Judges of the weak God

Read Time:3 Minute, 16 Second

Consideration for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, year C2

And won’t God defend His elect who cry out to Him day and night, and will He delay in their cause? Will He delay in my case? If I am praying, if I am asking, God should fulfill His promises and help, arrange my affairs the way I want. How he helped the Israeli armies when Moses kept his hands up. Automatic – you speak and you have.

God should… What if he doesn’t live up to my expectations? If you are in no hurry to help? If, despite prayers and prayers, I am still in a difficult situation, and everything indicates its worsening rather than a positive solution? If my loved ones suffer? If there are wars in the world where innocent people are killed? If there is a lot of evil around that is hard to come to terms with, and even harder to deal with?

For several decades, one has heard the despairing question: “Where is God after the Holocaust?” It would be hard to ignore them, even if our faith were as steadfast as rock and as hot as red-hot iron. Any attempt to give an easy, logically consistent answer would be cynical here. This is certainly one of the most important questions of our time. But an essentially similar question has been heard in every human life for centuries, taking the form of a cry for the meaning of suffering, disease, death, wickedness, humiliation …?

Where is this God if… (here everyone can choose their own problem)? What can a person for whom efficiency is one of the most important values think about such a God? Is it worth taking Him seriously at all? Why a God who does not have sufficient strength and authority that can be used instrumentally?

While reading the Gospel excerpt for today, it came to my mind that the roles in our relationship with God are often strange: a man is sometimes an insensitive judge, and God, like a helpless, hurt widow, tries to gain human interest and favor. It is God who bothers a man who would, for his own peace of mind, forget about his existence.

“I am not afraid of God and I do not take account of people” – this is how the slogan of modern man, who demands freedom in various spheres of life, shortens it. Freedom from difficult duties, from sacrifice for others, from social norms, from institutions, from a permanent axiological order … Freedom for the body as long as it is strong and healthy, and for thoughts and words as long as they do not cause discomfort.

To such a man – to me and you, to us rushing at crazy speed through the avenue of various consumption or ideological offers – a weak God stubbornly comes. This God who did not prevent the breakdown of marriage, did not prevent an airplane crash, did not help arrange another loan … He did not do any of those useful things, or many other things that were at least as useful. This God who gave us the freedom to make good and bad choices, leaving himself only one choice: suffering and death for our bad choices. A God who disturbs by reminding himself of himself through his cross. And through our crosses, which we carry today or whose possibility we only sense.

In spite of so many seemingly more attractive offers, can I believe in the sense of God’s suffering and God’s weakness? And if I do believe, can I stand up for a weak God – not in an ideological or political struggle, but through a life that will not increase His (and mine) wounds? Finally, by enjoying my faith, wanting to share it with others, will I be able to be on time and not in time – without fear that I will spoil someone’s well-being?