Hooray! God Does Not Think Like Us!

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Course 2023

All of Scripture is useful to those whose purpose in life is to attain union with the Blessed Trinity. But there are probably a hundred verses that stand out as critical in the most important pursuit of our existence on earth. Two of these, surely, come from Isaiah’s prophecy. Here, he speaks for God and says: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Let’s carefully parse God’s words. His thoughts are not ours, nor are His ways our ways. They are higher than our ways like the heavens are higher than earth. This is not a spatial measurement that God speaks of. Here, higher means better, and that means immensely better, immeasurably better. Let’s take an example. [edit as needed] A few days ago, out in California, a guy shot a deputy sheriff to death, presumably just because he enforced the criminal law. That’s horrendous and unspeakably unjust. So I imagine, if I were God, what I would do.

No trial, no lawyers or judge and no jury. If I were the divine judge I would enforce the death penalty immediately. God is so different from that. He’ll give people who do bad things time to repent and ask for forgiveness, make reparation insofar as that is possible. He is, as Torah teaches, “slow to anger.” That’s very different from most of us. Righteous anger is one of our guilty pleasures, is it not?

That is Good News from the OT. Good News because God treats all of us like the cop killer. I am grateful that when I have committed serious sin, usually because I’ve mistaken a lesser good, or even evil act, for the greatest good, God does not deliver verdict and sentence quickly. God has been merciful to me, and probably to you, countless times. Thanks be to Him forever! As the psalmist sings, “every day I will bless Him.”

Our Lord has a little different take on the same theme in our Gospel reading. And to prep us for His teaching, let’s consider a story from Luke’s passion. Imagine the people around the cross of Jesus, as the evangelists picture it. The Blessed Virgin Mary is there, Mary Magdalen, John the Evangelist, Christ’s aunt Mary. Mother Mary was one with Jesus from His conception. John was His disciple for three years or so. Mary Magdalen probably two or three years, and aunt Mary for some time. They were the workers in the vineyard who came on early in the day. But there were two people crucified with Jesus. One was bad to the bone and cursed and blamed His luck being caught. The other, who tradition calls Dismas, rebuked the first and asked Jesus, who saw a legal notice from governor Pilatus over Jesus’s head: King of the Jews. So he finishes with one of his last breaths asking the King to remember him when he came into His kingdom. And this guy, who came into the vineyard not at 7 or 10 a.m. or noon or 3 p.m. but five minutes before closing time, hears the words “today you will be with me in Paradise.”

It’s never too late to repent and come into Christ’s kingdom. Turn away from sin and believe in the Gospel, be baptized and take advantage of the sacraments, and work for whatever time you have left to spread the joyful message of Christ. Then with St. Paul you can live in Christ, but look forward to that last falling asleep not with mortal dread, but with everlasting joy.