Variety: Luke 15v8-10
8 Or what woman, if she had ten drachma[a] coins, if she lost one drachma coin, wouldn’t light a lamp, sweep the house, and seek diligently until she found it? 9 When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the drachma which I had lost.’ 10 Even so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner repenting.”
Author Debie Thomas reflects on what these “lost and found” parables reveal about God:
We get lost. We get so miserably lost that the shepherd has to wander through the craggy wilderness to find us. We get so wholly lost that the housewife has to light her lamp, pick up her broom, and sweep out every nook and cranny of her house to discover what’s become of us.
For the record, these versions of lostness aren’t trivial. Notice that the searching in these parables is not a show…. What’s lost is really, truly lost—even though the seeker is God.
Can we pause for a moment and take in how astonishing this is? God faces genuine stakes when it comes to our lostness. God experiences authentic, real-time loss. God searches, persists, lingers, and plods. God wanders over hills and valleys looking for lost lambs. God turns her house upside down looking for her lost coin….
Maybe the most scandalous aspect of these lost-and-found parables is not that I still get lost. Maybe what’s most scandalous is what they reveal about the nature of God…
If Jesus’s parables are true, then God isn’t in the fold with the ninety-nine insiders. God isn’t curled up on her couch polishing the nine coins she’s already sure of. God is where the lost things are. God is in the wilderness, God is in the remotest corners of the house, God is where the search is at its fiercest. If I want to find God, I have to seek the lost. I have to get lost. I have to leave the safety of the inside and venture out. I have to recognize my own lostness and consent to be found….
God looks for us when our lostness is so convoluted and so profound, we can’t even pretend to look for God. But even in such bleak and hopeless places, God finds us. This is amazing grace. And it is ours.