on finding and being found

 

Jesus’ parables are stories with a super-abundance of meaning. They cannot mean whatever we like—as Archbishop Michael Ramsey put it, “God is Christlike, and in Him there is no unchristlikeness at all.”—but they do mean more than we can contain.

Luke records a parable involving a shepherd and a lost sheep, and another involving a woman and a lost coin.

By now, if we are at all familiar with the Story, we know that Jesus is both the Good Shepherd and the Lamb of God. This parable, then, has meaning in which he is the shepherd, who comes in search of us when we wander far from God, and brings us home; and a meaning in which Jesus is the precious thing we have become aware is missing in our lives, for whom we search, and find with great joy. It turns out that in our finding Jesus, we are found by him. There is also, perhaps, a meaning in which Jesus is both shepherd and sheep, the ‘alpha and omega’ of the parable. Even this does not exhaust meaning here.

This parable is followed immediately by another, which is the same parable expressed in different terms: a woman, and a coin. We conclude, therefore, that Jesus is both the woman and the coin. These are, perhaps, less familiar images than the shepherd and the sheep; but we might be reminded of women in the Scriptures, and stories about how they act, and we might see Jesus revealed in them, in ways we were previously unaware of. But, again, Jesus is the one who searches for us in the dark corners of this world, and the one for whom we search.

One of the purposes of the parables is to train us to see Jesus—as he is—in the everyday experiences of our lives. To find Christlikeness in washing clothes (where do those socks go, in the machine?) or searching for a document poorly filed somewhere on your laptop; in walking up and down the supermarket aisles, and losing ourselves in a novel or TV drama; in redundancy and divorce, in being misunderstood, in all the mini deaths that precede our dying, and in death itself—and resurrection.

The letters written to the earliest churches testify to this superabundance of meaning in our lives—we, on earth, are seated with Christ in the heavenly places; nothing [insert long list] can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus; now to him who is able to do far more than all we can ask or imagine—all of which points us back to Jesus.

May we find, and be found by, him today, in whatever circumstances we face. May we know his welcome, and the joy of heaven.

Luke 15.1-10

15 Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.
2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’
3 So he told them this parable:
4 ‘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?
5 When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.
6 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.”
7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.
8 ‘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?
9 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.”
10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.’