God’s Ways and Our Ways

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator

A few verses from this Sunday's first reading must be some of the most often quoted. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways—oracle of the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9) One hears these verses quoted most often when something beyond explanation happens; for example, the death of a very young person, a tsunami or earthquake, or even the current drought conditions in Texas and Oklahoma. It's almost as if these verses ARE an explanation. Apparently God has a reason for such things.

However, if one pays attention to the context of the quotation from Isaiah, one cannot escape the fact that these words are offered to explain the difference between God and human being when it come to being able to forgive. God forgives because God has the power to forgive. Human beings find it difficult to forgive because they lack the power. We lack that power because we don't want it. We tend to be more comfortable with the breach in relationship. Forgiving someone is perhaps the most difficult thing a Christian must do.

The early verses of Genesis tell us that we were made in the image of God. Perhaps this is why artists paint or depict God in human form. This misses the point entirely. God's image is not a "physical" look or design. God's image is that of a merciful, compassionate, unconditionally forgiving parent. Living up to this image is definitely the endeavor of a lifetime. Loving kindness or forgiveness makes one vulnerable, an uncomfortable situation at best. Holding on to a grudge or a hurt gives the strength needed to defend oneself from the onslaughts of others. To forgive means that we are open to being rejected once again, possibly opening ourselves to being hurt all over again.

Yet this is exactly what God does with us. God knows that we will fail again and again and again. Yet God does not withhold the loving kindness that defines who God is. This is what it means to have the power to forgive.