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TWENTY-FOURTH
SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (Year
C) 15th September
2019
A reading
from the Holy Gospel according to Gospel Luke 15:1-32
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to
listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling
and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats
with them.” So he told them this parable: “Which
one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them,
does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after
the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found
it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he
comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours,
saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found
my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there
will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than
over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. “Or
what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them,
does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully
until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together
her friends and neighbours, saying, ‘Rejoice with me,
for I have found the coin that I had lost’ Just so,
I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of
God over one sinner who repents.” Then Jesus said, “There
was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his
father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property
that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property
between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all
he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered
his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything,
a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he
began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to
one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his
fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself
with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave
him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How
many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and
to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and
go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I
have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer
worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired
hands.”‘ So he set off and went to his father.
But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was
filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him
and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I
have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy
to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly,
bring out a robe-the best one-and put it on him; put a ring
on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf
and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of
mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And
they began to celebrate. “Now his elder son was in the
field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard
music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what
was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and
your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got
him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused
to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him.
But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years
I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never
disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a
young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when
this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property
with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’
Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with
me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate
and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has
come to life; he was lost and has been found.'”
RECOVERING THE LOST
In
her novel, ‘Five for sorrow, Ten for joy’, which
some of you may have read, - the author, Rumer Godden tells
an appealing tale. The heroine of the story is Lisa, an English
army girl, what we used to call a wren, who falls upon hard
times and becomes a call girl after the liberation of Paris
in World War 2. Within a short time she becomes a leading
Madame in one Paris’ smartest brothels owned by a man
named Patrice. But Patrice soon tires of Madame Lisa as his
mistress, and so she is humiliated. Then, in trying to help
a younger prostitute to escape from the same fate she herself
has suffered; Lisa shoots and kills Patrice. She is tried
and sent to prison. There, in a penitentiary outside Paris,
she comes into contact with the French Dominican Sisters
of Bethany. This is a community dedicated to the pastoral
care of ladies of the night, drug addicts and vagrants. Some
of the sisters were once themselves such as unfortunates – and
so Lisa after serving her long sentence, becomes one of the
sisters of Bethany.
Sister Lisa is an archetype, a model if you like, of the
lost sheep and the lost coin In today’s twin parables.
She was wayward and lost, but through the Dominican Sisters
of Bethany, Jesus went searching for her – and when
he found her, he embraced her, took her in his arms and invited
her to become his spouse, a nun.
Who would deny that there was more joy in heaven and on earth
when Jesus found Lisa, than over 99 of us who have never
been lost in that way? Does that mean that God loves the
99 less? Surely not; just as parents do not love their children
less when a particular child is sick or disabled and needs
to be temporarily lavished with more love. Jesus’ two
parables are so simple that it is easy to miss out on how
sublime they are. So, just let me draw your attention to
some of their significant details.
First of all, take the chief actors of each story. A shepherd
in Jesus’ time was reckoned among the ‘sinners’.
With the great scarcity of grazing land, he was suspected
of driving his flocks onto neighbouring property and embezzling
the increase. A woman in Jesus’ day, in a male dominated
patriarchal society, was regarded as a second-class citizen – a
mere property of men. So, Jesus was really revolutionary
when he used the examples of these two people to play the
role of God in his parables. It is as if Jesus asked, ‘Do
you want to know what God is like? Then look at the shepherd
and the woman in my stories’.
Then there was the value of what was lost. One sheep did
not cost much, but at the same time it would be utterly helpless
to find its way home from the wilderness. Eventually it would
fall prey to starvation or to a wolf. The lost coin in the
other parable was probably part of the woman’s dowry
and represented her most precious possession and future security.
For us, the sheep and the coin, denote our unique worth as
individuals in the sight of God. Society may dehumanise us,
computers reduce us to a digit and statistics to anonymity – but
never God. We are always precious and of supreme value in
his eyes.
Finally, there’s the intensity of the search. With
great persistence, the shepherd leaves the rest of the flock
and wanders through cliffs and crags until he finds it. The
woman on the other hand, lights a candle and relentlessly
sweeps the house till she recovers her precious coin.
No matter how deep we fall or how far we wander, God never
gives up on us. He is this tremendous lover, the one who
searches for us with steadfast tenacity until he finds us.
Ultimately, there is joy in finding what was lost. The expression ‘there
was joy in heaven’ and ‘there is joy among the
angels’ are both expressions of God’s intense
feelings. In other words, God is the one who rejoices when
the lost are found and sinners repent. Our God is a God who
rejoices when sinners are saved, delights when we do the
right thing, and finds joy in being generous with his mercy.
Lisa learned that lesson late in life and maybe for us it’s
not too late.
Kevin
Lyon
Archdeacon of Glendalough
