The Doorman
A new poem on Luke 15:1-10
The Doorman
After Luke 15:1-10
There is joy in finding
and grief in losing.
A discovered friend brings delight,
a lost job creates an aching void.
Jesus sees many today—
like coins beneath couch cushions,
like sheep longing for true streams—
each and every worth searching for.
We sometimes decide to be distant, lost.
Yet the heavens roar in gladness when we finally come home.
I’d like to be the doorman. Luke recalls an interesting account in Luke 15 when tax collectors and sinners came to Jesus to listen to him speak. The writer of Luke points out that some Pharisees and scribes—who were presumably there first—were annoyed and grumbled with disdain, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Jesus then tells the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. These parables expose how quickly we can judge others, labeling their choices as intentional rebellion and even writing some people off as hopeless.
But people are rarely that simple. Sure, some people choose to walk paths of unending defiance, but the truth is that the majority of us, myself included, fail to live up to the highest ideals of character and action.
The point of Jesus’ parables isn’t to say who is better or more worthy. Instead, they celebrate the joy of someone turning back—responding to God’s gracious invitation to come home.
What might our churches and the world look like if we were the first ones to hold wide the door of God’s grace and say, “Welcome, we are so glad you are here!”