Sally A Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary
Context matters for rightly interpreting the first two of Jesus’ three parables of God’s persistent seeking of that which is lost (Luke 10:1-15). Jesus is responding to grumbling Pharisees and scribes who criticize his habit of dining with the tax collectors and “sinners” who follow and listen to him. (Notably, the verb translated “listening” suggests “heeding” what is heard.) In both parables, the protagonist is not the sort of person an educated, religiously scrupulous Jew would seek to emulate. Shepherds were considered uncouth. To identify with a poor woman would be unthinkable. Yet these diligent searchers for something cherished reveal something of God’s ways with the lost.
We should not underestimate how shocking it was for Jesus to portray tax collectors and “sinners” (those who routinely break Jewish religious laws) as so valuable as to be worthy of a diligent recovery effort on the part of God. Tax collectors were collaborators with the Empire. “Sinners” was a broad category; but we should not romanticize them, imagining that all of them were simply nice people who, for reasons beyond their control, were forced to make their living in a fashion that breaks Jewish law. Certainly, these sorts of persons would be included among “sinners;” but also in this category would be thieves, cheats, and adulterers. Yet Jesus, as God’s agent of the reign of God, breaks bread with them. This means that Jesus chooses to throw aside all respectability for their sake. For law-keeping Jewish leaders, this would utterly discredit both the man and his message.
In every congregation, there will be some who identify with the “lost” in these parables. Notably, neither sheep nor coin can help itself. (Solitary sheep go silent, so as not to attract predators.) Luke has been stressing the need to repent, but that is not the dynamic in these parables. Here, God is the active agent who searches, checks every ravine and sweeps every corner until the lost is found. The helpless sheep rides on the shepherd’s shoulders; the lost coin is held firmly in a woman’s hand. Joy envelopes both the seeker and the sought; empathetic neighbors, also poor, gather and rejoice. These parables will resonate for anyone who has been delivered from addiction to alcohol or drugs, recovered their senses after living a double life for months or years, or been released from prison, whether literally or metaphorically. God values us, hunts for us, and joyfully grants second chances.
Many in the pews may find themselves standing aloof with the Pharisees and scribes. We prefer to find God in beautiful sanctuaries and soul-stirring music, not in thorn-infested scrub where predators stalk, or in the messiness of trash-strewn streets where God’s lost ones scrape and scrabble to live another day. A sermon on these parables should not end in a list of abstractions (“the poor, the hungry, the oppressed”) and wave a hand vaguely in their direction. A compelling sermon will sketch realistic situations where human lives (often despite a respectable façade) are going off the rails, or broken people are degraded by prejudice, addiction, or poverty. What changes must we make in our schedules and our habits, so that we can search out those unfamiliar neighborhoods and humble tables where Jesus is even now breaking bread with the lost? These parables urge us to leave the sanctuary and hurry to find our place at Jesus’ side, pursuing the search-and-rescue mission of God.
Insights into Biblical Greek Grammar and Syntax 