Lost and Found

Have you ever lost anything? Keys? Glasses? Cell phone? Tax receipt?

Do I need to ask? If some of the stories in this gospel need a bit of background information, this chapter certainly doesn’t.

Notice the way that Luke introduces these parables. There’s a crowd. In it are wealthy people who had got rich by dubious means, poor people who were reduced to stealing in order to feed their children, women in transition houses, street people, well, I paraphrase, but you get the point. These people all crowded around Jesus, hanging on every word. On the other hand, on the fringe of the crowd, listening just to check out what was going on, were the respectable religious elite, muttering under their breath. What Jesus was saying didn’t square with their views.

It’s to these people that Jesus tells his stories about lost things—sheep, money, and then a son.

The first two stories set up the story of the son, which is told in much more detail.

In our family, it was a precious teddy bear that was lost. At Heathrow airport. I was travelling with my two children from Canada and didn’t realize until too late that I was missing a bag—the bag in which I had packed my daughter’s teddy. All my attempts to recover it were hopeless. The IRA were active at the time, and travellers were warned that any luggage found unattended would be destroyed. Six weeks later, when we were back in Canada, my daughter looked for her teddy on her bed, where she thought she had carefully left it. I had to confess to her that I had put it in the lost bag. She was distraught—and then prayed that God would bring it back! The very next day, I heard from Heathrow that they had my bag, and later that day, I picked it up at the local airport, with Teddy inside.

That was more than forty years ago. We will never forget the joy of finding Teddy.

That’s how God feels when a sinner comes back to him. Test yourself: When you stray, do you expect God to welcome you back with joy? Or do you expect him to lecture you and say grudgingly that it’s okay? When you confess your sins, do you even think he cares?

Respond in Prayer

Our Father, please forgive us when we think of you as authoritarian and distant, and forget how much you love us and care about us when we go astray. How little we realize that we can give you joy! Amen.

Annabel Robinson

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version® (NIV®).