14 September 2025
That Silver Coin.
One of the things that made our Lord’s teaching so attractive was that he often dressed up his message in stories. We still tell them, and they still resonate strongly with us.
I strongly suspect that his parables came from real-life incidents that he had personally witnessed. The prodigal son, the good Samaritan —perhaps the Master had seen and experienced families and people just like these.
Today’s gospel has two mini-stories, one about a shepherd and his sheep and the other about a woman and her housekeeping money.
I wildly speculate that the Master might well have seen something very much like this silver coin in his own home.
You see the scenario. Mother Mary is about to head off to the market with her 10 silver coins, and just as she gets to the door, she drops one and it rolls away. “Bother!” she says, and putting aside her environmentally friendly tote bag made completely from recyclable fishing net, she begins to hunt for that silver coin.
There is much being fraught with worry and panic. It is not an amount of cash that you think … oh well, it’s just parking metre money anyway. Loose change.
She lights a lamp so that she can see more clearly, sweeps the house so that the silver coin can be more easily seen and then the hunt is on in earnest. She looks faithfully, diligently, persistently, relentlessly. She can not give up, she will not give up, until the coin is found.
It does not matter how long it takes, or how much energy is expended in this search, the crusade does not end, will not end, until that silver coin is found.
When the coin is finally found in the most obvious place, of course, something quite special occurs. The joy of finding the coin is not something to be squirrelled secretly away and kept to herself. The joy is too great and so potent. It would be like trying to keep your engagement to your beloved a secret.
No … nothing less than a party will do. Friends and neighbours gather around, bring food and drink and celebrate what might seem to be insignificant (I mean, people lose and find coins all the time, right?) but is actually a marvellous occasion.
In this story, we are given a glimpse into the immeasurable, unquantifiable joy of heaven. You can’t stuff it into a box and say There it is. It jumps out at you and expands and unfolds and fills every possible space. I theorise that one of the reasons why the Master often used the imagery of a party to describe heaven, is because he watched Joseph and Mary entertain. And it would be a natural progression then for him to go to the wedding at Cana, to dinner parties and maybe quite a few other social events that aren’t recorded for us. He would be the sort of guy that you would want to invite to your table. The one that has some rather interesting stories to tell. He would light up the room, say some wise things and you would find yourself laughing … a lot and wanting more, always more.
A few things to draw out of this story.
The good news of the Messiah is not something we keep to ourselves. The good news is to be celebrated and we are called to invite others to come along to our parties.
Each and every one of us, like the silver coin, is absolutely, crucially vital. We are essential to God and whilst we might think he has gazzillons of angels and saints and parishioners, every last single one is needed. Sometimes we might feel like we are undervalued and not as shiny as the newly minted coin that we are called to be, but that is not how the Master sees us.
And like the woman, we will find that God cannot give up in His quest for us until we are brought safely home, and we know that we are worth a neighbourhood street party.
Something else I learnt only this year when I had reread the gospel a few times.
There is a clear direction about lighting a lamp, doing the sweeping and searching. How come I’d never picked up on this before 2025?
Our search for him begins with lighting our own lamp, reading our bible, coming to the altar, saying our prayers so that our souls may be illuminated and we begin to see things a little more clearly.
We are called to sweep away the grunge and dust that so easily and readily gets in every crevice and crease. When the lamp is bright and the sweeping done, only then, can our search for him begin. And we shall spend a lifetime keeping the lamp burning, sweeping out the muck and looking diligently, faithfully, sometimes just catching a glimpse, but always knowing that this pursuit is the same relentless enterprise that everyone else is undertaking.
Our search will be nearly over when we understand that actually,… He found us a long time ago. We just didn’t ‘get it’ at the start. And it will be finally complete when we come home to that party where all are welcome and celebrated as infinitely precious.