Have you ever lost your keys? What did you feel? Desperation? Panic? Fear? Stress? What did you do? If you’re like me, you probably tore the whole house apart. You may have stopped to think about the last place you laid them or saw them. You could interrogate the kids: “What have you done with daddy’s keys?” Maybe you run outside to gaze through the window of the car to see if you locked them in there. If you are still unable to locate them, you may grab a flashlight to look under the bed, the couch, the chair, the stove, the desk, the table, the refrigerator, and so on. You look in the vents, cabinets, drawers and elsewhere. You look everywhere. You retrace your steps, either physically or mentally.
What happens when you finally find them? There is usually a sense of relief, joy or happiness, or some combination thereof. You probably let out a big “whew!” or “whoopee!” You spend the rest of the day recounting to anyone who will listen about your adventures in finding your lost keys. At that moment in time, when you’re looking for the keys, there is nothing else on your mind. There is nothing that rivals the importance of finding those keys. You don’t answer the phone if it rings. You don’t stop to check the mail, unless you’re looking for you keys in the mailbox. It is an all-consuming activity.
Maybe you’ve never lost your keys. Maybe it was your wallet, an important document, a homework assignment, or a ball glove at a baseball game. Whenever we lose something important, we are driven to find it. Nothing will get in our way until that thing is back in our hands. And when it is back, we are happy. We celebrate with anyone who will listen to our tale of adventure.
Jesus told a story about a woman who lost a coin.
Read Luke 15:8-9.
This reminds me of the scene from It’s A Wonderful Life, when Uncle Billy loses the deposit. Show clip.
This short little story that Jesus told has always ignited my imagination. Jesus doesn’t tell us what the money was for. It could have been for food, rent, taxes, to give to the temple, or whatever. Does it really matter what it was for? The point is that it was obviously of considerable value to the woman, and it was gone.
This is how my mind has always pictured this scene:
I see this woman standing by her table counting her coins as she gently places them in a little pouch. She gets to the last coin and realizes “uh oh!” she’s missing one. She calmly empties the pouch, thinking she had miscounted. She’s still short a coin the second time. A look of panic appears on her face. She rearranges stuff on the table trying to find the missing coin. Nothing.
She rifles through draws and cabinets. She grabs her oil lamp and lights it. She grabs the broom. Dust is flying everywhere as she sweeps the broom across the floor. Nothing. She hits the floor on her hands and knees. She crawls around the floor looking under every piece of furniture. The neighbors hear the commotion from outside. She mutters to herself, “Where did that coin go? Where is it? This can’t be happening! Where is it? Where is it?”
I see her slumping back, pondering where it could have gone. She mentally retraces her steps. As she’s ready to breakdown and cry, giving up, she notices something shiny in the corner. It’s the coin. She whoops and hollers. The neighbors outside look puzzled about what could be going on inside the little house.
The woman bounces out of the house yelling, “I found it! I found it!”
The neighbors ask, “Found what? Your mind? Apparently you’ve lost it.”
“My coin!” the lady exclaims, “I lost it, but now I’ve found it.”
The neighbors are relieved that their friend hasn’t lost her mind. “That’s great,” they say.
What does all this say about our relationship with God?
Read Luke 15:10.
In Jesus’ day, this was a radical concept. The vision that most people had of God was a distant God. God was aloof. He didn’t mingle with or pursue humans. The thought of God stooping down to seek out a human was a totally foreign concept to the minds of the people who heard this story. The thought of a sinner crawling out of the slime pit of sin and toward God might have been accepted. But, the notion of God crawling after a filthy, rotten, stinking sinner was foreign, if not abhorrent.
The people to whom Jesus told this story didn’t think of themselves as sinners. They were the religious elite. They knew and followed all the religious regulations. They knew that God loved them more than anyone else, especially the skuzzy types of people Jesus hung around with.
Read Luke 15:1-2.
The belief in Jesus’ day was that a person had to clean up before they could come to God. I believe that belief still exists in some circles today. Why do we wear suits and ties to church when we never wear them anywhere else? I think it’s because we’ve held on to the belief that we must “clean up” to be worthy of being in God’s presence.
God, through Jesus, met the human race right where we were. Jesus never refused to touch anyone because they were icky. He touched lepers. He conversed with sexually promiscuous people. He ate with scoundrels. He forgave a criminal with his last breaths.
Even now he meets us where we are. We don’t have to make ourselves better before encountering Jesus. We can’t make ourselves better. Jesus will take care of that.
The belief in Jesus’ day of the religious elite was that they were better than anyone else. St. Paul reminds us that we all have sinned. They thought they were better than the lepers and prostitutes.
Isn’t it great that we’ve gotten past that? Or, have we? Look at what the religious elite of our day say about AIDS patients, homosexuals, single mothers or abortion doctors. AIDS patients are the modern day lepers. We look at homosexuals the same way religious snobs of the past looked at prostitutes. Single mothers are often compared to adulterers. Abortion doctors are looked like the tax collectors of Jesus’ day.
If Jesus showed up in 21st century America where would he visit? Would he visit the largest church? Would he visit the pro-family political action committees? I would suggest he would visit the AIDS ward at the hospital. I think he would stop by a gay bar, too. He would visit the missions, domestic violence shelters, drug rehab centers, prisons and anywhere else we prefer to dump social misfits and human garbage.
I heard the story of this one church. The women of the church went to a strip club and offered to massage the feet of the dancers. We often refer to them as “strippers.” We place them, maybe, one notch above prostitutes. Realize this: God loves them every bit as much as he loves any one of us. Do they have to quit their job before God would love them? No.
Al Truesdale writes, “God’s grace is scandalous to anyone who insists He pay attention to the petty efforts we make to earn His favor.”
Read Ephesians 2:4-5.
Jesus saw each human as a person. When we look at people do we see a person whom God loves? Have you ever had a homosexual for a friend? By friend, I mean more thank a casual acquaintance. I mean, have you shared a meal or some mutual interest? Have you ever visited some in jail? Have you served a meal at a homeless shelter? Have you given clothes to someone in need? Have you offered to help a single mother? Have you cared for an AIDS patient? Have you take a prostitute to lunch? What have you done, or are now doing, to see to it that those we often see as human debris know that God loves them? Have you encountered the scandal of God’s grace?
