On February 5th, we had a lesson Lost and Found (Luke 15). We ask you to read through the material and comment in the box. You can answer the big question to get the discussion started.
Parables
of Lost and Found
Bible Text:
Lesson Focus:
God always makes the extra effort to find the
lost and welcome them home.
Big Question:
Does God really look for everyone who is lost?
Key Words:
LOST, FOUND, GRACE, FORGIVENESS, CELEBRATE
Definition Of Key Words
LOST: the result of having gone astray. We may be lost in
the sense of being missed by those from whom we have departed and in the sense
of not being able to return to the proper place or path.
FOUND: the result of searching to locate, attain, or obtain
that which was lost.
GRACE: the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God;
"God's Riches At Christ's Expense."
FORGIVENESS: the pardoning of an offense or an offender; the
act of holding a person blameless, as God freely does for us.
Message Overview
The "lost and found" parables of Luke 15 have a
common theme—joy in finding the lost. They also have a common effect on careful
hearers and readers who don't think of themselves as being "lost"—in
short, they offend. When we read these parables, we usually think their primary
message is that God loves to find the lost. So true, but the context in which
these stories are told is important. It demands that we look at the hard
question the parables pose for the (supposedly) "non-lost." These
"non-lost" individuals just might be the real intended recipients of
the message in these stories. Your students may not even have the concept of
being lost in their experience. Thus, teaching the parables is a vital opportunity
to proclaim this beginning point of our doctrine.
In Luke 14 Jesus is invited to eat with a leader of the
Pharisees. He accepts, and on his way there he delivers a number of sometimes
cryptic teachings leading up to the lost and found parables. Jesus continues
teaching in Luke 15, bemused or angry at the muttering of the Pharisees and
scribes over his welcoming and eating with sinners, and in that context the
parables are given. Jesus begins with the story of the lost sheep, starting
with "Which one of you . . ." (Luke 15:4). He continues with the
story of the lost coin, leading with "What woman . . ." (Luke 15:8).
The implication is clear: who wouldn't go search for the lost sheep or the lost
coin? Well, a shepherd or a woman who didn't think the lost sheep or lost coin
was worth much, the muttering Pharisees and scribes might have been thinking.
Not so with God, Jesus tells them. God loves the lost and
sinful! This is good news! God is like the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep who
aren't lost to get the one that is lost. God is like the woman who has a party
when she finds her lost coin. At least one of the meanings of these two
seemingly simple parables is that God prizes what is lost even if it would seem
to be of lesser value than what is still possessed (the 99 sheep or the nine
coins).
The ante is upped in the parable of the prodigal son. This
parable's message of grace is beautiful—the father running out to meet the son
and putting his arms around him and kissing him before the lost son even has
the chance to ask for forgiveness. That's grace in a nutshell. We don't often
enough put ourselves in the place of the elder son. He is our prideful self,
the side of us that not only thinks we can make it into the "father's
arms" on our own but also privately thinks we have. We've done the right
things, albeit grudgingly in some instances. We've stayed home and worked hard.
We've sat in the pews and confirmation class, even when we would have rather
squandered that time doing something else. We're the righteous ones. We're the
elder son in this story.
The point of these parables is to call the elder sons into
the party. We fully experience God's grace when we can celebrate it with others
and not keep insisting we've earned it and others have not. Those who insist on
living by merit can't ever know the true joy of grace. These parables expose
our rather grudging spirits. We often think God is too good to everyone else
and not good enough to us. We want mercy for ourselves but justice for others.
These stories are a call to celebrate God's radical grace. God loves everyone,
not because of what they have or haven't done, or who they are or aren't. God
loves each of us because that's who God is.
The question posed to the non-lost and the righteous, all of
us, in these parables is simply this: Will you join the party and thereby share
in God's mercy, or will you clutch your self-bestowed merit badges and stay
outside the party grumbling? At the end of the parable of the prodigal son, the
question remains as to whether the older son goes into the party or not. That
is the question directed at us, the reader and hearer of the parable.
