People Who Lose, and Find, Things

Have you ever lost your billfold or purse? I’ve lost billfolds over the years and looking back, I marvel at the panic that it causes.

Your driver’s license, credit cards, insurance cards and cash (the least worrisome because I carry very little) are all at risk. Everything is, of course, replaceable, but you can’t help but be intimidated by the thought of the hours you’ll spend trying to replace them. Losing valuable things is traumatizing.

If you’ve read my recent blogs, you will have noticed that I’ve been commenting on a book I’m reading called “Jesus: an Historical Approximation” by Jose Antonio Pagola, a Spanish theologian and Scripture scholar. I’ve found the book fascinating because Pagola uses modern sciences – archeology, history, anthropology – to uncover the world that Jesus lived in. It makes the narratives and parables much more understandable.

Didn’t Get It

Pagola’s readers may find the gospels more understandable by reading the book, but the author points out that because Jesus’ message was so counter-cultural, and so upsetting to many of Jesus’ listeners, many of them just didn’t get it.

Many still don’t get it, but for different reasons. Because of centuries of statues and imaginative paintings showing Jesus as a mild, conformist person, many people today aren’t able to imagine a Jesus who was anything but mild and conformist when it came to the subject of God.

For people who lived at the time of Jesus, and for us today, Jesus turns upside down contemporary cultural values and aspirations. And many of his listeners, especially pious Jews, were confused. You can see that in two parables Jesus tells about people who have lost things of value, writes Pagola.

Fending for Themselves

The first was the shepherd who was caring for 100 sheep. He loses one and, leaving 99 to fend for themselves “in the wilderness,” he sets out to find the lost one, not stopping until he finds it. He puts the whole flock in danger, to find the lost one and when he does, he “calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.”

The second was about a village woman who lost a coin. Pagola says there were probably many women among Jesus’ listeners and Jesus doesn’t want to leave them out of the picture. The woman in the story had ten silver coins. She loses one, and lights a lamp, sweeping the house and searching carefully until she finds it. What a relief! She, too, calls together her friends and neighbors to share her joy.

Pagola provides context for each story. Regarding the shepherds, he writes that though shepherds had a romantic niche in the pre-Jesus history of Israel, they were generally considered “low-lifes” in rural Galilee at the time of Jesus. They apparently were known for thievery and other under-handed practices.

Based on what Pagola writes about typical occupations among the people of Galilee at Jesus’ time, I wonder if the shepherd in Jesus’ story was a hired man, worried sick about what would happen to his job, or worse if he were suspected of thievery, if he was unable to find the lost sheep.

Desperate

The woman was obviously among the Galilean poor, apparently having only 10 silver coins – each worth about the equivalent of two days’ wages. She was desperate to find the one she lost in her dark, perhaps windowless house. She needs to light a lamp to search for the missing coin.

Pagola writes that Jesus meant these stories to further reveal to his listeners the nature of God, that God is a parent will stop at nothing to invite his children into his loving embrace. So, the shepherd and woman are metaphors for God.

Personally, I have always thought of the two “losers” as metaphors for us human beings and the need for perseverance and commitment in the search for God. I think either way, the interpretations of the parables work.

Jesus refers to God as Abba (Scholars say the translation is close to “Daddy.”) over 200 times in the gospels, and accepting this Daddy’s invitation to intimacy is infinitely worthwhile. But it takes commitment and perseverance.