"Who is the man who, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one, leaves the ninety-nine in the wilderness to go after the lost one, Have found ?"

"Or what is the woman who, having ten drachmas, if she loses a drachma ... does not [carefully] seek her until she finds it ?" Luke 15: 4, 8

Jesus addresses an audience of socially opposed men. On the one hand, publicans and sinners "approached him to hear him" (Luke 15: 1) ; On the other, "the Pharisees and the scribes [who] murmured" (v. 2). These people are therefore in very different dispositions of heart: the first, interested, listen attentively to him : "Jesus eats with them", he lives in their proximity (v.2). The others are hostile, for shocked by his sympathy for such sinners.

The two parables show people who have lost something and who seek it carefully. Jesus speaks through them of God his Father in search of his creature who turned away from him.

Losing one ewe out of a hundred is not an economic drama. Yet the shepherd does not spare his trouble to seek her. For God, every man, however modest, has value. Jesus shows this in his encounters with his contemporaries. He is not afraid of exchanging words with a Samaritan woman of questionable reputation ; It surprised even his disciples who were "astonished at what he was talking about with a woman", moreover Samaritan, thus despised by the Jews (John 4:27). Pharisees bring her an adulterous woman to judge her; But they withdraw when Jesus invites them, as witnesses, to cast the first stone as the Law foresaw. Jesus then said to the woman : "I do not condemn you either" (John 8:11).

On the other hand, misplacing one out of ten drachmas could represent a serious loss for a married Jewish woman. Indeed, every Jewish girl saved until she had amassed ten pieces of silver. She then assembled them in the form of a collar or ribbon for the hair. It was the distinctive sign of the married woman (as the wedding ring today), her inalienable property.

The Lord loves us. Whether we are a lost sheep or a lost piece, we are invaluable to him. He is doing all he can to find us.

Source (To pleasing the Lord)