FINDINGS II
Proper
19- C - September 12, 2010
Luke 15: 1-10
Luke15:1-10 The
toll takers and other wrong-doers were drawing near so they could listen to
Jesus; and the Pharisees and scribes were grumbling, saying, "This guy welcomes
wrongdoers and even eats with them." In light of that attitude, Jesus told this
parable: "Which of you, having 100 sheep and losing one of them, does not leave
the 99 out grazing and go after the one that is lost, and keeps at it until it
is found. When he does find it, he picks it up, lays it on his shoulder in
great relief. And when he comes home, he asks his friends and neighbors to come
over and celebrate with him: 'I have found the sheep that was lost.' In the
same way, I tell you that there will be more joy in heaven over one wrongdoer
who gets himself turned around than over 99 people who do not need turning
around. Or, putting it another way, what woman having 10 silver coins, if she
loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house and look for it
carefully until she finds it? When she finds it, she asks her friends and
neighbors over to celebrate her good luck. She says, 'I have found the coin I
lost.' In the same way, I am telling you, there is joy in the presence of the
heavenly hosts over one wrongdoer who sees the light and gets himself turned
around." (Translated and paraphrased by Harry T. Cook)
 By Harry T. Cook
9/6/10
RUBRIC
Loss whether by one's misplacing of a thing or by its
wandering off of its own volition can be at the least frustrating and at the
worst devastating, depending on the value of the lost thing. Loss of a loved
one by death or by that living death known as dementia or Alzheimer's disease
is a loss that is final and irrevocable. We mourn such a loss and then try in
some stable way to put it in perspective and move on.
Loss of material things or wealth is another matter. The
shepherd is depicted in the parable as having lost one percent of the wealth of
which in real first century C.E. life he would surely have been a steward. The
woman lost 10 percent of hers. The shepherd would have been accountable to the
owner of the sheep and, in the minds of those who may first have heard the
parable, would be facing instant unemployment and who knows what other punitive
action against him. The 10 coins it was said the woman possessed would have
been thought of as the extent of her funds.
Weighty issues these.
WORKSHOP
The core of this Lucan passage is locatable in Matthew 18:
12-14, and therefore probably in Q as well as in Thomas 107. However, the
Thomas version has quite a different feel to it as the shepherd is depicted as
saying to the one lost/found sheep, "I care for you more than the other 99." The
lost coin part of the parable is exclusively found in Luke as is what follows
it: the parable of the second or prodigal son.
The concept of sheep and shepherd was probably easier for a
first century C.E. peasant audience to grasp. Sheep are pretty hapless
creatures and can get separated easily enough from a flock, even one tended by
the best of shepherds. The kind of terrain upon which sheep would graze in
Palestine tends to be craggy with many a blind spot for the human being in
charge. In fact, 100 sheep (in this text surely a round number given for
effect) would present a tough job for the best of shepherds.
Yet they do keep track of things. Try to hear the shepherd
counting them as they enter the fold towards the close of the day. Try to see
the shepherd's face fall when he gets to 99 and has to stop counting. Does he own the sheep? Or is he a
hireling, as John would say (10:12ff)? Either way, if he is true to his
vocation, he secures the 99 and sets out as the evening shadows lengthen, back
to higher ground where many a danger and hazard await. "If" he finds it
(Matthew) or "when" (Luke, Thomas), there is cause for rejoicing because the
shepherd doesn't get fired or because the flock's owner retains one percent of
his capital.
The coins depicted were probably drachmas worth about what a
Roman denarius was worth: approximately a day's wages. So depending on the
standard of living at the time the parable was confected and assuming the woman
was on her own and therefore relatively powerless, her lost drachma or denarius
was about one's days sustenance. On that basis she would sooner rather than
later come to the place where the widow of Zarephath found herself when Elijah
showed up in 1st Kings 17: close to death by starvation.
The sense of the parable, better understood by sheep than
coin, is that the deity conceived of by late first century C.E. Jesus Jews was
thought to have a disposition toward human beings similar to that of the
faithful shepherd. One among 100 or one among 10 was valued as much as all 100
or all 10. A dumb sheep cannot ultimately be blamed for its lostness, much less
an inanimate coin, though both are valued for different reasons.
What of the toll collectors and wrongdoers with whom Jesus
is accused of fraternizing? The shortcomings of the "wrongdoers" (or sinners)
are difficult to catalogue. But we have a pretty good idea about the toll
collectors. They were the ones employed by Rome in Judea and Herod Antipas in
the Galilee to demand and receive custom and passage levies. They became known
as extortionists because some of them sometimes demanded more than the actual
levy and pocketed the difference. That would have made them an object of public
scorn.
The wrongdoers or sinners were those "who had made mistakes"
or "missed the mark" -- not the miserable, wicked and hopelessly depraved
wretches of many a fundamentalist preacher's sermon. Why were they depicted as
being attracted to Jesus? Maybe because the depicters themselves were thus
attracted as they perceived in the ethical wisdom that was Jesus' legacy a
culture of acceptance even of the otherwise marginalized -- an acceptance not
dependent upon religious ideology or purity codes but on personal intention and
amended behavior. They each were worth saving every bit as much as the lone
sheep and the lost coin.
HOMILETIC COMMENTARY
The passage starts with toll collectors and wrongdoers who
end up in a rather inelegant way being compared to sheep and coins. What the
former represent is the human being who, in the sense of Hillel's wisdom about
not doing to another what one would hate to have done to himself, is accepted
for who he or she is and even despite who her or she is.
Lost is lost, however one got sidetracked, marooned, off the
path or whatever. It may have been the indulgent trip off the right road. It
may have been at first an innocent flirtation with the forbidden. It may have
been a deliberate headlong plunge into the pit. But even while in one of those
sets of conditions, there is a beacon sweeping the landscape searching for and
a voice calling to the lost: Come home.
In the end, it is human beings who have to do that for one
another. The parable sets forth and models the ethic of outreach and
unconditional love and forgiveness. It is finally the only way human beings can
live together without killing each other.
|
|
