Lost and Found
One of the most famous names in the insurance business is that of Lloyds of London. A number of years ago there were fears of its collapse when several of its ‘names’ were in danger of not being able to meet their liabilities. At the headquarters of Lloyds, there is a famous bell that sounds every time a ship insured with Lloyds has been lost at sea. There is a grim finality to that bell. The ship is lost. There is little, if any, hope of recovery.
I mention this bell at Lloyds in the context of our Gospel reading this morning, with the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. As I read them, it occurred to me that the English word ‘loss’ has a wide range of meanings ranging from simply mislaying something to losing something beyond all hope of recovery.
In the eyes of these men, the people that Jesus was associating with were lost, they were beyond redemption. To put it bluntly they were scum whom no respectable person would associate with; certainly no-one who purported to be a religious teacher. Jesus’ choice of company simply confirmed their worst suspicions.
Jesus replied with two parables of searching which illustrate God’s concern for that which is lost. As often happens, Jesus chooses as his models of God’s activity people who would be looked down upon by his hearers, people drawn from the underclass of contemporary society. On another occasion, he had used a Samaritan; here he uses a shepherd and a woman.
A stark contrast is drawn here between the cold piety of the Pharisees, who distance themselves from those they deemed to be lost, the tax collector and the sinner; and the unrelenting search that God undertakes for those who are lost and drifting in the world. A search epitomised in the life and ministry of Jesus – a search that reached out to those whom the Pharisees had given up as lost, the leper, those thought to be possessed by an evil spirit, the halt the blind, the tax collector and the sinner. Reaching out until those very hands that reached out to heal and welcome were nailed to a cross.
Jesus was challenging the Pharisees, who for their part were sincere men who sought diligently to understand and follow God, to join in this unrelenting search of God for those who are lost. This is the challenge that the Church in every time and place cannot afford to ignore.
But this is the very place where they should feel welcome as they begin the process of putting their lives together. We can be very good at guilt – maybe not so good at lifting guilt. I often think back on the words of a colleague, now long retired, when he described the Church as a ‘school for sinners’. A gathering of people who know they are not perfect, who have no illusions about their own perfection, who are able to welcome and draw in others that together they may learn more of God’s love and in their individual and corporate life show something of that love to the world at large.