded to Jesus and his relationships with “those people.” We have before us today a clear example of those two things in verses one and two of our passage: “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.’" Now, in case you’re unaware, the tax collectors and sinners were some of those people that the Pharisees and scribes understood to be unclean, impure, unworthy; they were “those people.”

            You know who “those people” are, don’t you? You sit across from someone in the restaurant and overhear them say something like, “Well I like him just fine, but he’s one of those people.” Or maybe you’ve heard someone say, “I wouldn’t let one of those people near me or my family…I wouldn’t let one of those people touch my food…I don’t want one of those people handling my things.” Maybe you’ve heard something like that before, and maybe the voice you heard saying those sorts of things was your own. Either way, it was with that sort of sentiment that these Pharisees and scribes talked about the tax collectors and other sinners Jesus welcomed to his dinner table—they were those people, and to those Pharisees and scribes, Jesus was guilty by association.

            It is in response to this criticism from these established religious leaders that Jesus responds with three stories (we will only look at the first two today). Responding to the remarks from the Pharisees and scribes about his habit of eating with the “lost-and-found” folks, Jesus says in verses four through six, "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? 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 sheep that was lost.'” His second story is like the first (in verses eight and nine): "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? 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.'”

            Now, on the surface, these two stories seem simple enough. A sheep (a common image in that part of the world and an image Jesus often uses in the gospels) wanders off from the flock. It doesn’t seem all that important—after all, there are ninety-nine more just like it that all decided to stay together, to do what they were supposed to do. One straying sheep, however, seems important enough for one to trek out into the thicket, away from the flock, in order to recover it. Not only does Jesus say that one sheep is worth finding, but when it is found, the one who has found it calls all of his friends and neighbors together to rejoice. They’re going to have an “I-found-my-lost-sheep” party. Seems a bit excessive maybe, but to the shepherd who truly loves his flock, the shepherd who knows each of his sheep as his own, such a joyful action needs no rational explanation.

            Then there’s the story about the woman and her coin. Perhaps she sat it on the kitchen table after coming in from the grocery store, and her cat simply thought it was a new play thing, flicking it on the floor to roll under the furniture. Perhaps she tucked it under her mattress with the rest of her savings and simply forgot about it. Maybe, like so many things in our homes, she sat it down in one place only to find it had mysteriously vanished without a trace. Whatever the case may be, she had nine other coins just like it (not a bad sum of money, nine days wages in all), so why fool with looking for this singular coin? It’ll turn up eventually, right? According to Jesus’ story though, this woman wants to find this coin so desperately that she lights a lamp, breaks out the broom, and searches every corner of her house until she finds that lost coin. Then, like the shepherd who finds his lone, lost sheep, she invites her friends and neighbors together to celebrate finding this singular coin (I imagine none of them were all that thrilled with being invited to an “I-found-my-coin-so-let’s-celebrate” party).

            It’s all that celebrating that gets me. Think about it: if you walked out in the parking lot to your car this afternoon and found a quarter you dropped between the seats, would you run around the lot inviting everyone over to your house for lunch? Of course not, I doubt any of us would do such a thing if we found a hundred dollar bill under the passenger side floor mat! What if you’re dog or cat ran away this morning? When you found it, would you call the church office and have us add an announcement in the bulletin about your “I-found-my-cat-going-through-the-neighbor’s-trash” party? Of course not! Unless…unless those things were so important to you, so valuable to you that you would stop at nothing to find them if they were lost.

            Flip the story just a bit; let’s bring Jesus’ story a little closer to home for us. If you were walking with your child or grandchild in (somewhere like) Wal-Mart, and before you know it, they’ve let go of your hand and are out of your sight, off in an unknown direction, what would you do? You’d run all over that place looking for that child (no matter how many more you may have at home), wouldn’t you? Why, you’d empty strangers’ buggies, topple sales displays, go through every door marked “employees only,” and when you found your lost child, your heart would be filled with a mixture of relief and joy. Joy: We rejoice when we find something we’ve lost when it’s something we value, something we will miss, something that would never be left behind in a cardboard box marked “Lost-and-Found.”

            And that, I think, is where we find the depth of these two parables from Jesus. Do you remember Jesus’ other words from this passage, the words he says after he tells each of these two stories? They’re near echoes of each other in verses seven and ten: “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…Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." Joy…in heaven…in the presence of the angels of God…over one sinner? Joy…over finding one of those people? The joy doesn’t come from what we deem to be an adequate response. A shepherd doesn’t rejoice over finding one sheep because all the people on the village think that one sheep is wonderful. A woman doesn’t rejoice over finding her lost coin because all of her friends and neighbors thought that that coin was so marvelous. Just so, the joy in heaven doesn’t come from some idea we have of who is or isn’t worthy of such divine celebration. A shepherd rejoices at finding his lost sheep because that shepherd loved that sheep, because he deemed it worthy of his joy. A woman rejoices at finding her lost coin because that woman valued that coin so highly and wished to share her joy in finding it with all who would join with her in celebrating. Just so, the joy in the presence of the angels of God in heaven comes from that God loving those sinners and God rejoices when those sinner—us, all of us—are found in the saving grace of his love and forgiveness.

            While we may choose to ignore the refuse found rattling around in the cardboard of this life’s lost-and-found box, while we may even find ourselves at times looked over, forgotten, and abandoned by others, God rejoices when we are found. God celebrates those moments when the “tax collectors and sinners” of our world, those people, are found trusting in his love and setting out to follow his Son, Jesus. There is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God in heaven when those of us who have been lost, forgotten, broken, and abandoned are found, forgiven, restored, and made whole in the love of Christ, when we are rescued from the “lost-and-found.”

            Let us seek to welcome those into our lives that the rest of the world has left behind and forgotten. Let us rejoice over those who repent and turn our lives over to the One who deems us worthy of His joy. Let us rejoice with the angels in the presence of God in heaven today, for Christ has rescued us all from the “lost-and-found.”

Let us pray…