Father Richard teaches on parables of things that are lost and found:
Chapter 15 of Luke’s Gospel gives us three memorable parables of God’s mercy: Jesus tells of the shepherd who rejoices at finding a lost sheep, of the woman who rejoices at finding her lost coin (note the feminine image of God), of the father who rejoices at the return of his prodigal son. These are all images of a loving God being true to God’s nature. They are all images of God’s justice.
As we can see from these examples, God’s justice requires God to go beyond Godself and extend love to others. The shepherd doesn’t just wait until the lost sheep wanders back. The woman doesn’t just forget about the coin until it shows up. The father doesn’t just go about his business; he watches the road every day until his son returns so he can go out to welcome him home. God’s love is relentlessly just: God never gives up on those who have forgotten God’s love. [1]
Author Debie Thomas reflects on what these “lost and found” parables reveal about God:
We get lost. We get so miserably lost that the shepherd has to wander through the craggy wilderness to find us. We get so wholly lost that the housewife has to light her lamp, pick up her broom, and sweep out every nook and cranny of her house to discover what’s become of us.
For the record, these versions of lostness aren’t trivial. Notice that the searching in these parables is not a show…. What’s lost is really, truly lost—even though the seeker is God.
Can we pause for a moment and take in how astonishing this is? God faces genuine stakes when it comes to our lostness. God experiences authentic, real-time loss. God searches, persists, lingers, and plods. God wanders over hills and valleys looking for lost lambs. God turns her house upside down looking for her lost coin….
Maybe the most scandalous aspect of these lost-and-found parables is not that I still get lost. Maybe what’s most scandalous is what they reveal about the nature of God…
If Jesus’s parables are true, then God isn’t in the fold with the ninety-nine insiders. God isn’t curled up on her couch polishing the nine coins she’s already sure of. God is where the lost things are. God is in the wilderness, God is in the remotest corners of the house, God is where the search is at its fiercest. If I want to find God, I have to seek the lost. I have to get lost. I have to leave the safety of the inside and venture out. I have to recognize my own lostness and consent to be found….
God looks for us when our lostness is so convoluted and so profound, we can’t even pretend to look for God. But even in such bleak and hopeless places, God finds us. This is amazing grace. And it is ours. [2]
References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr and Jospeh Martos, Great Themes of Scripture: New Testament (Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 1988), 77.
[2] Debie Thomas, Into the Mess and Other Jesus Stories: Reflections on the Life of Christ (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022), 130–131.
Image credit and inspiration: Providence Doucet, Untitled (detail), 2016, photo, Canada, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. Like Jesus’ parables, we can look closely at fallen leaves and see things new.
Story from Our Community:
I have been reflecting on how we tell the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus never actually refers to “the good Samaritan,” but only “a Samaritan.” Church scribes and editors through the ages refer to this Samaritan as “good,” presupposing that most Samaritans are “bad.” For me, this exposes some old historical biases. If we take the perspective of a Samaritan, we would probably not so quickly differentiate between the “good” or “bad” among our own group. All of us humans are really all somewhere in between.
—Brian H.
