Now, I don’t want to give away too much in spoilers, but these two parables are not, as it were, the end of the story. There is more to come – a truly revealing third parable. But we don’t hear that one today, and by next Sunday, strangely, we’ll have moved on to another.
In the meantime, in the shepherd’s hut and the woman’s home, all is celebration. One of the beautiful things about this pair of parables is the way in which neither person can contain their joy – they won’t even try to keep it to themselves. Instead, they throw open their homes, and their hearts, and they invite their friends and neighbours to rejoice with them. So is the joy in heaven in the presence of the angels, when one who was lost returns, is found by the grace of God.
Spoiler alert: back here in our world, this perfect picture will not last beyond the next parable. The reason Jesus started this set of stories was because of the grumbling of certain jealous and joyless people who resented the relationship Jesus had with those of whom they did not approve. Jealousy is perhaps the quickest and surest way to puncture joy, let out its air, so that it droops and flops. Not so in heaven, in the presence of the angels of God. But we are a little earthier than angels, aren’t we?
I notice that the woman and the shepherd are not afraid that someone will say, “Well, what’s the big deal?” or, “She should have kept a closer eye on it in the first place,” or, “Nice for some to have a hundred sheep.” They are not afraid of envy, jealousy, ridicule, or worse. They are all innocence as they share the good news that they have.
This zero-sum game that we play with one another, its maths doesn’t add up in the divine economy. There is no hint in these parables that the shepherd doesn’t love the ninety-nine other sheep, or that the woman sees no value in the other nine coins – what sense would that make? Instead of rejecting anyone, these stories tell us that for God, ninety percent is not enough. God loves everyone whom God has made, no exceptions, as we so often tell one another. Meatloaf may have sung, “Two out of three ain’t bad,” but for God, even ninety-nine percent is not a good enough grade. For the joy of the community – sheep, shepherd, friends, neighbours, tax collectors, sinners, scribes, Pharisees to be complete, there can be no exceptions.
One of the characteristics of a parable is that its meaning of the parable is determined by the experience of the hearer as well as the intentions of the teller. It is mutable. So I imagine that this particular pair of parables hits a little differently, somewhat tenderly, today, when the community is missing some of its members, has lost some of its sheep, misplaced some of its valued and invaluable assets.
So let’s also recognize this: There wasn’t much the ninety-nine sheep could do to bring back their friend, still less the silver coins to find their complete set. Instead, it is the shepherd, the Good Shepherd who seeks and finds. It is the woman – creative, resourceful, persistent, and divine, who sweeps and finds. It is the grace of God, the transformative love of Jesus, that makes the difference. The work of the community – sheep, coins, friends, neighbours, scribes, sinners, Pharisees, and all, is to be ready to celebrate, to share in the joy of heaven over the repentance and return of one miserable sinner, when and whenever it happens.
This might be a good time to mention that the third parable, the pinnacle of this set that Jesus tells those grumbling and jealous people, is the parable of the prodigal son. He tells it not only to describe the warm and eager and expansive embrace of the father welcoming his lost child home. He tells it to the elder brothers, the ones who refuse to celebrate, who shut themselves out of the feast, out of jealousy, and to their own loss.
Jealousy, as I said, is the thief of joy. It keeps the elder brother from the family reunion. It prevents the citizen from celebrating the rescue of the refugee, the wealthy from celebrating Jesus’ announcement of good news for the poor and the meek. It resents the love of God for its rival, and leads to the casting of golden calves to spite them all. It clouds the vision of the scribes so that they do not even recognize the Word of God when he is standing right in front of them, telling stories from heaven.
I heard, during the tumult and terror of this past week, someone speaking from the highest office in the land, saying that he “couldn’t care less” about bringing people back together. It sounded, I hope, as though what I heard was grief lashing out, as grief will. But these parables remind us that God, God literally could not care less than one hundred percent. It is who God is, to love without end, without giving up on any of us.
Love. It is love that turns away the wrath of God and the violence of humanity. Love converts sinners into saints, Saul into Paul, persecutors into preachers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the love of God for this world made manifest. It must have seemed impossible, but with God, nothing is impossible. Love celebrates each and every step towards the joy of heaven, the reign of God, the community of the beloved made whole; each sheep, each coin, each brother, each sleepless night spent searching for the way back home.
Jesus tells these parables to the scribes and the Pharisees, the tax collectors and sinners, the disciples, the curious, and the concerned. He invites them to leave their grumbling and their jealousy, to drop their superiority and their self-righteousness, their self-loathing and their doubt, and just come, come join the party.
“Rejoice with me,” he tells them, for such is the joy in heaven, in the presence of the angels, when you, when I, when the last, lost sheep, shows up at the feast that God has laid out, laid on for us.
Readings for Year C Proper 19 include Exodus 32:7-14, Psalm 51:1-11, 1 Timothy 1:12-17, Luke 15:1-10
over the water 