The entire cause of the recovery operation in both stories is the shepherd’s, or the woman’s, determination to find the lost. Neither the lost sheep nor the lost coin does a blessed thing except hang around in its lostness. On the strength of these parables, therefore, it is precisely our sins, and not our goodnesses, that most commend us to the grace of God. These parables of lostness . . . are emphatically not stories designed to convince us that if we will wind ourselves up to some acceptable level of moral and/or spiritual improvement, God will then forgive us; rather they are parables
...more
