Through the Bible, Week 35 - Parable of Lostness (part one)

Parable of Lostness – Luke 15 (part one)

Jesus has just finished two parables that address the subject of hospitality – how to show it and receive it (14:7-24).  In chapter 15, Jesus is practicing what he preaches and it gets him into trouble with the religious leaders who grumble “This man receives sinners and eats with them” (15:2). 

In response to the hostility Jesus tells another “sideways” story.  It is important that this is one (not three parables).  Luke specifically says Jesus to them “this” parable.  It is one parable with at least three movements.  How can we be sure?  Each movement has a common theme (something is lost), common refrain (something (or someone) was lost and is now found, come rejoice with the finder of the lost) and a common development (the stakes keep getting higher).  The third movement is the climactic one, where the younger son is lost by the Father and ultimately found.  Each of the these movements paint a picture of God the Father who is the one who seeks the lost:  the shepherd, the woman and the Father.  How do the first two movements – a lost sheep and lost coins – function with this larger whole? 

Lost Sheep

Jesus tells a story of a shepherd who loses one in one hundred sheep.  He is a good shepherd so he leaves the ninety and nine to pursue the one lost one.  In a shepherding culture this would not be an unfamiliar sight or story.  Jesus is drawing on both common experience and a strong biblical motif, as the following chart illustrates (based on a chart by Ken Bailey): 

David (Psalm 23)          Jeremiah (Jer.23:1-8)        Ezekiel (Ezek. 34:1-31)    Jesus (Luke 15:4-7)

-----------------	Bad Shepherd	Bad Shepherd	Bad/Good Shepherd
Lost Sheep	Lost flock	Lost Flock	Lost Sheep
Problem: A sheep is lost	Problem: shepherds destroy & scatter sheep	Problem: shepherds scatter & eat sheep	Problem: shepherd loses a sheep
Good Shepherd: God	Good Shepherd: God + David	Good Shepherd: God + David	Good Shepherd:  Jesus
Incarnation implied	Incarnation promised	Incarnation promised	Incarnation implied
Price paid: bring back	Price paid: Gather, bring back	Price paid: Search for, save, deliver, bring back	Price paid: search for, find, carry back
Repentance: return to God	Restoration: Return to Land	Restoration: Return to Land	Repentance: Return to God
-----------------	-------------------	Bad Sheep	Bad Sheep?
Celebration	-------------------	-------------------	Celebration
Story ends in the house	Story ends in the land	Story ends in the land	Story ends in the house

A Semitic metaphor for God is set in a classical Jewish story reshaped by Jesus. Jesus is placing himself in the form of God in accordance with Biblical imagery and biblical themes. (BTW, this teaching is another reason, among many, I believe Jesus is the origins of the early Church’s high Christology).  Remember the audience (15: 2).  Jesus is talking to the shepherds of Israel and indirectly blaming them for losing the sheep he is now finding.  They may or may not have gotten that reference.  They are in complete denial about being “bad” shepherds.  They are convinced Jesus is.  So Jesus ups the ante with two more stories. 

Lost Coin

In the first movement something of value is lost: one sheep.  More precisely, one in a hundred sheep is lost.  The contrast between Jesus and Israel’s bad shepherds may or may not have been taken.  So Jesus now moves to something of more value and more rare (a drachma represent a day’s wage and there are only 10).  So we have a coin representing the value of more than one sheep and there are only 10.  The stakes have gone from 1/100 to 1/10.  And by moving from a shepherd as the “God figure” to a woman as the “God figure” Jesus is upping the ante in terms of his metaphorical theology. 

Throughout the Gospels (and especially in Luke), Jesus is elevating the status of women, even calling them to be part of his band of disciples (cf. Luke 8:1-3).  But now he goes farther and uses a woman to play the role of God in his parable of Lostness.  There is much that can be said about this, but in terms of Luke 15 it plays a preparatory role as we prepare to meet God in this third and most important metaphor of “the Father.”   Indeed, according to Jesus’ use of the language, “Father” is more than a metaphor.  And Jesus uses the metaphor of shepherd and woman to expand and re-shape our understanding of how he understands and relates to his (and eventually our) heavenly Father.  Since earthly fathers – even the best of them – are pale echoes of the heavenly father, Jesus must reshape our earthly categories so that we don’t project erroneous understandings upon that nature of God.