There is a possible parallel between grumbling in the wilderness and the grumbling of the Pharisees at Jesus. In both cases there is a persistent resistance to what is unfamiliar and a seeking of false security. God is simply too free in being God, in being God’s own self to be comfortable. So a settled, domesticated, manufactured God is more manageable. The radical forgiveness of 1 Timothy also shows a God who is free to choose to forgive, even as in Exodus this God is also free to judge. Either way, it’s not a God that we made.

For if we did make a God we could make it adaptable to our personal needs and wants. This personal God would be consistent, would judge and forgive according to my own sense of right, and would bend mostly toward me and my perspective and away from those who challenge my own life-assumptions. It would be a God with whom I could be cozy in a challenging world….God n' me…

And, wonder of wonders, the real God even offers to be that God for Moses! Or was it just in Moses’ imagination? Either way, Moses ultimately resists the temptation and instead remembers the promise.

The push of all three texts is larger than “God n' Me” and toward community. Moses intercedes on behalf of God’s own people, recalling before God a covenant promise that is not logical but was made, nevertheless, and has moved the story forward all along. And Paul was not a forgiven sinner for himself and his own relationship with God but on behalf of a whole community of sinners for whom Paul would be an example.

And at the close of each of the parables is a party! Friends and neighbors are called to hear the story and to celebrate along with the one who has recovered what was lost. Perhaps this is the point within the point, the first point being that Jesus came to save the lost. The second point is that when the lost are found there is a sense of community that those who were never lost, those stuck in a “God n' Me” world will never know because their coziness with their God allows them the illusion that they need no one else.

The eating-and-drinking Jesus, to the Pharisees and scribes, is disturbing to a settled “God n’ Me” world. Some parties have guest lists, bouncers, and are invitation only. Jesus’ parties don’t follow this etiquette. They are serendipitous, uncontrived, and grounded in real life…and a real God.

(from www.goodpreacher.com/blog/)