The Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin

 

These simple and moving parables are incarnations of the same lesson taught in the Prodigal Son. Jesus may have told the three separately, or combined them in different ways on different occasions.

 

Another time, the tax-gatherers and prostitutes were all crowding around to listen to him. And the scribes grumbled, and said, “This fellow welcomes criminals and eats with them.”

And Jesus told them this parable. “What do you think: If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them strays, doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go looking for the one that strayed? And when he finds it, he is filled with joy, and he puts it on his shoulders and goes home and gathers his friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me: I found my sheep that was lost.’

“Or if a woman has ten silver coins and loses one of them, doesn’t she light a lamp and sweep the house and keep searching until she finds it? And when she finds it, she gathers her friends and neighbors and says, ‘Rejoice with me: I found the coin that I lost.’ In just the same way, I tell you, God rejoices over one sinner who returns.”

 

Another time…eats with them: An editorial introduction that places the three parables in an appropriate context, since all three are attempts to make vivid for the pious what they already know: that God will always forgive the truly repentant criminal.

 

And the scribes grumbled: Here, for a change, Luke’s editing reflects the mind of the authentic Jesus. Unlike the “Jesus” of the later accretions, whose hackles are raised at the slightest opposition, Jesus here doesn’t take the grumbling personally. He just proceeds, compassionately and with great patience, to explain the truth to the scribes.

 

one of them strays: This is the clear-minded way of seeing a wicked person: not as someone who “is” wicked, but as someone who through ignorance has lost his way.

 

doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine: The parable shouldn’t be read as an allegory. If we equate the shepherd with God, the parable breaks down, since God can never, even for one moment, leave the ninety-nine. (Nor can God leave the one. Even when we are lost, we are found; though only when we realize that we are lost can we begin to be found.)

 

when he finds it, he is filled with joy: This is the point.

 

I found my sheep that was lost: Luke adds a moral, “In the same way, I tell you, there will be greater joy in heaven over one sinner who repents [returns] than over ninety-nine righteous people who don’t need to repent [return].” This is like saying that more light comes through one window with a little patch wiped clean than through ninety-nine fully transparent windows. On the other hand, as John Tarrant points out, “One repentant sinner’s joy fills the whole universe; there is nothing greater because there is nothing else.”

 

silver coins: Literally, “drachmas.” A drachma was worth slightly less than a denarius.

God rejoices over one sinner who returns: To be more precise, we have to change metaphors. God is here a mirror reflecting the joy of the person who is found.

 

sources: Luke 15:1-3; Matthew 18:12; Luke 15:5f, 8-11