Make-Up: February 5th, 2012

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: 

Luke 15

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.

CELEBRATE: to make known publicly or to proclaim or praise widely when something special has happened, such as the lost being found and forgiven.

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.