Household: Lost Sheep, Luke 15:4-7 (Part 2)

Kenneth E. Bailey shows that this portion of the Luke 15 parable is a combination of straight parallelism with an inverted parallelism in the middle.

1. YOU  4 "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep

2. ONE  and losing one of them,

3. NINETY-NINE  does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness

A. LOST  and go after the one

B. FIND  that is lost until he finds it? 5 When he has found it,

C. REJOICE  he places it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

D. RESTORE   6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors,

C. REJOICE  saying to them, 'Rejoice with me,

B. FIND  for I have found my sheep

A. LOST that was lost.' 

4. YOU  7 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven

5. ONE  over one sinner who repents

6. NINETY-NINE  than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. 

(NRSV) (Finding the Lost: Cultural Keys to Luke 15, 64)

The following are some theological themes that Kenneth Bailey finds in this parable (Finding the Lost: Cultural Keys to Luke 15, 91-92)

1. Failed leadership. The parable contains criticism of leaders who lose their sheep and do nothing but complain about others who go after them.
2. Freely offered grace. The sheep offers no service to the shepherd and in no way earns or deserves his rescue. It comes as a gift.
3. The atonement. The shepherd pays a high price both to find the sheep and to restore it to the home. The heart of the atonement is thus found in this parable.
4. Sin. Humankind is depicted as lost and unable to find their own way home.
5. Joy. The joy of the shepherd and the community at the success of the saving event of restoration is set forth.
6. Repentance. Repentance is defined as acceptance of being found. The sheep is lost and helpless. Repentance becomes the act of the shepherd in carrying the sheep back to his home in the village and the sheep’s acceptance of that act.
7. Christology. Jesus is the good shepherd who is the unique agent of God who restores the sinner to God. (The joy in the home of the shepherd is equated in the parable to joy in heaven.) This Shepherd must personally make the costly demonstration of love/holiness in order to restore the helpless sheep. Three OT texts stand behind the parable. These are Psalm 23; Jeremiah 23:1-4; and Ezekiel 34:11-16. This OT background strongly hints that the shepherd is more than merely an agent, but in some as yet undefined sense is the very presence of God himself among his people seeking his lost sheep.

Series Index

Comments

[Ken Klewin]

If explained in these terms, Reformed theology would be so much better understood than the pedantic cr*p used for the last 500 years. I've never heard a better explanation of what Calvinists mean by "total depravity" than the predicament of the lost sheep. As usual, Jesus said it best.

[Michael W. Kruse]

Ken, a Prof. of mine used to say "I don't care much for the Apostle Paul. He was such a Calvinist." :)

Hang on. Jesus is about to take us even deeper.

[Dana Ames]

I wonder if Jesus is making the point that the sheep are the people of Israel, who are being abused and led astray by the false shepherds. This would make better sense with the OT allusions, along with Jesus' remark about being sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It would also better tie into the point you made yesterday, and with the lost son illustration.

My brain is making all sorts of NTWrightian connections, which would be too numerous to take up your comment space. This is the short way I'm trying to say I don't think Jesus was trying to illustrate "total depravity" or "the sin of humanity" at all. The point is, are you (who say you're God's people) on track with the Kingdom of God (what it looks like and how it is breaking in in me, Jesus) or not?

Chiasms are popping up all over the place... They are influencing how I read my bible, because to me they help show what the writer wanted to emphasize. So, here it would be Restore...

Dana

[Michael W. Kruse]

Dana, I'm going to wait until we get through the whole Luke 15 discussion to address this because I would have to explain what is happening in coming posts.

BTW, if you look at the footnotes in the first volume of Wright's trilogy you will see Bailey's footnoted in several places. Bailey rights a little bit of a response in "Jacob and the Prodigal" where he differs some with Wrights interpretation of his work. But the are clearly fellow travellers.