5. Luke.
“ Ohana means family, and family means no one gets left behind….or forgotten”
(Lilo and Stitch, the movie.)
Lovely doctor Luke. There is a song woven through his writings about this good-news gospel. It’s a lullaby. A song of welcome and known, seen and loved, outsiders in and inside out. I’m grateful. Luke was a man who wrote as one who had experienced the mother-heart of God and who had been forever changed by it.
I love the way he includes the “Ohana” stories that Jesus told, and the parable of the lost coin is a favourite of mine. It kisses all the older brothers in us, and reminds them that there’s a mum in the house, and she’s for you.
The parable of the lost coin:
Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbours together and says, “Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.” In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. (Luke 15:8)
There’s a woman over this house, and she knows what she has in the house. Each coin represents work, and she has ten. She has earned them. She’s a woman, and this good women knows, takes care of and looks after what is hers. She has ten coins, and ten means enough voices to pray, read, and understand, and ten together carries the sense of something sovereign and complete.*
Somehow one coin has been lost in the house, but this woman knows because her eye is on the things she has worked for. It’s the end of the day, and I’m wondering if she does a reckoning every day, because what she holds is valuable to her. The only thing to do is light a lamp as the house has gotten a little dark, sweep the corners and the floor, and all the places coins roll when they drop. She doesn’t stop the sweeping that day until the coin is back with her where it belongs. When she finds it, even though the hour is unsociable, she spreads the joy. This woman loves to celebrate, and this is truly worth celebrating: a reunion with what is precious to her. Her joy is contagious because she takes time to gather those around her into the happiness in her heart.
As I let my mind rest on this simple story of lost and found, of searching and celebration and of the sense that the number 10 carries, I begin to see the house, and the woman, and hear her say “but I earned you”. And I remember the times I’ve gotten a little lost in the house of God, even though I’m inside. Sometimes I’m knocked and roll into a dark corner, and I’m sure sometimes I jump out of the hand that holds me. I’m glad there’s a woman over the house. When I roll into darkness she lights a lamp, and when I think I’m hidden or lost, she does a full sweep until I’m found. She will always find me, always seek me out. She has a full hand, ten, and she knows how many there are. Nothing escapes her notice. Her care for me, her seeking after me, is as relentless and purposeful within the house as it is outside it.
She’s so beautiful.
I thank this good woman for her pursuit of me, and she invites me further into the story and further into my soul. She shows me that the 10 are also parts of me deep inside, in the interior world where this woman waits and watches just as much, and where a full hand matters: every part has worth. She reminds me that ten carries a sense of authority and completeness, and that if parts of me have found themselves in a dark corner alone, or lost in any way, she will come with her light and her broom and determinedly seek out what has been separated and bring me back together in her hand, celebrating the reunion with all around her. She is inviting me to see and to celebrate with her all that she has been doing in me.
The coins tell me that I have a value in and of myself. The story doesn’t tell us why she had these coins, and their worth is not measured by what they are needed for. Their value is inherent to them. My value is inherent to me.
The Ohana parables tell me of the relentless love of God that will seek out every lost sheep, the father heart of God that waits, ready to run, for the son who wonders out of the house, and the nurturing mother-heart of God that knows we might get a little lost in the house from time to time, and will always find us.
This parable concludes with an “in the same way” that could love the big brother out of us forever. “In the same way” as there is heavenly rejoicing over every lost sheep that first enters the house, there is rejoicing over every reunion we have with our lover, our father, our mother, our friend, when we live in the house.
In the same way.
You are noticed, you count and are counted, you matter and you continue to be sought out. Both inside and outside, seeing, knowing, finding, reuniting, these are the currency of the Kingdom this house represents.
Lovely doctor Luke must have known what it was to be sought out, to not be left behind, or forgotten. We don’t know if he was from the house of Israel, already chosen but utterly lost, or a Gentile welcomed in, but his heart caught the liberating message of Jesus and he has shared it with us so we might know “the certainty of the things we have been taught.” Luke 1:4
I pray that our knowing is that deep “yada” knowing that comes when we lean into His embrace because His arms are strong and His love is healing.
* words have a numerical value in Hebrew, and numbers carry significance in the stories they are part of. To draw on a few examples, there were 10 commandments, there were 10 plagues, and traditionally it was believed that it took a gathering of at least 10 to study and understand scripture and prophecy. Drink deep.
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