Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable . . . Luke 15:1-3
This is very familiar territory—some of the most enduring images and one of the best-loved stories ever told. How did its first listeners hear it? Let’s take a moment to set this up as it might have been.
He enters another town toward evening and accepts an invitation to stay the night. He declines a meal but takes a seat under a grape arbor where the important men of the town habitually gather. It’s a pleasant spot, especially at this time of day when the heat has lifted and a cheerful breeze flutters the grape leaves. A rich man’s sheep are folded nearby, their restless baa’s carried on the wind. Women are drawing water for the evening’s wash at the community well, and next door a housewife is sweeping out her house, humming a tune. The local tavern, however, is oddly silent.
That’s because the ne’er-do-wells and loose women who hang out there have clustered on the edge of the crowd, eager to hear this man everybody’s talking about. The arbor is packed; Jesus at the center, the twelve (except for those who are foraging for an evening snack) ranged behind him like bodyguards, the scribes and Pharisees and town elders seated in their accustomed places, and everyone else squeezed in wherever they can. Villagers are strung along the rock ledge and the wall, leaning from the roof of the neighboring house, or standing just outside the magic circle prescribed by the disciples to give their Master some breathing room.
He raises an eyebrow, then a hand. He points out Rachel and Joanna (known as the Sin Sisters, though they’re not related), old Simon the Sot, and young Amos the fool. He keeps beckoning until they come forward, self-consciously pushing their way through, spreading themselves in a tight little fan as they squat near his feet.
Meanwhile, the chief men are murmuring among themselves: “I’ve heard he’s not particular about the company he keeps—never thought he’d be so brazen, though . . .” “Why can’t he meet with them secretly?” “. . . and I hear he eats with them, too!”
“Listen to those sheep.” The Master raises his voice as all fall silent. The bleats of ewes and lambs are a familiar sound, curdling the air at twilight. “Suppose you had a hundred of them, and every afternoon you count as they go through the gate: one, two, three . . . all the way to ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine . . . Is one of them missing? You count again: . . . ninety-eight, ninety-nine—It’s true. What do you do?”
He puts this question directly to old Simon, who blinks groggily before taking a guess: “You go looking?”
Jesus looks to the chief elder for confirmation. The man nods briefly. “Good! You leave the ninety-nine who are safe, and look for the one who’s lost. High and low, up and down, until the silly creature is found. And then what do you do?” he asks Amos the fool.
“Throw a party,” the young man says, without a second’s hesitation.
“Exactly.” The teacher smiles. “As soon as he’s home, he calls his friends and neighbors: ‘Rejoice with me! Remember that sheep I lost? I’ve found it!’”
Amos the fool is foolishly grinning, while the elders wish they could tell him to get that look off his face. Meanwhile, the Master waves at the woman next door, who is now leaning on her broom. She blushes as everyone looks her way and shyly raises a hand.
“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. What would she do?”
Now he’s looking at Rachel, who straightens her back and puffs out her chest, as she habitually does when men speak to her. “Why, she–” Rachel stops herself, and her friends think she’s was about to answer with one of her zingers, for which she’s rather famous. But under this man’s gaze she deflates a little, and her voice comes with none of its usual edge or sauce: “She’ll sweep out her house, and . . . light a lamp to shine in the dark corners and under the furniture . . .”
“. . . and when she finds it”–Jesus takes up the narrative as Rachel’s voice fades—“she will call in her girlfriends and next-door neighbors and bring out the dates and honeycakes. ‘Rejoice with me! I’ve found that silver coin that was lost!’
“Let me share a secret with you: in just this way, the angels rejoice over one sinner who repents. Just so, heaven throws a party when one lost soul is found.”
He pauses to let this sink in. Skepticism simmers among the elders; you can almost feel it. Ecstatic angels? Parties in heaven? Now, how does he know that? Meanwhile, the disciples are grinning to themselves (Here he goes again!) and the village losers are trying to reconcile this happy heaven with what they’ve heard in the synagogue. In their minds, the Heavenly One is so encrusted with holiness and majesty and righteous judgment they have never heard his laughter. But then, they ain’t heard nothin’ yet.
To be continued . . . .
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