The three parables in Luke 15 are told in response to men and women of doubtful reputation hanging around Jesus. The Pharisees and religious professionals were not at all pleased at Jesus welcoming them. But if "the Lord is our Shepherd", he is not willing to give up on anyone no matter what their past or present may be. His priority is to reach everyone with his message of salvation, his good news of forgiveness, and restoration. He is concerned primarily, not with the righteous, the church members, but with those who are outside, the unchurched, the alienated, the lonely, those trying to make it on their own. Jesus is the Good Shepherd who came from God to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). The Pharisees and religious leaders were shepherds who were indifferent to the plight of their people. They were not prepared to go out of their way to seek those who were lost. These parables are about the seeking love of God - a God who does not wait for us to come to him but who takes the initiative to seek us, to find us, to reveal himself to us, to awaken us to our need, and to cause us to respond, to repent, to change, to return to him.

Have you ever tried to find something that was lost? It can be a piece of jewelry, like the coin this woman lost. You have misplaced a ring, and you hunt high and low for it. It may be a cell-phone, or a letter, and you retrace your steps in your mind to try to think where you may have left it. I lost my driving license once, and had to remember that it was in my swim-shorts. When I drove over to the pool, there it was on the bottom where it had fallen out of my pocket. Your relief at finding what you lost makes your day.

The lost coin in the parable is something precious - perhaps one-tenth of a dowry - one-tenth of one's capital, one-tenth of one's security. It signifies that each sinner is precious in God's eyes. The woman lights a lamp, scours the house and looks in every nook and cranny until she finds it. God could have left the world in darkness, to its own devices, to perish in its own sin, but instead he sent the light of the world. We are never to give up on the lost loved ones in our lives. They are precious in God's sight. We are to do everything we can to discover a way so that they may see the light of the Gospel. We pray for them, we love them, we continue to reach out to them, no matter how many times we may have been hurt by them or rejected by them.

The most famous parable of them all is about two sons who were lost but in different ways. The younger son has ended up in a pigsty having run out of friends and money. The older son has ended up resentful, angry and bitter because of jealousy, pride, self-righteousness and self-centeredness which made him incapable of forgiveness, generosity and love. The younger son came to his senses, saw the light, decided to repent and return to his father. The older son was blind to his condition, could not see that there was anything wrong with himself, and blamed his father instead. Too many religions are full of people like the older son. Churches may be filled with older son types whose critical spirit has driven away their younger brothers.

Tim Keller (The Prodigal God, p.68f.) writes about the young adults who came to New York City from more conservative parts of the USA, who were recovering from being hurt and offended by elder brothers who judged them in a hostile and bigoted way. He warns that if you confuse the Gospel with moralism, and religiousness, you can become condescending, condemning, anxious, insecure, joyless and angry all the time. "Elder brothers have an undercurrent of anger toward life circumstances, hold grudges long and bitterly, look down at people of other races, religions, and lifestyles, experience life as a joyless, crushing drudgery, have little intimacy and joy in their prayer lives, and have a deep insecurity that makes them overly sensitive to criticism and rejection yet fierce and merciless in condemning others." (p.70f.) You can be religious and be spiritually lost. Don't write off people who appear to be different to you. Pray for a loving attitude to them.

Yet a third time, Jesus portrays God the Father as taking the initiative to seek out his lost sons. He sees his younger son while he was still a long way off and was filled with compassion for him. He ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. He sees that his older son is missing from the welcome home feast and goes out to him, and pleads with him. He reassures his son that everything he has is his, and calls him to celebrate and be glad at the repentance, return, the resurrection, and the finding of his lost brother. God pleads with us to let go of our complaints, our selfish pride, self-righteousness, our thinking well of ourselves, and instead rejoice at his blessings, his gift of grace.

What do these three parables have to say to us? First, that the Lord is looking out for us and takes the initiative to search for us and find us when we are lost. That is the story of the Bible. It is the story of the Gospel. The Bible is not the story of humanity's search for God, but God's search for humanity. Jesus comes among us by his Spirit to seek and to save the lost.

Secondly, we should make it our priority to seek out the lost. We do it by prayer, by befriending them, by getting to know them personally, by inviting them to join us in worship, by giving them reading material. Do not give up on those who appear to be a long way from the Father. Andre Dubus, who lost his legs in a car accident writes,

"Living in the world as a cripple allows you to see more clearly the crippled hearts of some people whose bodies are whole and sound. All of us, from time to time, suffer this crippling. Some suffer it daily and nightly; and while most of us, nearly all of us, have compassion and love in our hearts, we cannot or will not see these barely visible wounds of other human beings, and so cannot or will not pick up the telephone or travel to someone's home or write a note or make some seemingly trifling gesture to give someone what only we, and God, can give: an hour's respite, or a day's, or a night's; and sometimes more than respite: sometimes joy." (Broken Vessels, p.143)

Thirdly, we must make sure that the angels are rejoicing over us, that we are not lost, but found, that we are repenting sinners who have come to our senses and have returned home to the loving embrace of our Father in heaven. We must make sure that we are not lost like the older son - lost in our anger, bitterness, self-righteousness and pride. We are all sinners in need of redeeming. We all need the Savior, who is seeking to love us and who has said that everything he has is ours, who has showered us with his grace and love in the Cross, where Christ died for our sins.

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