Lost and found Luke 15 Oct 2 2022 Family Service
Anyone ever lost something? Car or house keys mobile phone something else? Panic sets in - Where to look, who to contact, emotions of anger, frustration, annoyance… What if you have lost sight of a member of the family? I can think of several instances – as a child my sister went missing; my mother panicked, called the police, I had my first ride in a police car (I think it’s been my only ride so far –) and within half an hour or so, panic over, my sister was sitting in our neighbour’s house opposite blissfully unaware that anything was wrong.
I once chose to be lost – I can’t remember the circumstances but I decided to go for a walk and escaped the house aged around 8; I ran off, and my parents and others came looking; I hid from them until they had gone past, then quietly made my way home, got back into my bedroom and when they found me they were mightily relieved but never knew where I’d been, assuming I’d been there all the time!
The third was when we had our three daughters, all then very young and on arriving back home we unloaded the car, and suddenly realised our middle daughter was missing. Well, you can imagine the panic the rushing around looking for her – after about ten minutes there she was hiding around the corner of the house from us!
In each case, people who cared went out looking for the one who they thought was lost.
In our bible reading today from Luke’s gospel, we have two stories of lost-ness; in fact the chapter goes on to a third story, of a lost son, which I will mention in a moment.
We have the first about a sheep that got lost; it wandered off, nibbling its’ way to what it may have thought was freedom, but lost to the shepherd and the rest of the flock. Sheep are incredibly stupid and intelligent at the same time – stupid, because they won’t go through the gate in front of their noses, but intelligent because of there is a hole in the fence they’ll find it.
In our second story there is a woman who lost a coin; it is possible this was a special valuable coin on a headband that would have been a wedding gift and so important to her. Yet somehow the coin was lost – maybe because of the lady’s carelessness. Most things get lost through our carelessness, not thinking of what we are doing with our possessions, or maybe having senior moments as we do when we get a bit older!
And in the third story, it is about a family of parents with two sons; the younger one wants his share of the family fortune now, then leaves home and squanders his money. It became known as the story of the prodigal son; he spent all he had on friends, wine, women and song so to speak, then when it was all gone, ended up feeding pigs.
Each story is the same – the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son. One wandered away, one was lost through someone else’s carelessness, one chose to be lost.
In each story there is a good ending; the shepherd cared so much for one of his 100 sheep that he left the 99 on the hillside and went to find it; the woman turned her house upside down to find the coin, but in the third, the father had to wait for the son to realise he was lost, to come to himself and return home.
But there were three parties: the shepherd rejoiced that he had found his sheep, the woman called her friends round “rejoice with me, I have found that which I lost”, and the third, a father had a great feast for the lost son – although the point of the story is that the elder brother didn’t want his bother back, and was furious that such a fuss was made about him. Sometimes people being restored to God’s kingdom, favour and forgiveness are resented by others – “we don’t want his sort back here.” No grace, no mercy, no forgiveness.
Why did Jesus tell this story? Because there were people who grumbled that he mixed with all sorts of people they disapproved of - the story is about people who are lost to God’s kingdom; some have wandered off, and got lost somehow in life’s journey and they need someone to go after them to bring them back to Christ. Others have been lost to God’s kingdom through carelessness – sometimes of Christians whose lives, words or actions have been less Christ like, sometimes because someone has annoyed them and they have walked away from Jesus and his church. And some choose to be lost and it takes a long while to realise they are, until maybe because someone somewhere is praying for them, they realise they need to return to the loving Father who waits with arms outstretched to say, “welcome home! We can have a party!”
What about you today? Are you lost? Have you wandered away from Jesus, or never really got to know him and now you realise there is more to life and maybe He has the answers?
Or are you carrying a resentment because of what someone said or did and they were careless and you left? Or maybe you chose to be lost, but now it’s time to consider returning, for Jesus waits for you.
they may all know what it is to be found, restored, loved , forgiven, welcomed.
Part of walking with Jesus Christ is knowing we are found – assurance.
Please ask if you want to know how to be found by the loving God who is chasing you to forgive and welcome you.
