Love is hard to believe. For all our longing for love, all of our hope that love wins..., to actually trust in love when it is offered is incredibly difficult, especially when the offer comes from God. In this episode we look at Jesus's encounter with a notorious "sinner" and the lesson it offers in the breadth of God's grace, a breadth even the most learned theologians of Jesus's day could not fathom. Luke very carefully arranges this story to ensure we understand it is a lesson in the depth of love available to us, and which we are to show to others. We'll also look at one very practical way we can embody the command to love our neighbor. Here's a link to some coins of the Roman Empire of the 1st century. You can see the stalks of grain very clearly in several of them. The text for this sermon is Luke 7:24-50 (NRSV). This sermon was originally preached at Canvas (Irvine, CA) on May 8, 2016.