I suspect that most of you will know that No. 221b Baker Street, London, was the street address of Sherlock Holmes, the famous detective. Of course the detective and the house number only existed in the imagination of the author, Arthur Conan Doyle.

But No. 200 Baker Street certainly does exist and, until three years ago, was the address of a very important establishment: London Transport’s Lost Property Office. This was set up in November 1933 and it’s estimated that, during the following 86 years, more than 15 million items of lost property from trams, buses, trains and taxis arrived there, were processed and stored on the Office’s green shelves. Every item was dutifully catalogued and stored for a period of three months, pending a hoped-for restoration to its grateful owner. About 22% of lost property does get returned (on payment of a fee), although that figure rises to 40% for higher-value items.

Most items that reach the Lost Property Office are mundane: books, clothes, laptop computers, cameras, mobile phones, keys, gloves and spectacles. When the Office opened, a quarter of a million umbrellas were handed in each year but now it’s only about 10,000 – I think that’s because fewer people carry them, not because their owners are more careful! Some strange items have come in, such as a park bench, a giant orange maggot made of synthetic fur, barristers’ wigs, a “Stop: children crossing” lollipop sign and human bones – which were reported to the Police. One item that was successfully returned was a funeral urn with ashes that had been placed in a holdall which was first stolen and then abandoned. The Office continues its work today, no longer in the “three-storey subterranean labyrinth” whose “every nook or cranny is filled with an assortment of the mundane or the bizarre” but in more modern premises in South Kensington.

Neither the lost sheep nor the widow’s coin ever got anywhere near London! However the theme of Jesus “seeking the lost” is a familiar one. Matthew tells us of Jesus looking at the crowds who have come to hear him and weeping, for they are “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd”. This Gospel also tells us how Jesus told his disciples that he was “sent to the lost sheep of Israel” and sent them out on a similar mission. Then Matthew and Luke together give us the story of the king sending his servants out to “the highways and byways” to round up diners for his feast after the invited guests have stood him up. And it’s Luke who brings this theme to the fore. For he doesn’t only include the three stories of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son, but also Jesus’ catch-all summary of his ministry: “the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost”.

In the Old Testament the emphasis is on people who feel lost searching for God (a common human predicament!) rather than God taking the initiative to seek them. However God does promise through Isaiah that he will bring the dispersed and lost people of Israel – the sheep that seem to have gone astray so happily in Handel’s “Messiah” – back to the land, while through Jeremiah he speaks of his people as “lost sheep” who have been led astray by their corrupt shepherds. The only direct reference I can find of God actively searching for his lost people comes in our passage from Ezekiel: “I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered”.

For the sake of completeness I need to glance at the New Testament beyond the Gospels. I was quite surprised to discover that Paul never uses the “lost sheep” and “searching shepherd” motif – perhaps he was too much of a sophisticated city dweller for that! However Peter – Jesus’ companion, of course – does use it: “You were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls”, he writes, in a clear reference back to Isaiah.

All that is by way background; we can see that Jesus was building on Scripture and tradition which would have been well known to his listeners: not the disciples on this occasion, but Pharisees and scribes who were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them”. They aren’t happy because Jesus is welcoming into his community, perhaps into God’s kingdom, people who they think have no right to be welcomed. These folks aren’t the kind who ought to be included; indeed some of them, such as the tax collectors, might even be Gentiles rather than scrupulous, kosher, decent, law-abiding Jews. By including them at his dinner table, Jesus is making his meal ritually unclean, and these respectable people can’t be doing with that! However those “outcast” people have come to actually learn from Jesus, rather than to criticise the lowlife company he seems to enjoy. They, rather than the religious bigwigs, are on the road to repentance.

Our story raises some intriguing questions. It seems sensible to first think about the sheep, which we tend to think of it as a cuddly and innocent baa-lamb than a grizzled old ram! Did it know it was lost? Was it feeling lonely and desperate or just enjoying some time away from the other sheep? Did it sense that it had got itself into a perilous situation? Did it actually know its way back to the flock? We probably shouldn’t be asking those questions – we’re talking about a sheep, not a human being! But it surely is legitimate to ask about those so-called  ‘sinners’ who were excluded from much of Jewish society: were they angry and frustrated, or had they stoically come to accept that their position in life was never going to change? How had they reacted to Jesus’ invitation to eat with him: would they have been cautious, wondering what his true motivation might be and not wanting to be taken for a ride? We can only guess – but perhaps we can guess well!

Let’s turn now to the shepherd, who seems to have no qualms about going after the sheep that is lost. We’re not told if he knows where it is, or how long it will take him to find it, or what perils to life and limb he might encounter during his search. We all know that sheep can get themselves into the most unlikely places, so the shepherd could find himself scaling a cliff (with no climbing equipment) or clambering over rough terrain (with only a staff to steady him) or even confronting a wolf (with no shotgun to hand). If anything happens to him, there is no way he can call for help; indeed he might not even be missed for some days. Is this stupidity? On the face of it, yes; but it’s the stupidity of God, who was prepared to send his Son into the world and even face death to “reclaim ruined sinners”. That’s the measure of his love.

Neither does he seem worried about abandoning the other ninety-nine to fend for themselves, apparently unprotected. We’re not told that he has an assistant who can keep an eye on them, there’s no mention of a sheepdog (anyway this is Palestine, not Wales), the sheep don’t even seem to have been herded into any kind of safe enclosure. So what about predatory animals which might fancy lamb for dinner? What about rustlers who might view this flock as a golden opportunity for thievery? In business terms, the shepherd is risking 99% of his capital in order to save a measly 1%, which seems ludicrous. If he’s a hired man, responsible to his boss for every animal, he has far more to lose by leaving the ninety-nine than he can gain by finding the one.

Clearly we are dealing with a shepherd who is reckless, or who is willing to take a risk, or who cares for the lost sheep more than its mates. This is extraordinary, even shocking behaviour, yet Jesus seems to think it’s normal: “Isn’t that what any of you would do?” Perhaps he was trying to shock his listeners out of their complacency by saying, “Look! This is how much God loves the people that you think are worthless. His values and your values and diametrically opposed”.

One writer thinks that Jesus is being deliberately absurd in this and several other parables. He uses humour to make a point about the outlandishness of God who, he says, “is the comic shepherd who gets more of a kick from that one lost sheep once he finds it than from the ninety-nine who had the good sense not to get lost in the first place”.

Then, thinking of the parable of the great banquet, he goes on: “God is the eccentric host who, when the country-club crowd all turn out to have more important things to do than live it up with him, goes out into the back alleys and soup kitchens and hostels and brings home the man with no legs who sells shoelaces at the corner, the old woman in the moth-eaten fur coat who makes a daily round of the rubbish bins, the wino with his bottle in a brown paper bag, the pusher, the prostitute, the village idiot who stands at the traffic light waving as the cars go by. These are seated at the damask-laid table in the great hall. The candles are lit, the glasses are filled with champagne and, at a sign from the host, the musicians strike up ‘Amazing Grace’”. How vivid a picture is that?

There is so much we could say about this familiar parable: of God taking the initiative in salvation, of the risks he took in so doing, of the joy in earth when the lost sheep, coin, son or sinner is found and restored. But Jesus was directing these stories at a specific group of people: would they have shared in the general rejoicing? They were so sure that they were not lost and didn’t need rescuing; however Jesus’ parables, assuming they bothered to mull over them, might have made them start thinking about their own status before God – or perhaps made them very angry. How dare Jesus say that God wants to bring dirty sinners into his kingdom? How dare he suggest that God cares for despicable tax-collectors dealing in filthy Roman lucre? Those upright citizens must have felt that Jesus was pulling the rug from under them and their prejudices – and they’d have been right.

We usually think of this tale in terms of mission: that we need to go outside the church to seek people who we call “the lost”. That’s a good notion (and mission is important). We may also think of it in terms of helping the people who are so often shunned by society; that too is a worthy thought. But this story isn’t really about those things at all. For it’s aimed at people like you and me, respectable religious folk who do our best to serve God and uphold Christian values. It’s asking us to question our attitudes to people we might look down on or disdain, folk who are living in ways we disapprove of or who aren’t, we feel, making their proper contribution to society. We’d never own up to such snobbishness or condescension; indeed, if challenged, we’d say, “Of course I value everyone equally”. But, deep down, we don’t; we unconsciously classify people as “worthy” or “wasters”, “decent” or “reprobate”, “civilised” or “beyond redemption”. But God doesn’t think like that at all. For it’s not just the lost sheep that needs rescuing: the ninety-nine who never strayed are just as much in need of salvation – aren’t we?

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