God Loves All Kinds
As we have seen thus far, the goal of Psalm 107 is to draw the reader in to experience God’s steady and sturdy love in order to produce an eruption of thanksgiving to God. One of the ways the psalm works to this end is with vivid images and stories. Last week we considered the psalm’s use of compass imagery (v. 3) to conclude that God loves all kinds of people from all over. The body of Psalm 107 deploys four vivid stories of God’s love in action. According to these stories, not only does God’s love reach into four different geographies, but also into the lives of four kinds of people. The point is this: Go in every direction and you will find people that God loves, and you will find that God loves all kinds of people. God’s love is not curated.
Gentrification is a process of community curation. What I find so curious about areas undergoing this transformation are the similarities regardless of geography. These spaces are marked by the same exposed brick, overpriced fusion restaurant, cool brewery, and athleisure everywhere! More to the point, it even seems that these areas are swamped with the same kind of people who work the same type of jobs, who wear the same style of clothes, and who like the same gentrified things. These curated areas have the same kinds of things and people, but God’s love is not bound to a particular kind of person. God, who is love at his core, loves all kinds, and this is what the stories of Psalm 107 drive home.
God’s love reaches all kinds of people, ministering grace upon grace.
In verses 4-32 the Psalm tells of God’s love reaching into different places. God’s love extends into deserts (v. 4-9), prisons (v. 10-16), restaurants (v. 17-22), and oceanside towns (v. 23-32). However, these stories also describe God’s love spreading to different kinds of people. God’s love goes out to the wanderer (v. 4-9), the prisoner (v. 10-16), the malcontent (v. 17-22), and the ambitious (v. 23-32). These stories make plain that God’s love is not a curated commodity bound to a certain type of person. Rather, God’s love reaches all kinds of people, ministering grace upon grace. The clearest declaration of this truth is Jesus himself.
Jesus, who is God in himself alongside the Father and Spirit, came down to earth and lived among us revealing what God is like. He came with grace upon grace for all kinds of people. Paralytics and lepers, religious leaders and prostitutes, tax collectors and Samaritan women, and everyone in between were welcomed into Jesus’s loving presence. And he died on the cross for their sins so that they could experience the joy, freedom, satisfaction and safety of God’s love forever.
Over the next four weeks, I will take the four stories of Psalm 107 one-by-one. With each story I want to study the kind of people God loves and see ourselves in those stories. Oh, and if you are wondering if you’re the kind of person God loves, you are.
