More Than One Way to be Lost

Sunday Scriptures from the  Narrative Lectionary

Psalm 119:167-176

Luke 15:1-32

There is more than one way to be lost.

This coming Sunday marks the third Sunday of Lent. Our Narrative Lectionary readings this week combine a section of Psalm 119 with three parables from Jesus in Luke 15 about losing, searching, and finding. 

We remember that Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem and is determined to get there, knowing the fate that is waiting for him: “Today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33). We know at least something of Jesus’ thoughts and feelings as he sees Jerusalem ahead of him on the road: “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” (Luke 13:34). 

It seems to me that Jesus is painfully aware of those who are lost around him, and is attempting to gather them in - if they are willing - to the very end. Perhaps this helps us to understand why, in Luke 14, there is such an emphasis on parties, feasts, and invite lists: “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you” (Luke 14:13-14). 

It is in that context that we read the first two verses of Luke 15, which set the scene for Jesus’ three parables:

“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.’”

Some are more open to being "gathered" by Jesus than others. The tax collectors are sinners are listening. The Pharisees and scribes are grumbling.

There is more than one way to be lost.

Jesus has continued to ruffle feathers by eating with the “wrong” people. In response to the grumblers, he tells three parables.

Parables, we remember, are stories, usually about common life and everyday experiences. The parables Jesus tells in Luke 15 have to do with sheep, coins, and complicated family dynamics. Each parable has some things in common - all have to do with losing, or being lost…with searching, or being sought out…with finding, or being found…and with rejoicing with a community…or remaining on the outside.

Each parable dealt with a situation that would have been familiar enough to resonate with his listeners, but this does not mean that they are simply moral fables or folk tales that communicate generic ethical truths. Parables are deceptively simple.

Fred Craddock writes:

“The parable puts a burden on the listener that is not intellectual; rather, it teases the mind into active thought. The hearer has a feeling of strangeness in a very familiar narrative, and some interpretation is not only invited but urged. The hearer thus becomes an active participant in the communication and begins to offer interpretations.”

What this means, says Craddock, is that “each hearer must take responsibility for his or her own faith…parables are not used by speakers who wish to control listeners by telling them exactly what to think and to do…parables are not well received by persons who wish to be told directly what to think, to believe, and to do.”

Parables are not feel-good stories. They are not cheap entertainment. They are not obvious or predictable. They do not reinforce our preconceived assumptions, or the status quo. We can’t lean back and mindlessly consume them. They are resistance literature. They are world-builders. They are kingdom stories that teach us a new way of being in the world. They are less like a cheap romance paperback, and more like an epic Dostoevsky novel that keeps you coming back again and again, your whole life long, never exhausting the meaning of it. Like that epic Dostoevsky novel, Jesus’ parables have the potential to reinvigorate our imaginations, to shock and stir, and even offend, us into new ways of seeing the world. 

And the wonderful and dangerous thing about new ways of seeing is that it leads to new ways of being and acting. They have the potential to turn your world upside down.

When was the last time you read them like that? 

Even if you have read these parables in Luke 15 before, it might be time to try reading them with fresh eyes. Try reading them as if you actually have something to learn from them. Try placing yourself in the shoes of different characters in the scene. Lean in to them. Let them work on you. 

Remember - there is more than one way to be lost.

In closing, I consider the Pharisees and scribes, and how they might have received these stories. It is important to remember, amid the gospel writers’ depiction of the Pharisees as Jesus’ enemies, that Jesus was as Jewish as the Pharisees were. The problem the Pharisees had was not that they were too Jewish, or too legalistic, or too obsessed with the law. The problem was that they had missed the point of it all. Jesus was trying to gather them back into the fold, to help them to see the point of the law, which had always been to practice love and mercy and justice. But many - not all, but many - of them resisted. They did not like the feeling of being lost. If we're honest, who does?

The Pharisees would have been intimately familiar with Psalm 119. They had likely recited it in their own personal and synagogue worship many times. They had likely studied and debated their meaning. This is a good thing! This Psalm in particular extols the wisdom and wonder of God’s law as revealed to Jewish people - a wisdom and wonder that continues to be ours today. 

My soul keeps your decrees; 

I love them exceedingly.

I keep your precepts and decrees, 

For all my ways are before you.

…

I long for your salvation, O Lord,

And your law is my delight.

Let me live that I may praise you,

And let your ordinances help me.

I have gone astray like a lost sheep; 

Seek out your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.

Perhaps this Psalm was always meant to help us to see that ultimately, there is more than one way to be lost...and Jesus searches out each one.

Jesus’ parables, if we lean in and hear them - really hear them - might help us to realize the ways that we are lost and need God’s gracious love to seek us out again and again. And they might also prompt us to notice and relentlessly go after the ones around us who are lost, without whom we cannot be whole.

Try reading them with fresh eyes today.

Blessings on your preparation for worship.

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Works Cited:

Fred B. Craddock. 2009. Luke : Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press.