If, as I assume, faith is less a matter of believing certain things and more about encounter and relationship with God, then the words of the prophet in Isaiah 63:15-64:9 draw some interesting attention to the God side of this relationship. The prophet pleads to God, wanting to know why God has caused Israel to falter. "Why, O LORD, do you make us stray from your ways and harden our heart, so that we do not fear you?... But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid yourself we transgressed."
As the reading closes, the prophet seems to call on God to remember the fatherly relationship with Israel. This is a theme that occurs regularly in the Old Testament, the necessity of God remembering the covenant promises.
In faith's dark times, I can certainly feel as though God has forgotten me. It is frustrating when I am struggling to connect with God, to reach out to God, to listen for God, and God seems absent. But perhaps there is some consolation in this experience, for it reminds me that, finally, relationship with God, and even faith itself, is not something I achieve by my efforts. Rather it rests in God's remembering, in God's fealty to divine promises. And despite the frustrations of faith that I encounter all too often, everything I know about God convinces me that God's memory and God's fealty is a whole lot more reliable than mine will ever be.
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ReplyDeleteIt's worth considering the case of Mother Teresa who experienced faith's dark times throughout her life. She is among those most acclaimed for faith and piety in modern times, perhaps in all of history.
ReplyDeleteIt is curious that the Jewish deity is cast as so forgetful as to need a rainbow to remember His promise. Is this the scripture suggesting to us to that we keep some rainbows around to help us remember God?
I think that questions in Scripture about the reliability of God's memory are not so much statements about God as they are expressions of fundamental, human faith question about that reliability. The rainbow is more a promise to us that God will remember than it is a mnemonic device for God.
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