God’s Unlimited Love

Luke 15:1-10[1]

From time beyond memory people have held certain beliefs about God. One of the most common of those beliefs is that everyone has to live up to some standard in order to be “accepted” by God. Whether it’s offering animal sacrifices, or adhering to a moral code, or even a matter of what you do and don’t eat or with whom you do and don’t associate, there has always been some kind of condition placed on being accepted by God. That’s where religions come from. They’re human creations, built on the belief that in order for us to be accepted by God we must perform the prescribed rituals.

Unfortunately, the Bible isn’t immune to this notion of God. You’ll find whole chapters in the Hebrew Bible devoted to outlining who is “clean” and who is “unclean.” As I’ve mentioned before, the book of Numbers is about how anyone who sinned deliberately, or complained against God, or even got too close to God in a way they weren’t permitted, would be struck dead. And the image of God in Deuteronomy can be equally troubling—anyone who sins must be executed to prevent an angry God from destroying the whole people. The reason offered is that “the LORD your God is a devouring fire” (Dt 4:24)! And that view of God isn’t confined to the OT. We heard an echo of that verse in a reading from the NT recently (Heb 11:29).

The problem with this view of God is that it leaves access to God in the hands of those who most benefit from making sure the people know who is “holy” and who isn’t. Whether it was priests or popular religious leaders, they all seemed to curiously benefit from reinforcing the idea that people aren’t “good enough” to be accepted by God. There’s always some way in which people fall short, there’s always something else that has to be done, always another sacrifice to be made. And the result is that it always keeps God just out of reach of “ordinary” people.

I think we see that kind of attitude reflected in the way the scribes and the Pharisees complained about Jesus in our Gospel reading for today. The scribes were the experts in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, and the pharisees were the zealots who were devoted to fulfilling completely and without fail even the most trivial matters defined there. For that, they believed themselves to be the “righteous” who are applauded throughout the Hebrew Bible. Of course, anyone who didn’t live up to their standards was a “sinner” in their eyes. And they went out of their way to avoid any contact with “sinners,” because they believed sin was “contagious,” like a virus. Sharing a meal with “sinners” would have been like sharing a bath with a whole group of contagious people. So they grumbled and complained: “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Lk 15:2).

In response Jesus told two stories that illustrated how God extends his love to all people, without any restrictions or limitations. The first is a story of a shepherd who has a flock of 100 sheep. One of them goes astray, and rather than staying to make sure the other 99 are safe from all dangers, he leaves them to search for the lost sheep. When he finds that one sheep, he is so overjoyed that he invites his friends to celebrate with him. Jesus then told a second story about a woman who loses a coin. That might not seem like a big deal, but in this case, her entire “nest egg” consisted of ten coins. So she literally turns her house upside-down looking for the lost coin. And when she finds it, she’s so overjoyed that she invites her friends to celebrate with her.

One thing about these two stories has always fascinated me. “Celebrations” in those days would have involved food. They involved throwing a party. It makes me think of the shepherd with the sheep that had gone astray. Did he serve roasted lamb at his party?  It seems ironic, and extravagant! I also wonder about the woman. Did she spend the coin she had just put so much effort into finding to put on the party for her friends? Again, it seems ironic and extravagant to celebrate finding a coin by spending it to throw a party for friends. And in both cases, that’s precisely the point.

God’s love is so unlimited and extravagant that Jesus says that there is “more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Lk 15:7). That’s not the impression you get from reading some parts of the Bible. Some of the Psalms especially seem to restrict God’s “joy” to the “righteous” and to consign “sinners” to hell with no further thought. That’s what the scribes and pharisees believed. But Jesus used these stories, along with his willingness to befriend and even share meals with “sinners” to make clear what it meant to believe in a God who is “merciful and kind, patient and full of unfailing love” (Ps 145:8). As Gene Peterson puts it in the Message, that kind of a God “is good to one and all; everything he does is soaked through with grace.” (Ps 145:9, MSG).

That’s the God whom Jesus called “Father.” The one who showers the blessings of sun and rain on all people alike (Mt 5:45). And if we pay careful attention to the stories of those who fully embrace God’s unlimited love, we’ll realize that God never leaves us where we are or as we are. I think that’s why so many prefer the “God” of the religions. If you can keep “God” within certain prescribed rituals, you get to go about your life as you please. But a God who claims us with his unlimited love will claim all of life. A God like that isn’t going to leave us where we are or as we are but is likely to take us to places and call us to do things we could never have imagined.

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[1] © 2022 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 9/11/2022 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.