Luke 15.1-10

GOD AND THE INDIVIDUAL

The parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin

Luke 15.1-10

"Darling, have you seen my hospital badge anywhere" asked Mary of me some years ago.

We were living in Plymouth at the time. My wife had given up nursing in order to look after our two young boys.

For some reason, which I cannot now recall, Mary had decided to look for her hospital badge, only to find it missing.

The badge itself was of no particular value in so far as she could continue to nurse without it. However, it did represent three years of hard study. Furthermore, it was irreplaceable because it had subsequently been replaced with another design.

After a fruitless search, Mary decided that she had no alternative but to pray to St Antony, the patron saint of lost property.

This immediately prompted a deep theological discussion as regards the value of praying to the saints for assistance.

As far as Mary was concerned, God was far too busy to listen to her particular needs and concerns. He had far too much on his mind to take any notice of her, let alone to help in the search for the missing badge.

Now this is where the saints come in. They form a sort of middle and lower management and deal with all the minor matters of life such as lost property, leaving God free to deal only with the big issues.

I could not go along with this managerial picture of God at work. I believed that God was perfectly capable of doing everything himself and did not need the help of middle and lower management.

Well, after a while, we agreed to disagree, and have done so ever since on this subject.

However, I did have a rather naughty thought when reading the Gospel just now. It was this. What a pity Antony of Padua lived at the beginning of the fourteenth century and not in New Testament times, else the shepherd could have asked him to look for the lost sheep and the woman could have had him look for the lost coin.

What really surprises me about these two stories, is not the fact that the sheep and the coin became lost, but the fact that both the shepherd and the woman actually bothered to look for the lost sheep and coin.

After all, the shepherd already had ninety nine other sheep to look after, one more would hardly make any difference.

Likewise, the woman already had nine other coins still linked together, assuming that they formed part of the traditional married woman's headdress. One more coin would hardly make any difference

But the point of the story is that the lost sheep and the lost coin do make a difference. They are regarded as being of equal value to those which are not lost.

And this is the Good News for today.

Both these parables, originally told by Jesus, seek to remind us that even though we may feel lost in the crowd, we are nevertheless of value and significance in the eyes of God,

You see, it is all too easy for you and me to think that because God has got so much on his mind he cannot possibly be interested in our particular problems. But he is. He is as concerned as a shepherd, looking for a lost sheep, even though the other ninety nine are safely in the fold; or as concerned as a busy housewife, looking for a lost coin, even though the other nine are safely locked away.

It is this divine concern for the individual which we see displayed in the ministry of Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God.

Take for instance the case of the woman with issue of blood who was lost in the crowd pressing upon Jesus. Despite all the pushing and shoving by the crowd, Jesus does not allow her need to go unnoticed.

Neither did the young lad with the fish and loaves go unnoticed when Jesus was faced with a crowd of some five thousand people.

Jesus was always concerned for the individual who might feel lost in the crowd.

Now if the Church is the body of the risen Christ in the world of today, it too should be concerned for the individual who may feel lost in the crowd.

Alas, it is all too easy to lump people together into a crowd and call them “parishioners" or "a congregation" and forget that parishes and congregations are made up of individuals.

Let me give you a couple of illustrations of what I mean. The first involves myself and second involves you. And by "you" I mean "you" in the singular and not the plural.

When you come forward to receive communion from my hands at the altar rail, I always try to use your Christian names as I place the sacrament in your hands. This is not a memory test on my part but rather a reminder that Christ died and gave his life for you as an individual person. You are therefore unique in the eyes of God and of the utmost importance to him.

Unfortunately, I sometimes get blind spots and cannot recall names, or worse than that, I use someone else's name. Well, none of us are perfect, not even the Vicar.

My second illustration concerns the integration of new people into the life of the family of God which worships regularly at this church (St Mary’s, North Mymms). As I pointed out at the Annual Parochial Church Meeting, roughly one in three are new to the Church in the past five years. If they are to be encouraged and made to feel welcome, and if existing members of the congregation are to benefit from their insights and contribution, it is essential that they be known as individuals, and not just lumped together as "that new person".

To this end, over the past four and a half years I have put the names of the readers and intercessors on the pew leaflet so that we might all get to know each other as individuals.

I regret to say that I do not think we are very good at this. In fact, I sometimes wonder whether we really try to know people by name, or indeed want to know them by name.

After all, when we give a person a name, we identify them as an individual. They cease to be lost in the crowd, We bestow upon them dignity and a sense of worth. We show them that they matter and are valued.

And this is exactly what Jesus did throughout his ministry as is supremely illustrated by the shepherd looking for the lost sheep, and the woman looking for the lost coin.

Now you know why I disagreed with my wife's desire to pray to St Antony because it suggested that God could not possibly be interested in the individual.

On the other hand, I have to admit that St Antony did find the missing hospital badge, even though it took him some eighteen months!