When I go to a baseball game in Cleveland, it’s always my goal to find the cheapest parking available. When the Indians played in the old stadium you could park for two bucks at the Municipal Lot that my family regarded as much further from the ball park than I did.

  But when Jacobs Field opened it became a different issue. One time when I took the girls to a game I decided to drive around for awhile, sure that there had to be something cheaper than what the parking garages and nearby lots were charging. But I couldn’t so I parked, once again, in one of the garages.

  Mary wasn’t with us this time, so I told the girls to remember we were parked in 2B. I wanted to make sure I didn’t lose the parking ticket at the game, so I stuck it in the glove box. When the game was over we remembered the car was in 2B. What we couldn’t remember was what parking garage we had parked in. Don’t forget, I had driven by many garages and lots looking for that special deal that never materilized.

  Now they have people who will help you find where in the parking garage your car is parked if you forget. But there is nobody who will help you find out what parking garage you are parked in.

  So, we began the search. After three garages the girls were starting to get a bit panicky. After the fourth garage, I was starting to get a bit panicky. But we found it in the fifth one. I knew we would eventually find it, but they all closed like an hour and a half after the game was over. And that wasn’t a call home I wanted to make.

  It was kind of like looking for that lost sheep and lost coin we just read about. Except I didn’t call the neighbors and arrange for a celebration. In fact, I mentioned to the girls that it would probably be best not to tell anyone about this, especially their mother. And it was several years later when Mary finally heard this story.

These stories we read, along with  the really well known one that follows them, the story of the Prodigal Son, have always been seen as stories about things lost and found. The way God is likened to a shepherd seeking after a lost sheep, a peasant woman finding a lost coin, and a father waiting for a lost son to find himself, are wonderful images about God that Jesus wants to convey to us. But I also think it is important to remember there is a party in all three of these stories after the lost is found.

  Look at how the stories are prefaced. “By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, ‘He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends.’ Their grumbling triggered this story...”

  The story Jesus starts with is one about a shepherd. Pharisees had a particularly hard time with shepherds. Now most of us have a fairly good image of shepherds in our minds. Jesus is called the Good Shepherd. But here is what the New Interpreters Bible Commentary on this passage says. “In contrast to the positive image of the shepherd in both the OT and NT writings, shepherds had acquired a bad reputation by the first century as shiftless, thieving, trespassing hirelings. Shepherding was listed among the despised trades by the rabbis, along with camel drivers, sailors, gamblers with dice, dyers, and tax collectors.” That’s nothing like the shepherds on the Christmas cards. So Jesus is sticking it in the religious folks’ faces when he likens God to a shepherd.

  And then he likens God to a woman in the second story. That would have made them crazy. And he tells of the great rejoicing and partying that goes on in heaven when the lost are found. And these folk weren’t much into partying.

  When Jesus says, “Count on it—there's more joy in heaven over one sinner's rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue he is openly challenging one of the sayings of the Pharisees in his day that went, "There will be joy in heaven over one sinner who is obliterated before God."

  You’ve got two dramatically different ways of looking at God going on here. One is about the God who keeps looking for us when we are lost, and throws a party when we are found. The second is the God who couldn’t care less.

  And lost we are. A lot of life is finding our way home. And a lot of life is God looking for us, sometimes roaming the wilderness, sometimes tearing up the house, sometimes standing by the door and watching down the road. And when we are found or we find our way back, the first thing God wants to do is throw a party.

When you think about it, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to leave 99 sheep behind to go looking for one. And a flock of a hundred sheep would have been a huge flock in those days. So just having one gone wouldn’t seem like a big deal. But it is to a shepherd, a responsible one. Things aren’t right until the lost one is returned and the flock is whole again.

  In the same way, it makes no sense to Jesus for the Pharisees to talk about sinners who don’t belong. We all belong, we are all a part of the flock. It’s not right until everyone is restored. And who is the sinner, anyway? “We all like sheep have gone astray,” we’ve all gotten lost.

  That woman looking for her lost coin. It was just as desperate a hunt as for a lamb in the wilderness. A peasant’s home had no light, and its floors were made out of dirt covered with straw and leaves. So finding one little coin would have been akin to finding a needle in a haystack. But the woman had to find that coin. She needed it, nine wasn’t enough. It’s not enough for God, Jesus says, until we are all found.

Jesus goes on to tell another story, the one we call the Prodigal Son. It’s the one about the younger son who asks his father to go ahead and give him his share of his inheritance, which was a colossal show of disrespect in that culture. But his father gives the son the money and the son spends it all, as a commentator once wrote, ‘on slow gin and fast women.’ He, of course, runs out of money and takes a job feeding pigs. Once he realizes the pigs are eating better than he is, the story says he comes to his senses and decides to go home to his father and see if he can sign on as one of the hired hands.

  The father watching down the road, as he so frequently does, in hope of seeing his son return, sees him coming. He rushes out to greet him, to welcome him back to the family. He tells the servants to let everyone know his son is back and to invite everybody to a party.

  By this time Jesus is piling it on. God as a Shepherd seeking after one lost sheep. God as a woman scouring her home for one small coin. And now this God of grace and love and forgiveness who welcomes a prodigal son home and throws a party.  

  This was not a God those Pharisees knew about. They are like the older son at the end of the third story who refuses to go to the party, because he believes his brother isn’t good enough for his father and surely doesn’t deserve a party.

  When the father goes out to this older son to encourage him to come to the party, too, all his son can do is point an accusing finger at the younger son and his father. He says to his father, “I don’t get as much as a goat for a party with my friends, but this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!”

  The father, though, keeps engaging the older son, because he knows the important thing that has gone on is restoration and reconciliation. So he reminds the older son that this is his brother we are talking about. ‘You are with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours–but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he’s alive! He was lost, and he’s found!’

This was what the Pharisees couldn’t see. Those people  Jesus was hanging out with, those outcasts he was partying with, were their brothers and sisters made in the image of the same God they were. And that remains the challenge to the church to this day. We keep drawing the boundaries, keep identifying outcasts and sinners. But you know what? Jesus eats with them anyway. He’s not content until restoration and healing come and we realize we are all in this thing together. We are all lost, looking for God, looking for each other. And Jesus has come to show us the way home.

  That’s why we’ve got to deal with the fact that we are lost. We don’t need to settle for anything less than home, where we find God and each other. It’s all a matter of coming to our senses, letting God love us and throw us a party. I don’t think Jesus was saying anything more complicated than that.

  A shepherd, a peasant woman, an indulgent and loving father. That’s some the ways Jesus understood God, this God who risks the wilderness and tears apart the house to find us. Jesus knew this is the God who waits, and waits, and waits until we find our way home, never giving up on us, but believing we will come to our senses. God is the one who is the most relieved when the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost car, the lost son are found. It’s God who wants to celebrate, have a party.

  It’s really interesting that Jesus doesn’t tell us how the third story ends. Does the older son go to the party or not? And what happens with the younger son? Does he allow grace and love to change his life? Or, after the party is he back to his old ways? This is a story we have to finish for ourselves. How lost are willing to admit to being? How ready are we to throw ourselves into the arms of the loving, forgiving God Jesus keeps showing us? How willing are we to party with everyone like God does?

  What we do know is that we get to be the men and women of doubtful reputation hanging around Jesus. Who cares who grumbles about people like them, sinners like us? We are all safely and happily in the car and on our way home. That’s what Jesus wants for us.