If you were to die
today and you stood before the gates of heaven and you were asked this one
simple question test to see whether you got in or not, could you answer that
one simple question? Here is that question. “Who does God love?”
Well, if you are
not sure, I am going to give you the correct answer. Pope Leo gave us the
answer on the balcony when he was first presented to the world a few weeks ago.
It is so simple, yet unbelievably astounding! Who does God love? ‘He loves
everybody – everybody – and he loves us without condition!’ I have been
preaching those words for most of my priesthood so I almost came out of my
chair with delight when he said it! Yes, I was both shocked and relieved!
One of the
parables that most brings this point home to me is the parable of the vineyard
workers. The parable of the “Vineyard Workers” is enough to make wine growers
all over the world cringe! This parable is not an instruction on to operate a
profitable vineyard. If you followed this example, you would be broke in no
time! No, it’s a story about how God treats us, a story about God’s
unbelievable generosity! For Jesus, the whole purpose of this parable is to
shock in order to teach! This parable is insane, according to human thinking,
but that’s the whole point of the parable.
Those who had
“worked all day in the sun” were the religious authorities. Those “hour before
quitting time” workers were the “tax collectors and sinners,” those who felt
unworthy in God’s eyes, the simple people who followed Jesus! You can imagine how both groups reacted when
they heard the punch line, “Give them all a full day’s pay!” “Give them all a full day’s pay!”
This message is
very close to the message of another parable, the one we call the Parable of
the Prodigal Son. In that story, the father loves both his sons, the one who
stayed home and followed all the rules, as well as the one who strayed away and
got down with the pigs! The message is simple: God loves all his children, not
matter what they have done or failed to do!
The tax
collectors, sinners and rejects were delirious with joy when they heard that
message! The Scribes and Pharisees, who taught that God’s love depended on
people’s behaviors, were outraged.
One of the worst
things to happen to the church was when it started to “conditionalize” this
“good news” and started teaching people that God loves you when you are good, quits
loving you when you are bad and starts loving you again when you shape up! It is not uncommon to hear some religious
people tone down the “good news” because it is “too dangerous.” I was often
criticized at the Cathedral by them when I welcomed home hundreds of fallen
away Catholics by preaching this message. Their worst nightmare is that if
people really believed the message of the parables and the church really taught
it, all hell would break loose! People would start doing any damned thing they
wanted! That’s the same thing that worried the Scribes and Pharisees. In
reality, the opposite was true in Jesus’ day and the opposite is true in ours!
People’s lives are transformed by that message! They are converted by this
message! This message inspires them to love others the same way they have been
loved by God – friends and enemies alike!
What do you
believe? Are you one of those people who still believes that God’s pays us with
love depending how many hours we have loved him? Are you one of those people
who still believes that God turns his love on and off depending what we do or
fail to do? If you are, really listen to
the message of the parables. If it sounds too good to be true, then you have
gotten the message! God’s incredible unconditional love does sound too good to
be true, but the fact of the matter is, it is true! “While we were still
sinners, Christ died for us!” He didn’t die for us as a reward for our shaping
up! While we were still sinners, he died for us!
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