God is not like the gods who fail us
The god of safety and other such things are liars
The god of happiness is a myth. So is the god of safety and repair. What is our God really like, if he’s not safe and doesn’t let us always win? While safety, competitive endeavors, happiness, and restoration appear to be high on God’s list, in our point of view, the real goal for God is to follow him and work out what he wants done. God is not like the gods who fail us. God calls us to join him at the hip.
Saturday after Ash Wednesday
Isaiah 58:9B-14
Luke 5:27-32
We’ve known all along the true God who expects an intimate relationship with us is not like any other god. We’ve tried the others and rejected them. I’m assuming, of course, that you and I share in the disappointments from failed gods and non-divinities that left us jaded. I also assume that you’ve rejected these false divinities. Well, most of them.
What failed gods am I talking about?
The god of restoration, for one, who takes the broken things in our life and repairs them like new. Sometimes this happens, but the true God is not defined by performance of miracles through our bidding, our command. The broken things, if we’re hopeful enough to continually save them all in our garages and closets, will pile up faster than rain down a gutter. The same gutter that leaks, by the way. That fix-it god does not beckon to us. We'll never repair even half the cracked up things we have if we throw them at God and expect him to do the work.
Also, there’s that failed god of safety and security who protects us from harm. The litanies of transgressions against us would fill several books. I can blame quite a bit of my physical and emotional angst on myself. Also, more than a few horrible things could have been avoided if I paid attention to the little hints and reminders, which came from God or one of his angels. I ignored them at my own peril. Invasive enemies have broken through the firewalls I’ve constructed because God does not prevent us from harm. The expected god of safety is a liar.
That’s likely bad news for some of us.
There are other false gods that we’ve depended on. Like the god of organization and reward. He’s another expectation-based god we rely upon. If we keep things in order, do our best, and follow instructions all will be well. Sorry, but that god has shown to be specifically incompetent in competitive sports. A decade will go by before the sport’s gods show up. Sometimes, several decades pass leaving a trail of losing seasons.
There’s no god of competitive sports or any form of organized efforts who provides prescribed rewards. No god worth paying any attention to, anyway. The teamwork in sports, where we eagerly channel God, reflects the 99% of time spent. The one who wins has mere minutes to celebrate, and then its back to teamwork.
The same is true for work. 99% shared efforts, and 1% finished product. Building stuff takes lots of people.
And how about that god of happiness? That’s a myth if ever there was one. Happiness isn’t anywhere in the equation of the true-God system. I’ve learned more from sadness than from happiness. There is short-lived happiness after overcoming depression and sorrow. It’s a good thing to recover, but there is no such god. It’s a total waste of time to wait on the god of happiness.
In Isaiah 58, the entire chapter is devoted to fasting. The Lord explains to Isaiah exactly the kind of God that he is. He is nothing like the already mentioned failed gods. God expects us to be like him. He is not there for us to give orders.
For our edification, God outlines clearly what that means. Using the behavior of fasting, God doesn’t say he is happy that we've starved ourselves. Fasting is just a tool.
Isaiah offers up one verse, made up of two phrases that explains God’s way. I’ve reversed the two phrases, because in English our brains work from “if” something, “then” something. The Hebrew does it backwards.
If you remove the yoke from among you,
the accusing finger, and malicious speech;
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer,
you shall cry for help, and he will say: “Here I am!”
(Isaiah 58:9)
Do you see it? We begin by not misbehaving. Then, we can call upon God. He will arrive, and he’ll ask us to work with him. He doesn’t show up and do stuff regardless of our relationship. He shows up and takes our hand, which means we have to lift it up to him. He puts his arm around our shoulders, which means we have to lean into him. Then, God lifts one end of our burden, and we lift the other. He's right there, always, inviting us to join him, rather than waiting for our latest hanging cliff cry for help.
While safety, competitive endeavors, happiness, and restoration appear to be high on God’s list, in our point of view, the real goal for God is that we follow him and work out what he wants done.
Fasting isn’t what matters to God, for instance. In Chapter 58, Isaiah explains that fasting, a key spiritual exercise in Judaic (and Christian) life, is simply a way to focus on adjusting our character toward God by setting aside the distractions of all things food. That means, for a time of grace, we should set aside the monumental time required for resourcing, preparing, and eating food.
In a logical sense, God's got better things for us to do, and fasting gives us more time to do them. The fasting tool helps explain who the true God is.
Fasting helps us concentrate on removing the awful things he noted we must exclude in verse nine — the oppression of others, false accusations, and malicious speech. Once we remove them, we shift our efforts to bestow food on the hungry and satisfy the afflicted. I wasn’t exactly sure how that worked, but then it started to make sense.
Oppression, accusations, and gossip make our world awful. If we stop these activities, the world can look like it’s supposed to because we’ll be constructive, creative, and cooperative. Rather than whining, we'll feed people. Fasting can also mean giving our food to someone who needs it.
Some conclude that God successfully designed and operates a highly effective and wonderful world but we get in the way. No. He didn’t design a world without us. He designed an entire universe where he has chosen to live with us, and operate with us as we are.
God wants us actively engaged with him in creation including his miraculous interventions. We’re the catalyst for restoring the world, keeping people fed, providing for each other’s safety, and cooperating. He isn’t a puppet god we control, but the one who wants us to join him in the tasks we see as vital for our lives — safety, repair, feeding, and cooperation. The things we assign to a god to do for us are the things we need to engage with the real God.
We find many things necessary, and we are correct because God wants those things too. He isn't going to do it by himself. Sometimes he will, but that’s usually a call for gratitude or for some rare, pure joy. On the other end, we aren’t supposed to slog along trying to save the world without God. That’s also ridiculous. We’re supposed to join him at the hip and recognize his leading, guidance, and proceed to act with him.
In between all the work with God we will get surprised, remarkably so. You need to practice this to know what I’m talking about.
Listen to the images of how God works with us — the light shall rise for you in the darkness, the Lord will guide you always, He will renew your strength, and ancient ruins will be rebuilt for your sake. The two images of how we engage in our world express incredible, wholesome functionality. We are a “watered garden … a spring whose water never fails.” The powerful, life-giving pictures of a garden and a spring weave us into our planet’s earth, rock, and air. Not as observers, mind you, but as collaborators.
The “sabbath,” the day of rest set aside for the Lord, represents more than just that Jewish holy day. As temples of the Holy Spirit, the sacred residence of God with us, Emmanuel, we make not only the day holy because we are in it but every day and every place we inhabit.
If you hold back your foot on the sabbath
from following your own pursuits on my holy day;
If you call the sabbath a delight,
and the LORD’s holy day honorable;
If you honor it by not following your ways,
seeking your own interests, or speaking with malice—
Then you shall delight in the LORD
(Isaiah 58:13-14)
The holiness of every day wraps up the way the true God is. He lives here, in us and with us. He knows the pathway to all the things we keenly desire with him.
Finally, the rewards we seek so fruitlessly in competitive endeavors are nothing like the titles he gives us when we eagerly join him in the divinely inspired work of creation and its miracles. Because he is here, holy in our shared world, we become complicit with the repairer and the restorer.
Your people shall rebuild the ancient ruins;
the foundations from ages past you shall raise up;
“Repairer of the breach,” they shall call you,
“Restorer of ruined dwellings.”
(Isaiah 58:12)
Originally published at Homeless Catholic under the same Cycle A readings in February of 2020.