Lost and Found
Have you ever lost something? It might be your car keys, for example, your purse or wallet, your diary or cell phone. You know you left them somewhere... but that 'somewhere' has become very elusive. If that has ever happened to you, you will be able to sympathize with the woman in the parable of the 'Lost Coin' (Luke 15: 1-10). While we may think that one small coin was not worth worrying about, for the woman, the loss was significant enough for her to search her house, and when she found the coin, “she called together her friends and neighbours” who naturally wanted to celebrate her find with her!
Interestingly, Luke surrounds this story with two other similar stories. The chapter begins with a farmer who noticed one of his sheep was missing. The flocks and herds owned by Middle Eastern farmers were not large by our standards, and a flock of 100 sheep would have belonged to a clan rather than an to individual farmer. This meant the shepherd was able to go in search for the lost sheep while others minded the flock – and again you can imagine his joy when the sheep was found safe and sound.
Then there is a third story that follows the story of the lost coin – this time it was the son of a farmer who demanded his share of his inheritance, and he wanted it right now! Even though it was entirely inappropriate in their culture for him to make that demand, his father agreed, and his son went off and squandered his whole inheritance on 'wild living'!.
Unfortunately for him, a severe famine hit the country, and since he had spent his inheritance, his hunger forced him to take a job looking after a herd of pigs and he became so hungry that he would have happily eaten the slops given to the pigs. So it wasn't long before his hunger forced his decision to return home.
Unknown to him, his father had been waiting anxiously for his return, and when his father saw him in the distance, the father ran to welcome his son home, and rather than scolding him, his father threw a public party to celebrate his return.
What I found interesting, is while these stories are also found elsewhere in the Gospels, Luke alone weaves them together to tell a larger story. The focus of each of the three stories is that someone valued the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son, enough to search for them, and then to rejoice at their 'home-coming'.
The three parables also tell us something even more important, that affects us as well, because they are all stories of affirmation – told to remind us that we also are valued in the eyes and mind of God, and that our value doesn't depend on anything we have done. It relates instead to who we are: we have been created by God, and we are capable of carrying and reflecting the divine image through the way we live, as God waits and watches, loves and cares about us. Such joy is echoed in the following Poem by the 13th century Sufi Persian poet, Saadi Shirazi:
How could I ever thank you,
my Friend?
No thanks could ever begin to be worthy.
Every hair
of my body is a gift from you;
How could I thank you for each
hair?
I praise you, lavish Lord, forever,
Who from nothing
conjures all living beings!
Who could ever describe your
goodness?
Your infinite glory lays all praise waste.
Look, Your
grace us with a robe of splendour
from childhood's first cries to
old age!
You made us pure in your own image.
May we never let
dust settle on our mirror's shining;
When we work in the world to
earn our living,
let us not, for one moment, rely on our own
strength.
Self-worshiper,
don't you understand anything yet?
It is God alone that gives your
arms their power.
If, by your striving, you achieve something
good,
Don't claim the credit all for yourself;
In this world, you never stand by your own strength;
It is the Invisible that
sustains your every moment.
Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga
May you find peace and goodwill on your journey.
Phil