Earlier this year, I started wearing hearing aids. Of course, I didn’t I needed this expensive addition to my daily “wardrobe.” The problem was that people were speaking too softly and too quickly. And, if those British actors would learn to speak English, it would be much easier to hear them.
My hearing aids came with an app to put on my cell phone. This application enables me to adjust my hearing aids to account for different situations. The app also includes a way to track where your hearing aid is if you’ve misplaced it.
I’ve used that feature a number of times already.
If like me, you seem to be losing things more often, you may be re-assured by today’s Gospel reading about the lost sheep and the lost coin.
This theme of lost and found runs throughout Luke’s Gospel.
Very early on in Luke’s Gospel, Zechariah loses his voice when he doubts that Elizabeth will bear a son. Later on, Mary and Joseph lose the 12-year old Jesus when they travel to Jerusalem.
One of the most significant stories about loss is what we call the Parable of the Prodigal Son, which immediately follows today’s reading and is actually the conclusion to Jesus’ response to the Pharisees’ question.
The noted New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine suggests that this is really a parable about TWO lost sons. The younger son is lost, but he eventually returns – and is “found” by his father with great joy and celebration. But while this younger prodigal son is away wasting his father’s inheritance, the father loses his elder son, failing to keep him in the flock, so to speak.
It’s tempting to push this metaphor of lost and found even further. Zachaeus gets lost in the tree, for example, until Jesus spots him. But let’s not get carried away with this literary device.
These stories in Luke highlight a second theme of the Gospel: counting carefully to make sure everything is where it should be – including where your heart is.
Another way to describe this counting is “paying attention” or “hearing the word.”
Luke’s extended parable of the Sower is the framework for understanding the entire gospel. Luke, unlike Matthew and Mark, includes Jesus’ explanation of the parable. In chapter 8, we read, “As for the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast.”
A few verses later, Jesus says, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”
And Luke’s Gospel includes the memorable where Mary is praised for sitting at Jesus feet and listening to him.
Where these two themes come together is Jesus’ use of parables.
Luke, the longest of the Gospels, has more parables than Mark and Luke, including the Parable of the Lost Sons as well as the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
Parables – like the two we have in today’s Gospel – weren’t usually explained or made into allegories. Rather, they were meant to be puzzles or brain teasers. And the puzzle didn’t have a single, coherent solution. Rather, the listener was prodded – even provoked – to reflect on a question or quandary.
As Amy-Jill Levine, herself Jewish, says: “Jews never agree about anything. We love to argue.”
If we listen to today’s two parables, we can certainly find something to argue about.
As with many of Jesus’ statements and actions, today’s parables are quite absurd. Like healing a man on the Sabbath when waiting a day would have been no problem. Or provocatively setting aside common sense table manners.
Just think. What sheep owner in his right mind is really going to leave 99 sheep unattended? And more to the point, a sheep owner is supposed to keep track of his sheep. They are his livelihood.
And no woman would ever lose track of such a valuable coin. Those coins were her future. And she wouldn’t have wasted valuable resources on a big party.
But these parables prod us to pay attention, to think again, to let our hearts and minds be turned upside down. If we listen carefully, we will find something new that will make all the difference.
What we find, I think, is that Jesus is the lost sheep. Jesus is the lost coin. Jesus is the lost traveler who ends up in the ditch. And Jesus is the lost son.
In Luke’s Gospel, the women are the first to visit Jesus’ tomb after his crucifixion. They find the tomb empty, and two men in dazzling white tell the terrified women, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here. Remember what he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, be crucified, and on the third day rise again.”
Today, like those women at the empty tomb, we are invited to hear and keep remembering the good news: Jesus, the lost son who gave his life for us, is welcomed by the Father.
And we are invited to the party, we are invited to live with joy, we live with hope because God keeps count, God doesn’t forget.
As we hear in Mary’s Song, from chapter 2: “For God remembered his promise of mercy, the promise he made to our fathers, to Abraham and his children forever.”
Hearing all of this together – with the Holy Spirit at full steam during this season of Pentecost – we are given the faith to trust that promise of mercy.
In the second half of Luke’s Gospel, which we know as the Acts of the Apostles, the Pentecost story reminds us that the Holy Spirit does her best work when we are gathered together.
That’s especially good news for people like me who don’t listen very well and don’t pay attention. But I suspect all of us are having trouble hearing right now. We are overwhelmed by negative noise, we are beside ourselves with worry about what’s happening to our country, and we are haunted by the silence of hopeful voices.
Being here with each other, all of us listening together, keeps our hearts and minds focused on our shared faith in God’s mercy.
In our Morning Prayer sessions each Thursday on Zoom, we pray together the Song of Mary. Near the end, we also pray the Suffrages. There are two beautiful versions of these Suffrages, but I especially like Suffrage B.
So, we – who, like the lost sheep and the lost coin, have been found by the Good Shepherd who gave his life for us – pray together the last two versicles and responses:
V: Lord, show us your love and mercy;
R: For we put our trust in you.
V: In you, Lord, is our hope;
R: And we shall never hope in vain. Amen.
