There Is Something Really Odd About That Expression. Did You Hear It?

Text: Luke 15:1-10

Text

"What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? (Lk. 15:4 ESV)

There is something really odd about that expression. Did you hear it?

The ESV translators might have translated it away for some reason. Hear it from the Living Translation - Won't he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost. (Lk. 15:4 NLT). Did you catch it? I’m going to be even more wooden – “won’t he leave the 99 in the desert”. The Greek word is eremos. Biblically it conjures Isreal’s wanderings in the eremos, the desert, the wilderness.

What is the difference between the one and the ninety-nine? It is not their location. All of them are in the wilderness. The only difference that I could point out is that the 99 have already been gathered together – not necessarily someplace completely safe, they are in the wilderness - but together. The one is alone.

It is not as dramatic, but something similar could be said about the coins. All 10 are in the house. The woman isn’t sweeping the porch or checking the yard or retracting her steps through the day out in the village. All the coins are in the house. 9 of them are together in a known place, and one of them is lost.

We’ll come back to that…

As we have seen with many episodes in Luke’s gospel, the teaching or the parables are a reaction to a specific situation. The situation here is the developing split. The tax collectors and “sinners” were drawing near to Jesus to hear him. We should hear those loaded verbs – drawing near, to hear. Christ, the messiah, the Kingdom of God has drawn near. And the sinners respond by drawing near to him. Their drawing near is not just to check out the buzz or catch the best show playing. They have drawn near to hear what Jesus says. Faith comes by hearing. It was the woman who drew near and anointed Jesus’ feet who heard “your sins are forgiven”. It was those who took the lower places, the poor in heart, that heard “come up” up at the banquet. We should also observe the opposite. Like Israel in the wilderness, the Pharisees and scribes…grumbled. And what is the content of their discontent? “This man - the can’t say his name, just this one - receives sinners….and eats with them.” Simon, the host of that earlier meal where Jesus had his feet anointed, had complained “If he knew who this woman was,” but now they are past giving Jesus the benefit of the doubt. It’s a demand to separate himself from the less desirable element, and affirm their righteousness. The don’t think they are in the wilderness.

It is to that demand that Jesus tells the parables.

Two Interpretations

There is a common simple interpretation. Gathering sinners is why Jesus has come. “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” We could just take the parables as Jesus arguing with the Pharisees to accept the tax collectors and sinners gladly. That is the simple moralistic request that we’ve all seen or heard for the already respectable to accept the less respectable. It’s a form of be nice. If everyone is just nice to each other, heaven is happy. But Jesus doesn’t really do nice, that moralistic interpretation doesn’t do justice to the parables on multiple levels.

First the crowds were not crowds of Pharisees. The crowds were the tax collectors and sinners. The hoi polloi. The people of the land. The villagers who had come from all around. And they had already drawn near. They did it when they submitted to John’s baptism of repentance, and they are doing it around Jesus. If you are naming a 99, it’s them, the sinners drawn near.

Second it is the Pharisees and scribes that are demanding separation. They are the ones who have separated themselves from the 99. They rejected John’s baptism, and now are rejecting Jesus. And last, it is the Pharisees that don’t recognize their location. The 99 know they are in the wilderness and have gathered near to the shepherd. It was grumbling Israel that out in the wilderness demand meat when the manna became old hat. It was the grumblers that demanded the melons and cucumbers and leaks and all the cornucopia of Egypt. It is the Pharisees and scribes, the grumblers, that don’t realize that they are just as much in the wilderness as the sinners. And It is they who go wandering off.

Jesus is telling the parables to the Pharisees not asking them to accept the sinners. To be nice. The 99 are fine, they are near and hearing Jesus – the shepherd. Jesus is telling the parables to the one. It is the Pharisees who are lost. Let me pick you up also. Put down the grumbles and rejoice. Recognize where we all are, in the wilderness. And in the wilderness, one is only sustained by God.

If we reflect in a similar manner on the woman and the coin. The lamp and the sweeping are not something the lost can do themselves. Those Pharisees have not made themselves a different classfrom the sinners, as much as they might think they have. They all bear the same image. They all have the same value. And the woman – a figure that the church father’s read as either the Spirit or the Church – has the lamp, the Word, and the broom, the Sacraments.

The parables are not a request to the Pharisees to accept the sinners; they are a plea for them to see themselves as sinners. Christ came for sinners. Heaven rejoices in repentance of each one of the perfect whole.

Application

So I think the primary application of these parables is to tell us something about God and something about ourselves. They are an invitation to us to repentance, and a reassurance that Christ is the Good Shepherd. The Spirit or the Church always has the light on looking and sweeping until the full number in found. The other parable that follows these is the prodigal son where of course the Father welcomes back the one. Father, Son and Spirit restoring the sinner with joy.

But this weekend I think we can contemplate a secondary application. The found and forgiven in this world are still in the wilderness.

In the wilderness we can expect struggles and injustice and even futility.

The dramatically lost can imagine flying planes into buildings is the will of God and the way to blessing.

A misguided young man can walk into a church and start firing, just because the sheep there are black.

A million babies can be terminated a year because they are inconvenient.

But you don’t have to point at headline events and staggering numbers to feel the wilderness.

We still must say good-byes. Whether that is final good-byes when this flesh has had its day, or parting good-byes when people move or it is time to go home. They are still good-byes. A scattering on a day of clouds and darkness.

Even the 99 are left in the wilderness. Because it is in the wilderness, through trial and temptation, through pain and loss, that we come to rely on God alone. And in that wilderness, is where the Good Shepherd finds all of us. Because at some point we are all that one – wandering alone, put on His shoulders.

Conclusion

It is Ezekiel, our OT passage that carries the deep promise. The years of wandering will end. “I will rescue my flock they shall no longer be a prey. And I will judge between sheep and sheep.” “I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land…I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.”

Today we live under the paradox of the cross. We walk through the valley of the shadow of death, this wilderness. Tomorrow, the revelation of the glory. We will lie beside still waters.

And we will do this because this man receives sinners and eats with them. Amen.