Misfit God? Yes. In parable after parable, Jesus reveals a God who chooses to love all the wrong people: the defiant son, not the compliant one; those who broke religious laws, not those who kept them; the hungover late-day workers, not the diligent all-day workers. We see “bad” people getting rewarded, “good” people getting rebuked, and everybody’s idea of who the winners and losers are being turned upside down. Jesus was always making the merit mongers mad because he befriended, loved, and touched the outcast, the leper, the liar, the cheater, the sexually deviant.
