24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

9-15-19 (God is crazy in love with me)

This gospel parable has never made much sense to me.  When Jesus asks the question which one of us would not leave the 99 sheep and go in search of the one, I want to say, “Me!  I wouldn’t go after the one.  That seems crazy.”  Growing up on a farm we didn’t have any sheep but we did have hogs and they would often go wandering off from the group and it was a chore (literally) to keep them together.  If one went wondering off it would be reckless and careless for me leave the whole group of hogs and go after the one.  I can even hear my dad’s voice in my head saying, “What are you, crazy?”

But that is exactly the point.  God’s love is crazy.  St. Catherine of Siena would speak of God being crazy in love with us.  So crazy is this love that it even seems reckless or careless.  Literally!  God could care less how bad we have sinned or how many times.  He still comes in search of us and loves us.  Why God would keep searching for me and loving me does not make sense.  It is crazy!

If someone hurts us or offends us over and over and over again, we get tired of forgiving them and trying to love them.  We don’t want to be hurt by them again so we may even give up on the relationship.  But even though we hurt God over and over and over again by our sins, He never gets tired of forgiving our sins.  His love is so crazy that he is willing to risk being hurt again and so he searches for us.  By earthly standards, the shepherd in the parable is being reckless and irresponsible.  But God’s love is beyond our earthly standards which is why it seems so crazy. 

This kind of love may not make must sense to us; we may not understand why God is so crazy in love with us.  But Christ does not ask us to understand it or make sense of His love.  He is just asking us to receive His love.