Knowing the Mind of God

Isaiah 5:1-9; Psalm 80:9-19

As I sit having my coffee in one of the area shops, I sometimes find myself wondering about the people near me. I will watch a couple seated at table, not speaking to one another, seemingly lost in their own worlds. I wonder what is passing through their minds. I wonder what would happen if the other could hear what was being thought. Would that break the silence? Deepen it? Do nothing? 

Often as people of faith, we find ourselves in such a moment, mostly in times of prayer. We pray through what is happening in our lives, but we don’t hear anything from the other end. God keeps quiet. We are left to wonder. What might God be thinking? Is God thinking anything? We wonder what might happen if God’s voice suddenly thundered through our prayer. What if God is thinking the opposite? What if God agrees with us? The silence leaves us to wonder.

Occasionally, the Bible reveals such an inner dialog, the one a lot of us have, but don’t speak much of—the dialog between God and God’s people. Passages, such as the one this morning from Isaiah, are illuminating. The prophet hears the mind of God. So this is what God thinks! Then flipping to the Psalms, we discover the thoughts of Israel at the same moment as that of the thoughts of God. That, too, is illuminating. God and Israel are on different pages. Each one acts in a way inexplicable to the other. Each responds to the other’s seemingly oblivious action.

That, of course, beings some powerful repercussions. Israel sees herself as suffering unfairly. God sees needed discipline, an expression of love for Israel that is corrective, potentially healing, and aimed at making Israel better than she was. The key issue will be for Israel to get on the same page with God, but how will that happen?

Yes, how does that happen?

Israel will have to recall that God sometimes speaks without words. The Spirit descends, shaping thoughts, responses, and interpretations. It takes a heart attuned to such subtleties to discern what is happening. That comes as we reflect and consider what we know of God and how God responds to us. We reflect on all that God has done to begin to understand what God is doing.

That pretty well defines the whole practice of preaching. It also becomes a great impetus for Bible study. There is a reason why Presbyterians emphasize the Word proclaimed and have built massive educational wings for churches. We know our need to deeply consider the Word to have any understanding of what God is doing and what we need to do in any given moment.

We also have our past experiences of God and God’s grace. Each of us has had an experience of mercy,  compassion, or direction that offers a glimpse of God working with us. We may also have an experience of God’s correction, discipline, or  intervention that also offers us an understanding of God. As we share those experiences, we can find help for understanding a present silence. 

In a moment such as ours, that practice is nothing but a good thing.

I am not arrogant enough to tell someone else they are being judged by God. Instead, we each need to reflect for ourselves on what we are feeling from God, then decide if that is God correcting us. Too often, we reduce judgment to the stereotype of hellfire and brimstone, but as we use scripture to help us understand God, we find something different.

How does God judge the vineyard? He withdraws. God’s deepest frustration with Israel came when Israel believed herself to be self-sufficient, when the nation assumed they brought themselves into being in and of themselves, and thought themselves beyond any need for God. As God corrects them, God lets them experience life without God.

Jesus uses a similar thought in the parable of the Prodigal. The younger son abandons his father, declaring himself of no need for his father, and the father lets him go. The wayward son realizes his error as he experiences it. Now note, the elder brother is every bit as lost as he fumes on the front lawn. His father comes to him, explains the celebration, but then he leaves the elder brother on the lawn. He does not beg him to come. He does not drag him in by his collar. No, he leaves him in his own choice to be outside. We do not know if he came to his senses or not.

We need to note that. As we struggle to discern the mind of God, to understand the silence of God, we need to examine our own lives. Is that silence God’s withdrawal in response to our own withdrawal from God?

God makes clear what God wanted from Israel—justice and righteousness. Justice, Jesus taught, was loving one’s neighbor as oneself. Righteousness, Jesus taught, was loving God with every fiber of one’s being. We cannot be just without loving God; we cannot love God without being just. 

What that means is that as we face this moment in time, We cannot err by focusing solely on the righteousness side by reducing religion to a set of rules or codes, rejecting anyone who stand outside that code or set of regulations. There are too many loud voices right now saying just that, and in the name of God! We do not need more walls between people, we need welcome and openness to one another.

Is God’s silence due to our inability to live justly and righteously? Have we gotten something wrong?

Only we can answer that as we look to our world and honestly assess how things are. 

Or maybe what we need to do in our lives is simply try to be just and righteous. There are people hurting all around us. Serve them. There are people excluded all around us. Welcome them. There are hungry people all around us. Feed them. There are all sorts of people all around us. Treat them as the children of  God that they are. Seek compassion, mercy, and grace. Then we are being righteous because we are living the gifts of grace that God sends to keep us well and whole.

And the vintage God seeks flows freely.

That is knowing the mind of God.