Quite a few years ago when I was holidaying in Melbourne my mother and I took my children and two of my nieces into town to do some shopping and see a movie. In the middle of a very busy Myers store in Bourke St we realised one of the children wasn't with us any longer - they had been weaving in and out amongst the clothing racks playing hide and seek with each other but all of a sudden Elise, my five-year-old niece, wasn't anywhere to be seen. We looked around for a while and called her name and began to get a bit worried when she didn't turn up quickly. It wasn't unusual for one of my boys to get lost, but if they did they just yelled at the top of their voices so it was easy to find them again. Elise was a different sort of child. After enlisting the help of store security we found her wandering near the main entrance - right at the other end of the store - weeping quietly to herself. No-one likes to lose a child, and of course all sorts of scenarios go through your mind in such a situation. Whether a child expresses loud fury at being left behind or quiet despair there is no less resolve to find them when they are lost. The parent, relative or carer will search until the lost is found. It's not like losing glasses or a piece of jewellery that might one day turn up again, with a child we don't give up.

The three parables in Luke 15 are linked together - three quite different scenes but all with the theme of lost and found. They reach a sort of climax with the third parable - the Lost Son or the Prodigal Son as it is better knows, but the diligence and care of the searcher is emphasised just as strongly in the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin parables that come first. In fact this is one of the surprising aspects of the parables. A single sheep and a single coin are worth a great effort of searching, and their discoveries are celebrated by a party with friends and neighbours. Of course it is possible to speculate that those individual things were worth a lot - the coin, we are told, was probably equivalent to a full day's wage. That seems sensible until we realise that the woman threw a large party which must have eaten into that coin's value fairly significantly. The sheep was one of a hundred - a large flock for that place and time but nevertheless more significant than the value we might place on sheep in 21st century Australia. One lost sheep is not a newsworthy event in Australia. For us they are just 1,000, or 15,000 or 30,000 head, to be handled by dogs that are directed by men in trucks or on trail bikes. Or they are that pathetic mob of trembling mutton that are packed like sardines on to a ship bound for the Middle East, and left to languish for weeks due to bureaucratic negotiation. But even if the small flocks of biblical Palestine were known and perhaps named individually, meaning that one lost sheep was a significant event, Luke's parable tells us that the Shepherd left the 99 in the wilderness when he set off to find the lost sheep. When this story is recorded in another contemporary but non-biblical collection of Jesus's sayings - the Gospel of Thomas - we see that this recklessness of the shepherd needed some explanation. In the GT version we read "Jesus said the kingdom is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them, the largest, went astray. He left the 99 and looked for the one until he found it. When he had gone to such trouble, he said to the sheep: "I care for you more than the ninety-nine." GT 107. But Luke doesn't give any such explanations.

If we thought about it we too would be surprised at the story as it stands. Why would the shepherd leave the majority in danger to search for one? And yet, as we realised from my illustration at the beginning, even one when it is loved dearly cannot be given up on. This is certainly part of the message of the parables. If the shepherd and the woman are in some way representative of God, then God's grace is extravagant, reckless, overflowing. God doesn't assess situations the way we might, deciding on the worth of something by its physical attributes or monetary value. Rather God risks all for the safety of each individual - God counts in ones. God searches diligently, and God works to bring back the lost - carrying the sheep on his shoulders no less. And that is not all - God invites others to share the joy when the lost is found - by throwing open the house and having a party.

This is a pretty wonderful image, and the commentaries on Luke 15 often call the chapter "parables of love and forgiveness". The image, particularly of God as a loving shepherd, is a familiar and sweet one. A few years ago I mentioned in a children's talk that I still say a childhood prayer some nights, especially when I'm in need of comfort and courage. "Jesus gentle shepherd hear me bless thy little lamb tonight. Through the darkness be thou near me. Keep me safe till morning light." Jesus the good shepherd is warm, fluffy, comforting.

But hang on, I'm hearing you saying. I thought the parables were meant to shock! You've told us before that they were stories aiming to turn the world upside down! So what is shocking in these words of Jesus?

To answer this we need to remember the context. The scene is set as we are told sinners and tax collectors were coming near to Jesus to listen. And Pharisees and scribes were coming near to grumble, to murmur, to complain. Their complaint was one we've heard before. "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." They were pursuing a life of holiness which for them meant being set apart and kept pure before God. They valued generosity and almsgiving - in the Middle East a nobleman will happily provide a table for the needy - but to sit with such people would be to treat them as equals. And, anyway, it wasn't the destitute who were gathering around Jesus and being treated as his equals, it was the unholy - the professionally unclean: tax collectors, prostitutes, the diseased, fishermen, farmers, women and shepherds.

Yes, women and shepherds. Jesus told those around him stories about God's kingdom in pictures that were just like their lives. What a different and confronting sort of teaching that was. Would the Pharisees have ever likened God to a woman? At a big stretch perhaps we could tap into the background of the Matriarch Sarah or the noble warrior Deborah. But a simple housewife with a broom? Women had very little status in that society. No-one would bother to teach a woman to read. No women were needed to constitute a worshipping community. Their place as in the home, doing the domestic work, keeping quiet. But Jesus was saying God's love is like a woman sweeping until she finds a lost coin, then raising her voice to draw attention to it. Shocking!

In the Hebrew bible of course the shepherd is a noble image: Moses and David were shepherds, Kings were referred to as shepherds of the people, God was spoken of in terms of a shepherd - most of us are familiar with the dearly loved Psalm 23 and similar thoughts about God as shepherd are found in the Ezekiel reading that we heard. Yet by the first century rabbis looked down on the profession of shepherd as unclean, socially inferior and untrustworthy. To quote from one of the commentaries, "shepherds in first-century Palestine were regarded with some dismay. They would come down from the hills like bikers roaring into a startled village to do some rowdy partying." This does away with the image of Jesus as a saccharine lamb-cuddler. Shepherds were rough, tough men doing difficult work. And Jesus was suggesting God is like that.

So when Jesus turns to the rabbis and says "which one of you having a hundred sheep" he was speaking rather insultingly and pointedly. If he'd said "which of you who owned a hundred sheep would not send the shepherd to find one that is lost" the point would have been just as clear, but the social implications quite acceptable. But especially with the Old Testament background such as the passage in Ezekiel he was indicting them by their own scriptures. God had asked the leaders of his people to be shepherds, but they no longer fulfilled that role. Jesus was doing the will of God by seeking out the lost and feeding them. Before we dismiss the Pharisees too quickly we should note that they were interested in repentance and forgiveness. One of the teachings of the Pharisees was "Come home. Repent, return to the moral teaching of the law, and you will be forgiven." Come home. But Jesus wasn't content with that. Jesus had the shepherd go out searching. For Jesus, God was a restless searcher, seeking the lost, not waiting for them to come home. Didn't he say on another occasion "The Son of Man has come to seek out and to save the lost." In fact, the image of the Shepherd with the lost sheep on its shoulders is a complete picture of the mission of God through Jesus. Jesus is both the good shepherd who seeks and finds and welcomes and the lamb who personifies the lostness of the world.

As we hear these parables today where can we locate ourselves? You may be the lost sheep. Wandering in the wilderness, wondering if you've been forgotten, crying quietly to yourself or shouting out in indignation. If God is a searcher, then you will be found.

There is a story told about Alexander McLaren - a great Scottish preacher of the 19th Century. He was only 16 when he accepted his first job in Glasgow and his home was about some distance from the big city. Between his home and his job there was a deep ravine that he had to walk through - a ravine was supposed to be haunted. He was afraid to go through it in the daytime, much less at night. On Monday morning, the day his job was to begin, his father walked with him to work and in parting said, "Alex, come home as fast as you can when you get off Saturday night." Thinking of that deep ravine, McLaren said he answered his father, "Father, I will be awfully tired Saturday night when I get off; I'll come home Sunday morning." But his father was insistent. "No Alex, you have never been away from home before and these five days are going to seem like a year to me. Come home Saturday night." He reluctantly answered, "Alright father, Saturday night it will be." And all week long Alex said he worried about that black ravine. When Saturday night came, he was more scared than ever. He wrapped up his belongings and went out to the end of the ravine. He said, "I even whistled to keep up my courage, but when I looked down into the inky blackness, I knew I just couldn't go on." Big tears came unbidden, then suddenly he heard footsteps in the ravine, on the path. He started to turn and run, but hesitated for the footsteps were familiar. He looked up and he reports, "Up out of the darkness and into the pale light as I watched came the head and shoulders of the greatest man on earth. When he came up to me he said, "Alex, I wanted to see you so badly that I came to meet you."

God doesn't wait for us to come home. God comes to meet us.

I suppose more of us might identify with the sheep left behind. But as we read the parables in the light of the gospel wouldn't we say this is too passive an image for Christians? We aren't to be out there waiting and doing nothing - we are to identify, I think, with the woman, with the Shepherd, with Jesus whom we claim to follow. The version of this story found in Matthew's gospel has some subtle differences - for Matthew's church the parable encourages them to shepherd each other in community, but Luke's emphasis is on seeking and welcoming the outsider. Not just providing food for the needy but sitting and eating with them as equals, welcoming them at our tables. Not waiting in our church saying "come home" but being out there in the wilderness as searchers.

You might have noticed that the end point of both parables is repentance. But remember the context again - the stories are being told to the Pharisees. Repentance is needed both by sinners and by righteous! By both the strayers and the stayers! In fact, it if weren't for the Lost Son story we'd be hard pressed to find a shred of repentance in the strayers. The lost coin and the lost sheep weren't sorry they'd been lost. So the stories are really asking a change of heart of those of us already in the fold. If we are found by Jesus, God's servant, and become part of his company, not only do we join in the mood of joy and welcome, we also join his self-denying attitude to life. The cost of discipleship passage just before these parables makes that clear (14:33). These are parables of God's love and forgiveness and grace but it is demanding grace!

It is not an easy thing to find the lost and welcome them home.

If we hold onto judgmental attitudes and neglect people we believe do not measure up to our standards of righteousness -those who have lost faith will not be found.

If our apathy allows people to remain in the clutches of unjust structures -those who have lost hope will not be found.

If we falter in our commitment to support those in our society weakened by poverty and illness -those who have lost a sense of worth will not be found.

If we fail to welcome or reach out to the stranger, the uprooted, the refugee -those who have lost family and friends, home and even country, will not be found.

Our next hymn is based on Psalm 23 - a psalm that celebrates God as our caring, providing, protecting shepherd. Have we ever read this psalm from the perspective of ourselves being that good shepherd to others? As we sing the hymn today let's take up that challenge - asking God to empower us to love others, to feed those who are hungry, to provide a resting place for those who are weary, to patiently seek those who stray, to stay beside others in their dark times, to rejoice as we meet together at table, at church, at any ordinary occasion that can be a location for God's kingdom to become present. Amen.

Jeanette Mathew18/4/2004