Progressive reflections on the lectionary #81

Monday 8th September 2025

Luke 15:1-10 Stories of wholeness & restoration

The passage from the Gospel of Luke tells the familiar stories of a lost sheep and a lost coin - but they don’t begin with loss, they start and finish with completeness. The way the writer structures the stories tells us something about the intent - these are stories about the healing of division, and which emphasise the priority of restored community and challenge the tendency to create ‘in groups’ and ‘out groups’.

There are patterns in the way that some stories are told. Not my stories, I grant you, because although I know the theory I resolutely and consistently fail to put it into practise. Authors of great literature, such as the writer we know as Luke, on the other hand are much more skilled. You wouldn’t find Luke fading a story out before reaching the punchline.

The passage this week contains two well known parables, the story of the lost sheep, and the story of the lost coin. The stories are told in a classically ‘chiastic’ formulation. That means that ideas are presented and then repeated in reverse order, as if mirrored. A famously simple example of a chiastic formulation is the phrase ‘winners never quit, quitters never win.’ The first idea (win = A) is followed by a second (quit = B), and then the second is repeated (B), followed by the first again (A). We end up with: A-B-B-A.

When used well, you end up with a well balanced story that emphasises the central idea - which is what Luke does.

So in our passage the pattern is as follows:

“Which of you, having one hundred sheep, and losing one of them…” (Lost = A)

“…does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it… (Found = B)

“…he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me… (Joy in restoration = C)

“…for I have found…” (Found = B)

“…my lost sheep.” (Lost = A)

We get exactly the same A-B-C-B-A pattern in the next story too.

“…what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them…” (Lost = A)

“…does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it…” (Found = B)

“…she calls together her friends and neighbours, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for…” (Joy in restoration = C)

“I have found…” (Found = B)

“…the coin that I had lost.” (Lost = A)

We can see, then, that the central idea being emphasised by Luke is the joy, and the call for celebration of, restoration. It is the ‘celebration of restored wholeness’ which is the key point the writer wants to make here.

The wholeness is emphasised from the start. Each story begins with completeness and then experiences loss.

“Which of you, having one hundred sheep…” And “…what woman having ten silver coins…”

It’s not necessary in story telling terms to begin with completeness, you might just as easily begin by saying “Which shepherd, when he loses a sheep, doesn’t go and find it?” Or “Which woman who loses a coin doesn’t…” But for Luke it’s the completeness, the wholeness, that is the point.

Why would this be important, then? What is Luke trying to get at?

The context is important, as always. In the first verse of chapter 15 Luke sets the scene:

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus]. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

The idea is clear - there is division among the people. The Pharisees and Scribes have very clear ‘in and out’ delineations, and the ‘tax collectors and sinners’ are in the out group. They are ‘other’.

The religious boffins know who they think is pure and who is impure (a sinner). They have a clear concept of us/other. As a result some parts of the whole are lost to them.

For Luke, and for Jesus as he is presented to us by Luke, this is a key concept to break away from. Rather than this false and harmful ‘them and us’ binary, Luke wants to emphasise the priority of wholeness, of togetherness. (The story is told differently by ‘Matthew’, and also in the non-canonical gospel of Thomas, because the writers seek to make alternative points).

The application of Luke’s version of this story for today is pretty straightforward, I think. We have, after all, continued in the long tradition of ‘othering’. We have continued creating in and out groups: the righteous and the sinners. It sometimes feels as though we’re more polarised than ever.

These divisions are created on all sorts of grounds, perhaps most famously in recent years they have been created on the grounds of sexuality and understandings of gender. In this passage Luke’s Jesus challenges the Pharisees of his time, and by extension those of us in our time who continue to draw dividing lines, to remember the priority of wholeness and restoration over and above our ‘saints/sinners’ dividing lines.

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