God’s Grading System

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” began the renowned professor. “Welcome to your first graduate school class in theology. I feel certain that many of you are anxious about my grading system for this class. You may have concerns about your preparedness for graduate study. Let me put your fears to rest. As your first lesson in the nature of God, I wish to offer you an experience of God’s limitless mercy and compassion. You will all be receiving ‘A’s in this class.”

We can guess which students cheered and which balked at the professor’s words. What good is getting an “A” if it doesn’t mean that I performed better than the other students did? What’s the point of studying if everyone will get an “A”? What’s the point of obeying a God who does not punish those who deserve punishment or reward those who deserve reward, but simply offers each of us unconditional love whenever we are ready to receive it?

St. Paul would be the first to tell us that there is no one who deserves an “A” in the class of life. All are sinners; all of us deserve to fail. Yet God relents, showing us compassion and mercy. God’s mercy should be a cause for profound and life-changing gratitude. “We must celebrate and rejoice” over every person who is “mercifully treated,” as Paul was, and as we have been. [Living the Word]

On returning to school, students are normally asking their teacher about their grading system. Will they grade on percentage or on a curve? Will they count class attendance or only tests and assignments? In the scriptures for this Sunday we learn that God’s grading system gives us abundant reason to rejoice and celebrate! The story is told of a famous professor who exemplified the portrait of God as described in our scripture readings for this Sunday!

“Without forgiveness, life is governed by an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation; without understanding, life is mired in constant hurt and despair. The Jesus of the Gospel challenges us to break out of that cycle. Like the woman in today’s Gospel, every one of us has a deep need to forgive and be forgiven, to understand and be understood, to accept and be accepted. As disciples of Jesus, we are called to be reconcilers, not judges; we are called to forgive, not keep score; we are called to welcome back those who want to return and to enable them to put their lives back together, not to set up conditions or establish litmus tests to prove their worthiness and sincerity. To love as Jesus loves demands that we live, not in skepticism or distrust, but in the optimism of faith that God always welcomes us back.”

[Connections, June 2010]

Quote: “In his parables of forgiveness, Jesus reveals to us a God of beginnings, a God who is never satisfied with rejection, terminations and endings – but who always seeks and offers new beginnings, second chances and clean slates. As the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son illustrate, so great is the mysteries of love of God that we are never written off as lost or dead or hopelessly irredeemable: The love of God is there for us even in our darkest days when our despair is most desperate, when we feel most isolated, alone, far from God and others, when we are angriest at God and the things of God. In our struggle to forgive and reconcile with those from whom we are estranged, we are doing God’s own work and mending the torn fabric of humanity!” [Connections: Reconciliation – God’s Work of Mending]