“Lost & Found”

Luke 15: 1-10

Pastor Deb Troester, STHPC, September 14, 2025

When our daughter Christa was little, we lived in an apartment complex in Puerto Rico. Our dining room and kitchen windows overlooked a children’s play area and a large green lawn with trees. I allowed Christa to play outside with the other kids as long as she stayed in the play area, where I could see her from the kitchen and dining room windows. I told her that she had to stay where I could see her, or she would not be allowed to play outside. Generally she was pretty good about staying within sight. Most of all, I warned her that she was never to go into someone else’s apartment, without asking me if it was OK.

One day I looked out and she wasn’t there. I went downstairs and searched the play area. No Christa. I asked a couple of the other kids. They hadn’t seen her. I began to call her name loudly. Most of our neighbors left their windows open in the tropical breezes and some of them called out, “What’s wrong? Is Christa missing?”

By this time I was starting to panic, and I shouted back – “I can’t find her anywhere.” The neighbors became alarmed and some of them joined me in the search.

Finally, I went upstairs to another neighbor who had a one-year-old, to ask if she might have seen our daughter. When she opened the door, there was Christa, sitting at the dining room table with the one-year-old, eating a piece of cake. I was extremely relieved, but also furious – I wasn’t sure if I was more angry with my daughter for disobeying me, or angry with my neighbor for inviting her in to play with her son without telling me where she was. I’m afraid I yanked Christa out of there and didn’t even let her finish her cake. But the truth was, I was terrified that I hadn’t been able to find her for at least a good ten minutes. From the moment I realized that I didn’t see her out of my dining room window, there was nothing in the world that would have stopped me from looking for her. I dropped everything I was doing and focused all my efforts on finding her.

When we are lost, God searches for us with that same kind of intensity that a mother has in searching for her lost child. She will not give up until she has found the child. That is what Jesus is saying in the parable of the shepherd and the lost sheep.

In this parable we often imagine the lost sheep as a little lamb. Once Barb sent me a beautifully-drawn animated e-card – I think it was for Easter. It depicted a frisky little lamb, happily exploring its surroundings, until it jumps down off a rock and can’t get back up. It’s getting dark, and the lamb shivers from the cold. Then the shepherd appears, swoops down, picks up the lamb, places it on his shoulders, and carries it back to the flock, where it happily snuggles with its mother – or at least that is how I remember it. (Thanks, Barb!)

God is the shepherd who never leaves us, no matter what predicament we have gotten ourselves into, no matter how far we have strayed. God searches for us, if we will let ourselves be found. Because sometimes we hide from God – like Adam and Eve in the garden, after they ate the forbidden fruit.

But God came calling, “Adam, Eve, where are you?” God calls for us, too. God knew where Adam and Eve were hiding, and God knows where we are hiding, and what we are hiding, too. Let God find you and forgive you. Let God bring you home.

But what about those other sheep, the ninety-nine the shepherd left in the wilderness?  That’s a little scary. Did they feel abandoned? Respected New Testament scholar Kenneth E. Bailey, writes: “Indeed, it is the shepherd’s willingness to go after the one that gives the ninety-nine their real security. If the one is sacrificed in the name of the larger group, then each individual in the group is insecure, knowing that he or she is of little value. If lost, he or she will be left to die. When the shepherd pays a high price to find the one, he thereby offers the profoundest security to the many.” This parable shows how important just one individual is to God.

Of course, God is not a human shepherd, who can only be one place at a time. God is both searching for the lost, and watching over the flock, since God is everywhere.

Parables are not allegories where every single detail has a corresponding object or event in the real world. Parables are “earthly stories with a heavenly meaning.” Someone asked me if parables were real stories - was there really such a shepherd, or an actual woman who lost a coin and searched for it until she found it? Jesus used familiar situations to help people grasp what he was trying to teach them. Parables are not intended to represent historical events, but rather are told to teach people spiritual truths.

In the case of the lost sheep, it’s clear that the sheep strayed. But the lost coin did nothing wrong – it was simply lost. Here the emphasis is on the value of the coin and the persistent searching of the woman – who says God cannot be represented by a female? Some say that the ten coins were the woman’s dowry – part of the bridal headdress, so it would have had great sentimental, as well as monetary, value.

I don’t have such a headdress, but I do have a wedding ring, and I have a very special diamond earring. Joe wears the matching earring. I bought the set when he got his Ph.D. to commemorate that event.

One day I reached up and the earring wasn’t there. I panicked, thinking about all of the places I had been in the last day or so. Without much hope of finding it, I got a flashlight, got down on my hands and knees and searched the floor, shining the light in every nook and cranny.

Finally I glimpsed something sparkly under the bed. There was my diamond earring. I had found it. Whew!

The woman in the parable must have felt similar relief. When she realized the coin was missing, she lit a lamp and swept the house until she found the lost coin. Then she called together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.” Jesus adds, “Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

Just as each sheep is important to the shepherd, and each coin is valuable to the woman, each one of us is precious to God. God treasures every one of us – regardless of race, gender, immigration status, or political opinion. Each individual has value, dignity, and worth because each person is created in the image of God.

All of us are loved by God, whose very nature is love, love that searches tirelessly for the one who is lost, love that celebrates joyously when the lost one is found.

Years ago I often visited an elderly woman who suffered from dementia and was confined to a wheelchair, yet she was always smiling and happy. One day she confided in me that her mother was giving her a party. The house had been decorated with balloons and festive banners, and she was going home to celebrate. I didn’t see any reason to spoil her joy, so I told her I was happy for her. Later I thought, “How true. Someday we are all going home to celebrate, and our loving heavenly parent is waiting for us there.”

Jesus was accused of welcoming sinners and eating with them. As the great reformer Martin Luther said, “We are all saints and sinners at the same time.” Today Jesus invites us to celebrate with him at his table, a table that is open to saints and sinners, the table where we celebrate that we who were lost are now found. Amen.

Bailey, Kenneth E. The Cross & the Prodigal: Luke 15 through the Eyes of Middle Eastern Peasants (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005).

Gonzalez, Justo L. Luke: Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible. Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.

Sermon ©Deborah Troester 2025