I saw a newspaper cartoon a few years ago that caught my eye.

It showed a priest confronting a family about their failure to pay the bill for their child's exorcism. The priest finished by saying that they left him with no choice but re-possession. And if God and his Church operated the way the world does, the cartoon wouldn't be funny at all. If God used human accounting, sub-prime borrowers wouldn't be the only ones in trouble--God would be foreclosing on heavenly mansions and the construction industry in heaven would have a lot of idle people. After all, baptismal promises to be faithful in prayer, scripture-reading, and worship and to love all persons—neighbors and enemies alike—and to strive for justice and peace—all those promises are broken every day.

But our lessons all agree that God is not fair. The people who lifted their eyes to gaze at the bronze serpent and cheat death did not earn their second chance. Their distress was entirely a result of their own actions and they should have died, but God bailed them out. Although they were surrounded by poisonous snakes and had already been bitten, although logic said their situation was hopeless, God's love and mercy offered them a way out. God's will was that they live, in spite of their sin.

John wrote that God's plan for Jesus was not that he condemn the world, but rather that all who were dying in sin might lift their eyes toward Jesus and live. And Paul reminded the Ephesians that God had loved them while they were still dead in their sins—that God's love and salvation was a gift and had not been earned by their good works.

And for some of us God-fearing, church-going, Bible-believing Christians, that just doesn't seem right. Why should sinners get off scot-free? Where is God's sense of justice? They knew what they were doing, they knew the wages of sin was death, but they continued on their path to destruction. Doesn't God know that letting them off the hook they made for themselves is rewarding their bad behavior?

What kind of example is God providing for our children? Better to let them die and go to the fires of hell for all eternity—that would make an impression on people.

I think many of us have at least a little bit of Pharisee, or a little bit of Noah, inside. We imagine that if God were to send another flood to erase humanity from the face of the earth, God would give us a little advance notice to build an ark. We flatter ourselves by looking at people in newspapers and on television. We think that we haven't murdered anyone; we haven't cheated thousands of people out of their life savings; we haven't been drug dealers or child molesters. Society needs to throw the book at folks like that: lock them up and throw away the key. And we expect God to do the same.

But God refuses to play by our rules. God doesn't want to start fresh with another ark full of people. God's hope is that none of his children be lost. The thief on the cross next to Jesus asked to be remembered and he received Jesus' promise and God's gift of life eternal. Like the snakebit victims in the Sinai wilderness, God's arms were willing to embrace another deathbed convert. And God doesn't wait for people to be dying to come to their senses. God so loved the world that he sent his son to tell of God's love. And he sends us today and tomorrow and the day after that to keep telling people about God's love and mercy and forgiveness. God has entrusted us with spreading the good news so everyone has the opportunity to believe and to live.

But that good news will ring hollow unless we can admit that we know it is true from personal experience. Paul reminded the Ephesians and us that we have nothing to brag about. We too have sinned and fallen far short of what God expects of us. God has loved and continues to love us, not because we are so cute and irresistible and lovable, but in spite of the fact that we often are not lovable. We have not earned God's love, we don't deserve God's love, but God just keeps on loving us anyway and he tries any way he can to show that love to us. And then he wants us to pass that love along to others.

When we welcome a stranger, when we serve a meal at Victory House, when our dollars enable the work of New Bethany Ministries and the Hellertown Area Ministerium and the rebuilding of schools in Kajo Keji, God's love is shown directly to some people and is witnessed

by many more. People who had no hope see Jesus and that spark becomes a ray of hope in their dark tunnel. God's light comes into their world and shows them the way out of their despair.

Like Jesus, we are called to bring that light to them and to rejoice with all who are willing to follow the light of the world.

And when we arrive in heaven, I'm sure we will meet some people whom we never expected to see there. And some of them may be just as surprised to see us there, too.

God just isn't fair. Thank God for that.