The Parable of the Lost Coin
The Parable of the Lost Sheep (https://www.steveburnhope.com/blog/the-parable-of-the-lost-sheep) is the first of three consecutive parables of Jesus in Luke 15, each dealing with a particular kind of “lostness.” The Parable of the Lost Coin is the second and shortest, at just three verses. Interestingly, the final one—the Parable of the Lost Son—is the longest of the three and the longest of all in the Gospels.
Once again, it’s important to note the setting—"the context”—that Luke intentionally provides in verses 1-2, since this will be an important clue for how we are to read the meaning that he intends we find in the parables that follow:
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering round to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners, and eats with them.’
At first glance, it’s easy to assume that the characters represented in the Parable of the Lost Coin are essentially the same as in the Parable of the Lost Sheep; that the “message” is the same—a different story, but making the same point. The standard assumption is that the shepherd (diligently searching for his lost sheep) and the woman (diligently searching for her lost coin) are types of God looking for lost sinners. I don’t want to suggest that that’s an unreasonable way of reading things. After all, both are to do with something being lost and then found and we see a common ending of rejoicing in the finding. But I would suggest that to commingle them in that way isn’t doing justice to either—and still less, to Jesus, who chose to tell them both. If the point was the same, why bother? At a minimum, this should alert us to the need to pay close attention to the differences in the two parables. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves; let’s start with the parable itself.
‘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.’
I can quite see why a casual reader might say this doesn’t seem to require much in the way of “interpretation.” Indeed, that I could be accused of over-interpretation by even suggesting that it might. However, we must remember that this is a parable. And parables reflect a particular genre of writing, the elements of which need to be our guide to meaning. A so-called “plain” reading is not intrinsically a correct or “best” reading, since what that means in practice is how a person unfamiliar with both biblical genre and the socio-cultural features of first-century Palestine reads it from a twenty-first-century vantage point; hence, it will be a reading that is informed by neither.
Not only will we almost certainly be missing something important by failing to take account of these things, but I would go further and suggest that (a) the genre of parables, (b) the particular parable’s socio-cultural features, and in this case, (c) the context that Luke offers us at the outset, are together the key to its interpretation.
The parable itself tells us nothing about the woman. Is she married, single, or a widow? Is she rich or poor? Does she own the house, rent the house, or just work in the house? We may assume that she at least lives there because of the reference to her neighbours. Is it a big house or a small house? Why does she have ten silver coins (why not fifty, or a hundred—matching the hundred sheep in the previous parable)? Is the value of the coins relevant to the parable’s meaning? If so, what is that value? Why does she need to light a lamp? Why mention that? Does this suggest that she loses the coin—or only realises it—at nighttime? What is the purpose (if any) of her sweeping rather than just searching on hands and knees? How long did she need to search for? We know none of these things from the parable itself.
Some commentators have taken the view that these questions are irrelevant—we shouldn’t let them get in the way of a good story. Maybe. But I think that’s being too casual. We always need to take account of the “rules of the game” when it comes to reading any parable well—starting with, the genre of a parable. For more on that, see my article “Sayings of Jesus: Parables” (https://www.steveburnhope.com/blog/sayings). I shan’t repeat all of that here, but I will focus on a few elements that are perhaps most relevant to the Lost Coin parable.
Firstly, we know that a parable is situated in an archetypal everyday life kind of setting, with which the listeners would be familiar, and hence, they would quickly relate to both the setting and the characters. That is patently not the case for us today. We’re a long way distant, so we need some help to avoid reading anachronistically. We need to ask questions (such as those above) that they would not.
Secondly, it’s unlikely that any of the details in a parable would have been irrelevant, not least when we’re offered very few to begin with (as is the case here). The fewer we’re offered, the more significant they may be.
And thirdly, we need to try to identify the features in the story that would have seemed “normal” (to be expected) and those that would have seemed “strange” (unexpected, or abnormal), since the second category is likely to be offering the clues to the parable’s meaning (for example, a Samaritan being the hero, rather than pious religious leaders).
So let’s start with the coins. The Greek word here is drachmē—which is exactly what it sounds like, a drachma, a Greek silver coin of roughly the same value as a Roman denarius. Its value is generally reckoned to be roughly the daily wage for a peasant labourer; which was not very much, a poverty-level income, only enough to barely survive. Some have suggested that the coin was part of the woman’s dowry on being married, and hence, perhaps she was a widow, for whom those coins could have been a potential lifeline as a rainy-day fund (albeit, given their relatively low value—and that she had only ten of them—not much of one). Some scholars have suggested that she would have worn them as part of a headdress, though the consensus now seems to be that’s unlikely; it’s entirely possible that she had worked for the money. In any event, the coins indicate that the woman is poor.
The next thing the parable tells us—that Jesus poses as a question—is “Doesn’t she light a lamp …?” This may appear to be a rhetorical question, presupposing the obvious answer is “Yes, of course she does!” But is that something “normal,” to be expected, or “strange,” and unexpected? We must be open to the possibility that the answer Jesus is inviting is, “Actually, no! She wouldn’t necessarily …!” What might cause that to be the case? If the cost of the oil she would have to use in the lamp for the search was at risk of exceeding the value of the coin. She would have to weigh up the certainty of the cost of the oil against the uncertainty of finding the coin (a potential double-whammy, losing both). Erin Verncombe tells us that the woman’s “lighting of the lamp in order to search for the coin is significant; lamp oil seems to have been carefully managed, and in a situation where the single drachma was worth a search, in a subsistence-level circumstance, the lighting of the lamp was not a negligible or insignificant action.” The risk-averse, “sensible” thing would be to give up on the coin; maybe one day it would turn up anyway and, in the meantime, she’s preserved her other assets.
If the lighting of the lamp is unexpected but important in the parable’s meaning, might that also be true of the next feature—sweeping the house? Such action might dislodge the coin from wherever it was (clearly the coin was not lying somewhere in plain sight, so perhaps lodged in a nook or cranny), but equally, that might sweep it even farther away. Sweeping could also be viewed as reckless because of the dust that would be stirred up, contaminating the atmosphere for the occupants of the house.
We are told she “searches carefully” (NIV), which is better rendered by the RSV and KJV, as “seeking diligently”—emphasizing the effort and passion involved. It’s an assiduous “searching after”—persevering, unremitting, hardworking. The same Greek word has just described the search of the shepherd for the lost sheep. It’s also how we’re invited to “seek first the Kingdom,” in Matthew 6:33.
What, then, of the differences between the parables?
The first features a man and the second a woman; perhaps unsurprisingly, insofar as the settings are a work context and a home context, respectively. But to the extent they are “types” of God, to feature both a woman and a man may be seen as undermining the flawed idea of God represented in exclusively male terms. The imago Dei in Genesis 1:27 is male and female—unless both are reflected, how we imagine God to be is an incomplete picture.
The first features a sheep and the second a coin. Both have value, but they’re not the same kind of value. A lost sheep is in immediate danger and may be permanently lost if not quickly rescued. But a lost coin retains its value even when it’s lost. The value of a sheep is derived from market forces—its value to people, which is variable and subjective—but the value of a coin is derived from the realm (kingdom) in which it is currency. It bears the image of the monarch, which is the mark and guarantee of its value in perpetuity. A lost coin is worth just as much from the monarch’s perspective as any coin that is not lost.
So let’s tie all this together in what I think is a good way of reading the parable as Jesus intended it.
The three parables are Jesus’ defence to the religious leaders’ accusation that ‘This man welcomes sinners, and eats with them.’ Jesus is offering three different ways in which God sees human lostness reflected and how—pictured as the shepherd, the woman, and the father, respectively—he understands that lostness and responds to it.
The sheep is lost through no fault of its own; the shepherd does not blame it. The coin is also not lost through any fault of its own. In neither case is the focus on how they came to be lost or on attributing blame. Rather, it’s on the passion of the owners to find them.
Even though in the third parable the lost son is very much to blame, the story scarcely touches on that and, still less, on anger or retribution. “Sin” is not front and centre in the story. Punishment never features (either the son’s or anyone else’s). Rather, it’s all about the father’s unexpected—and totally unreasonable—love, compassion, mercy, and forgiveness (totally unreasonable from the religious leaders’ point of view—reinforced in the casting of the older brother) and restoration of the sonship that was lost when the son was lost.
In the first two parables, the owner goes to astonishing and costly lengths—above and beyond what is sensible and prudent. Both go out on a limb because they value the lost item so highly.
The interests of the ninety-nine and the nine are presented as secondary to the interests of the one lost (infuriating the religious leaders who counted themselves in the “found” categories and believed that God was focused on them).
In the third parable, the father is even happy to lay down his reputation and be criticized for being soft and weak: namely, too much about love and forgiveness, and not enough about sin and judgement. Being soft on sin and soft toward sinners are the very things that the religious leaders were criticizing Jesus for at the outset.
What really angers them is that Jesus presents a God the Father who is insufficiently conservative for their tastes. A Jesus whose way of seeking after lost people starts from hospitality toward them rather than denouncing them.