Are there limits
to God’s love?
God made
everything out of love; love is the reason for everything created; love brought
all into existence. Indeed, God’s imperishable
spirit is in all things! And so, as
the Book of Wisdom assures us, God loves
all things that are and loathes nothing that God has made. We, like God,
hope for final, perfect union when all that God has loved will come together in
the Lord, and thus God has mercy on all,
seeing our sin yet looking beyond it so that we can heal. The Lord’s love is the binding force that
connects us to all things, even when
we don’t want to be, even when we don’t think we are. Psalm 145 reminds us that grace, mercy,
kindness and compassion are all manifestations of God, and so we must praise God’s name forever.
In Luke's Gospel, the chief tax
collector Zacchaeus is open to these truths when he knows that Jesus is passing through Jericho. Because of his profession, no one likes
Zacchaeus – he is considered by many to be out of the fold, not a child of
Israel or Abraham. Consequently, when
Jesus arrives, no one is willing to let Zacchaeus through, so he is forced to
climb a tree to see the Lord. Jesus,
however, seeks Zacchaeus out: Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I
must stay at your house. Following
the divine model described in the Book of Wisdom, Jesus has come to seek and to save what is lost, and so
he overlooks Zacchaeus’ sins, drawing
him back into the fold: this man too is a descendent of Abraham, Jesus
says.
It is not up to us to decide if someone is out of God’s grace – God loves everything God has created, even Zacchaeus. And, having been received by Jesus, Zacchaeus is perhaps now, as Paul writes to the Thessalonians, worthy of his calling so that God might bring to fulfillment in him every good purpose and every effort of faith. May we all be so worthy!
It is not up to us to decide if someone is out of God’s grace – God loves everything God has created, even Zacchaeus. And, having been received by Jesus, Zacchaeus is perhaps now, as Paul writes to the Thessalonians, worthy of his calling so that God might bring to fulfillment in him every good purpose and every effort of faith. May we all be so worthy!
This post is based
on Fr. Pat’s Scripture class.
Image source: www.wordclouds.com
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