Feeling Sheepish?

Luke 15:1–10

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."
So he told them this parable: Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.
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."

I remember being at an event with Rich Omland, and it was time to eat. He led grace, with a line that went something like, “God, we know that your son Jesus sat down and ate with sinners, and that’s a good thing, ‘cause there’s a gathering of them right here...”
I know some folks who wouldn’t have appreciated that. . .
We all know these parables so well. . . what do we say?
In a marvelous sermon, “Clean Sweep” Jennifer Copeland of Duke, suggests that “a broom carries as much weight as a shepherd’s staff for symbolizing God’s care. The point of both stories, of course, is that God will seek us by any means available until we are found.”
She has some great turns of phrase:

In the sweeping, God searches, but also cleanses. I like to imagine God, broom in hand, patiently sweeping away the dirt from our lives and restoring us to our God-given image. In this way we are each uniquely found by God, since we each have our own unique ways of being lost.

and her concluding paragraph touches on something that had not occurred to me

The lost sheep and the lost coin are more than the prized possessions of their owners; they are also parts of a whole. The sheep belongs to the flock and the coin to the purse; without them the whole is not complete. The search, then, is a quest for restoration and wholeness. In this sense, all of us who are part of God’s creation should be just as anxious as God until the lost are restored and we are made whole again by their presence. Then, with brooms in hand, we can answer God’s call, "Rejoice with me.”

I like that idea, that the lost are parts of a whole. I have, over the years, been so enamored of the reading that points to these parables as pictures of God as so very reckless in loving, leaving behind the 99, throwing a big party after the sweeping search. There is plenty in that read, it is true, but Copeland reminds me that there is a richness in recalling that we who are each uniquely lost are uniquely found in Jesus Christ.