In the parable of the lost coin that we hear from Luke’s Gospel today, the primary figure is that of a poor woman who has lost one of her 10 coins. The story is not found in the other Gospels. In this parable, God is portrayed as a woman who loses, who seeks for the lost, who finds, and who celebrates. A biblical scholar who shared this story with some Arab Christian women in North Yemen found that those women were not interested with the use of a female image for God. Interestingly, they assumed that the woman’s role was to guard the money earned by the men and therefore, they must keep everything in order. Thus, the intensity of searching is a function of such cultural expectations and the desire to restore the order rather than any intrinsic monetary value (LaHurd, Rediscovering the Lost Women in Luke 15).
We live, as it is said, in a post-Christian society. The old rules of morality in the Ten Commandments or from the Medieval world no longer seem to bind us. We are free to follow our feelings, to make our own rules, including what type of person we want to be. It was presumed that in the Christian world, the power and status of women is lower than a man, and various life options for women related to career, family, education, sexual expression, reproduction, athletics, politics, etc. are narrower. But in post Christian societies, it is presumed that the status of women is higher, the power of women is enhanced, and various life options are much wider and varied.
What is interesting in the case of the nomination of Justice Amy Coney Barrett recently is that she was judged by what is, in effect, the old standards of virtues, not by any new standard of a woman who is living in a post Christian society. Here is a woman of evident good character and great intellect (everyone who knows her admits this). Suddenly, after her nomination, she was accused of having a role as a “handmaid” in a small Christian group. While “handmaids” perform specific tasks like providing pastoral care, organizing aid for fellow members, and offering advice on community issues, they have little power and must be obedient and submissive to men as the “head” of family and of faith. The controversy over Justice Barrett had little to do with her legal qualifications. No one seriously challenged her qualification. What I would conclude from the controversy is that people often have limited imaginations. They could not imagine that an intelligent, meticulous, graceful woman with a strong sense of duty could be a mother of seven children and a wife.
It might also be hard for some of us to imagine a character of a poor woman as a symbol of God who is losing, seeking for the lost, finding and celebrating. God is shown to be present in human history through divine revelation and with its culmination in Jesus who become a human being. In his very nature, Jesus is shown to be one that finds the lost and celebrates when they repent. We might not like the image of a poor woman who lost the coins as the symbol of God who is searching out the lost one. Nevertheless, at least the parable of the lost coin provides a pattern of relationship that reflects faith, forgiveness, and community.