Ukrainian Orthodoxy		Orthodoxie ukrainienne

Missing Out on God!

Very Reverend Ihor Kutash kutash@unicorne.org

(Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost)

It seems that in our days there are few - particularly among the young - who are interested in God. There is an indifference to the Church, perhaps even a fear about what might happen if one got too involved. In fact we may even find at the bottom of the matter a resentment against One Who ought to be able to change things for the better, but Who does not seem to want to.

Some people have a picture of God as Someone Who is so far removed from everything that He can not be touched by human suffering. But, at the same time they are tormented by this inconsistency: God Who is so far removed from us and our sadness and tragedy, still insists on us following His commandments, threatening us with punishment and eternal damnation if we do not. Where is there mercy in this? Is it possible that He gets some sort of pleasure out of punishing us, even as we cry out for help? What a horrible thought! Yet it is very real for some people!

Saying and asking things like that seems very close to blasphemy. But it is good to express what we feel and what we fear so that we can examine it and see if there is anything to it. And, dear brothers and sisters, when we do, and when we consider the wonderful revelation in today’s Gospel (Luke 7:11-16) we get a picture which can help dispel our fear of God, and replace the anger and resentment we sometimes feel against Him - of which we may not even be conscious.

The event described in the Gospel is so marvelous! Jesus returns to life the only son of a widow - her hope, her joy, her only support. He had died and Jesus, the Messiah, raised and restored him to his mother, changing the funeral into a celebration of life and love. This, Jesus proclaims by the action, this is what God is all about! This is what God’s will is! This is what God does.

But, we may demand, why did He only do it that one time? The answer is that Jesus did it to show us the infinite compassion of God, so that we would be able to find hope and faith. When we think about it, we may realize that God can not intervene in this same way in each tragic event in the life of His human children. If He did this would not be an orderly universe, where causes produce effects. It would be an unstable universe. We would not be able to predict or foresee anything, because God would always be intervening and changing things so dramatically that we could not be sure how anything would go. As it is, hard as it seems, we can at least have a sense of things proceeding in an orderly, predictable way. There are causes and there are effects.

On the other hand, this revealing act on the part of Christ shows us what God’s intentions are towards us - how He regards our suffering. We find, to our joy, that He is not blind to it. It matters to Him! By His actions, Jesus invites us to believe that ultimately everything will be put right. After all, He is working with eternity, and not only this earthly time-frame. And so are we! We live in both time and space and in eternity, even though we are not usually aware of it.

This Gospel presents us with a God of space and time and of eternity Who is infinitely worth knowing. If we ignore Him, we are missing out on something very important - something crucial to our life and happiness. Lets put an end to that. Lets turn towards God with hope and eagerness!

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