The Lost Sheep (Matt 18:12-14/Luke 15:4-7)
Parable Type: This is an interrogative parable.
1. Context of the parable:
2. Would a shepherd abandon the ninety-nine other sheep? What relevance does this decision have for understanding the parable?
Care for one sheep does not preclude care for all the sheep, and certainly some provision would be made for the ninety-nine, to leave them either in some enclosure or more likely with another shepherd.
A flock this size may had more than one shepherd anyway.
Do the features represent theological realities? Should the shepherd be identified with God, Jesus, the disciples, or someone seeking the kingdom?
This parable is not saying that God is a shepherd, nor do the following parables make God a woman or a father. These parables are implied analogies. The actions and attitude portrayed – not the people themselves – mirror the actions and attitude of God. The parable of the Lost Sheep is an analogical “how much more argument”.
The logic of the parable is this: if, as surely you would agree, a shepherd will go after a lost sheep and rejoice when he finds it, how much more will God search for a lost/strayed person and rejoice when he recovers that person.
3. What is to be learned about repentance? Do some not need repentance?
a. …repentance is not a part of the parable. This parable neither defines repentance nor blames the sheep. …the parable teachers virtually nothing about repentance, but does emphasize how much God values repentance.
4. What does the parable teach?
a. The primary function of this parable for Jesus was a defense of his deliberate association with and eating with people known to be sinners. By his reception and eating with such people he demonstrated the presence of the kingdom and the forgiveness available to all.
b. What is revealed about the character of God is the value he places on even the least deserving and the care he extends to such people.
c. God is not passive, waiting for people to approach him after they get their lives in order. He is the seeking God who takes the initiative to bring people back, regardless of how “lost” they are.
d. If the kingdom comes with limitless grace and limitless demand, this parable emphasizes the limitless grace.
e. The joy reflects both the attitude of God at recovering the lost and the celebration of the kingdom with its good news that God’s promised redemption has begun. The joy is communal, and Jesus’ hearers should join the celebration.
Adapting the parable
Matthean:
1. The awareness that God seeks us brings freedom and confidence to life. That his grace is to determine how we treat others should cause us to be caring and sensitive.
2. The awareness that God seeks us brings freedom and confidence to life. That his grace is to determine how we treat others should cause us to be caring and sensitive.
3. God’s grace, his seeking and care, applies to all, and our mirroring
4. We are most likely to assume that God must be much more harsh, and we are more likely to look for the ninety-nine than the lost one.Do lost, disobedient to God, and “insignificant” people have any sense from us that God really cares about and seeks them?
5. The Matthean texts reminds us that God cares
a. not only for “sinners” outside the community
b. but also for the marginal and questionable in the community.
Note: We are more likely to show grace to those we seek to bring in than to those with whom we must work in the church.
Second Sermon: Luke 15:4-7
Stress: The value of repentance, and repentance is a necessary and ongoing task for all of us.
(When preaching this text, focus on the repentance made by the son – stages – crisis – embraced – at home – fully recognize his sinfulness – see cultural background here).
I. Repentance is necessary
A. God takes the initiative. The whole of Scriptures underscores this. Any action of humans are a response to the grace of God (highlight this). (illustrate in the story). Salvation is the work of God…
B. Yet, the whole of Scripture also insists that humans do indeed act.
Salvation is entirely the work of God, in which we are entirely involved.
In here, we are responding to the grace of God, with our entire being, without reservation.
In here we are not trying make ourselves look right.
(This requires a lot of illustrations or stories –
There is a huge difference between responding to the grace of God and trying to make oneself look right.
Conclusion: We do not need to fear that repentance exposes us to an attempt at salvation by human effort.
The Compassionate Father and His Two Lost Sons (Luke 15:11-32)
Issues Requiring Attention:
1. How should cultural factors inform the reading of the parable? In particular, how do cultural and legal factors pertaining to the younger son’s request and the father’s division of his property influence ?
a. The request is imaginable, but at the very least we must recognize that the boy’s request and especially his departure would have been viewed negatively by all Mediterranean societies. It is no accident that v.12 reads literally “He divided to them the life,” for these resources were the father’s means of maintaining his life, especially in old age. The boy may not have literally wished his father dead, but his actions show that he did not really care for his father or desire relationship with him. He wanted the father’s money, not the father. Even with the division of goods, the younger son would still have had responsibility to help care for his father, a responsibility he ignores by leaving.
What is the younger son’s sin?
Several answers have been given: the request for his share of the possessions, his covetousness, his leaving, his squandering, his lifestyle, or his neglect of his father. From an OT perspective the prodigal would have been guilty of violating honoring parents
2. Does the parable depict the human condition generally, … or specific groups listening to Jesus?
3. To what is analogy being made? Is Luke’s context for the parable correct?
4. What does the parable teach about the Pharisees? If the elder son represents the Pharisees and scribes, why are the father’s comments to the elder son so positive? What does the parable imply about the relation of the Pharisees to God and their inclusion in the kingdom since the father says the elder son is always with him and owns all things with him?
5. What is the theological significance of the parable? Does it have “allegorical” correspondences? What conclusions should be drawn about repentance, Christology, or the atonement?
a. Nearly all admit or assume the straightforward association of the parable with God, sinners, and the “righteous.” The specifics of the prodigal’s plight do not stand for theological realities; they paint a picture of degradation and need, especially for Jewish hearers. The father’s extravagant action in receiving the prodigal paints a picture of eager reception…. Similarly the description of the restoration of the prodigal with a robe, ring, shoes and fatted calf for celebration paints a picture of joy and full acceptance,
6. What is the purpose of the parable
a. The first purpose of the parable is to emphasize the compassion and the unquestioning love of the father, who mirrors analogically the attitude of God. The God that jesus represents and proclaims is precisely the forgiving and merciful God reflected in the parable.
b. The second purpose of the parable is the invitation to celebrate and rejoice which is explicit in vv. 23-24 and 32d. If God rejoices at the return of sinners, can God’s people do less? …the parable in effect says, “God is giving a party, are you going to come?”
c. The third purpose of the parable is a defense of Jesus’ association with sinners. The parable…functions as an invitation for the hearers to take the same attitude toward sinners as the father towards the prodigal. That change of attitude carries with it a missional force so that one is motivated not only to accept sinners but also to find them.
Adapting the Parable:
1. The prodigal does not belong in the far country and in the alliance he has made. He is distant from himself , … He lived a fractured life.
2. Both he and his brother are distant from their father in different ways.
3. The parable’s message is that both sinners and seemingly righteous people – both irreligious and the religious – have a home with God.
4. The parable is an invitation to recognize our estrangement and bankruptcy.
5. This parable is a prime identity-shaping text. It says, in effect, that humans are not legitimately inhabitants of the far country, that they are not prodigals or slaves. Rather, they are children of their father and belong with their father. The elder son is suspicious of joy and sees himself as equivalent to a servant, but the father insists that he is a son as well.
6. The parable sounds a note of joy that should mark disciples of the kingdom. If the kingdom is present and forgiveness is being dispensed, even if evil is still in the world, joy should characterize those who recognize what is happening.
7. We cannot claim to be returning to the Father without displaying the same kind of forgiveness and willingness to embrace which the Father displays.
8. If God is receiving sinners so eagerly, then that message needs to be shared, and people need to be invited home.