REFLECTIONS ON THE KINGDOM OF GOD
    PART II
    June 4, 2012

In the second picture of the kingdom of God, Jesus uses just three verses, telling the story of a poor woman:

Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.” Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. (Luke 15:8-10, NRSV)

Ten coins, each is worth about a day’s wage. I can think about many of the day laborers I have met in India. They work hard in one hundred degree plus weather. When they stop for lunch, it is usually a piece of roti (flat bread) or two. The work day has begun at sunrise and will not end until sundown. At the end of the day, they are given fifty rupees, about a dollar. Half of that will be spent on food for the evening for the family. It will not be a fancy meal. The next day it begins all over.

As you can imagine, each coin is valuable. We loose a dollar, or waste a dollar, which would be more common, and we think nothing of it. The poor person loses a dollar, and it can mean the difference between eating and not eating that day.

The poor woman in Jesus’ parable would likely carry any money she had for daily expenses in a tightly knotted rag. It is so valuable that it would never be far from her. The ten coins would provide for her family for a couple of weeks. Somehow the knot in the rag has come untied and one coin has fallen out. The woman immediately feels a sense of shame for not tying the bag tighter. It is her fault, and her family will suffer, if the coin is not found. There is a real sense of urgency. She may have nine coins remaining, but that one is a significant loss, not just for herself, but her family.

In the Middle East it is likely that the house had a stone floor with many cracks between the stones . . . so many places where the coin could have fallen or rolled. On top of that, the houses of the poor are usually dimly lighted. Even in this day of electric lights, the homes of the poor are dim. The woman lights her oil lamp and begins to look for the coin.

Chances are that the woman knows she has lost the coin in the house, because she has not been out that morning. Think about the reality . . . this woman is even more responsible for the loss than the shepherd in the first parable. Sheep have a will of their own, and there were one hundred to look after. It is likely the lost sheep wandered away, but this woman can blame no one but herself. We see in her invitation that the woman accepts the responsibility: “Rejoice with me, I have found the coin I lost” . . . “I lost the coin.” When the coin is found, the community celebrates.

The kingdom of God is about finding the lost and restoring them. In the first parable in Luke 15 the sheep might have wandered away, but the woman lost the coin. That reality might personalize it for us. What might we have done that has caused someone to be lost? Sometimes it has been unintentional. Maybe something was taken the wrong way. Perhaps we should have done something that we did not do. Sometimes we must take responsibility.

Then at other times we have pushed people away by our attitudes. Maybe it was something we said that was hurtful. It is so easy to get caught up in trying to have our own needs met that we let the coin drop into the crack. Again, we must take responsibility.

The woman felt that sense of urgency. We should ask ourselves if we do.

Next time, the last parable . . . the parable of the lost son.

[Some of the ideas on biblical culture came from Kenneth E. Bailey, Finding the Lost: Cultural Keys to Luke 15.]