Isaiah 55:1-13; Luke 13:1-9

It is well known that what we look for in another person, we usually find. Say we meet a person, dirty and disheveled in front of the grocery store. We naturally think, “Here is another homeless person, waiting for a hand-out.” We expect to see this behavior and so, we see it, without ever having a conversation. When we see an email from a bothersome colleague we expect to hear another complaint, and so that is what we read between the lines. We close our computer and walk away, tense and on edge. When we see our roommate come home and they approach, we assume that it is another battle, and so we steel ourselves and prepare our defense before a word is ever spoken. It does not go well from there.

Counselor, Charles Bass, tells about how this was lived out in one couple he was working with. From the husband and wife he heard two completely different stories. Here’s the husband’s version: Every time I come home, Mary is waiting for me with a chip on her shoulder. I hate to go home. As I drive home, I get more and more tense. When I get home and see her waiting for me with her hands on her hips, it just makes me mad, and I tie into her before she can get the jump on me.

Here’s the wife’s version: Joe is always mad at me over something … He always comes home in a bad temper. I really have to stand up to him to defend myself. Clearly, each is simply seeing in the other what they expect to see.

The same thing happens between us and God. So often, we just see in God what we expect to see. The same thing happens when we read the Scripture passages for Lent. We know these readings are supposed to be about being better people so that we can receive the life offered to us at Easter. Lent started as the period of time when early converts to Christianity went through a season of fasting and prayer, a kind of cleansing, before their baptism on Easter. And so we think that in order for God to give us life, resurrection along with Jesus, we have to be clean, perfect.

I love Margaret Anderson’s quip here: I don’t want to be perfect because when you are perfect you die. I have learned this from reading the obituaries. Everyone there is perfect!

God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are our ways God’s ways. God doesn’t think like we do!

We rush to judgment, like the people of Jerusalem, thinking God was punishing those people who died in disasters of war or earthquake. But Jesus says No! Those people were no better or worse. They were beloved of God.

God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are our ways God’s ways. God doesn’t think like we do!

A few weeks ago I began a subscription to “Imperfect Produce.” It is so much fun to open the box when it arrives on my step. Almost like a baby left on the steps of a church for sanctuary. These little vegetables and fruits arrive in hope that I will love them and not throw them out like farmers and grocers must do. Whatever is not perfect enough to make a uniform impression on the shopper, well…, that is what shows up on my porch. A lot of it is small, sometimes mis-colored, or off-shape. We often think that God sorts us as we do our produce. We want everything uniform and perfect. But not God!

God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are our ways God’s ways. God doesn’t think like we do!

When the prophet Isaiah celebrates the fact that God does not think like we do, it is because God does not demand perfection. God just wants us to come, so God gets to have the fun of pardoning us, of being merciful. Like last Sunday, God wants to gather us like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings!

In Jesus’ parable of the fig tree, the property owner represents the human owner, not God. The gardener is the divine character in this parable. The human owner expects to get figs from his investment, on the owner’s time. It is the third year and the farmer still sees no fruit, even though it is well-known that it takes anywhere from 2 to 6 years for a fig tree to produce fruit. And it isn’t particularly predictable. The divine one says: wait, have mercy. I am particularly fond of this one. Give me one more year. I will treat this tree tenderly and carefully and we will see if it will yet produce figs. What do you think the gardener is going to say next year, if the tree is still barren? Mercy! Or, will you give me this tree, so I can tend it close to my house? I am particularly fond of this one! Between the lines is the yearning of the divine one never to give up hope, to be abundant in mercy, as Isaiah describes it.

God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, nor are our ways God’s ways. God doesn’t think like we do!

This year, I have discovered a new way of seeing the passages of Scripture given to us to read at Lent. Why have I never seen this? Once seen, it can never be un-seen. God’s mercy, love and yearning for us pours through every sentence! It is not about getting our act together. It is not about pulling ourselves up by the proverbial bootstraps. God just says, come and let me give you protection, mercy, …another year.

And so, I got to thinking about all the things we expect of God. All the ways we expect people to behave, because we think God expects it. Like: “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” Who says? Do you think Jesus was rejected on the cross because he was dirty and sweaty and naked? Does God care about that? No!

God doesn’t think like we do!

But let’s dig a little deeper. For instance, we have the concept that justice means equality. Our statues of lady justice portray her with a blindfold, a sword, and a balance. Balance the scales. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Jesus was pretty clear about that (see Matthew 5). He did not think that way. Don’t take, but give. Don’t resist, but give what is demanded. Why? Because our Father in heaven takes care even of the spring poppies, so why should we be concerned? God yearns to take care of us, more than we can possibly imagine. Justice may surprise us. It may just be found in love, rather than rules.

Here’s another one: Ownership. When we finally arrive, and look around us, our houses, barns, fences, fields and livestock and we hold out our arms and exclaim, “I own this,” we are surely wrong. We may have a piece of paper. We may have exchanged valuable goods. But we can never own this earth. We are part of it. We belong. God does not think like we do about owning things.

Joy is more valuable than sorrow, we believe. Suffering should be eliminated. But what would we be without our challenges? Suffering breaks the places in us which think we are God and can do anything, own anything. Suffering links us with others. It lets us know that we are all the same. Suffering gets us in touch with the places where we are held in the bosom of God who yearns for us more than we can imagine. God does not think like we do about suffering, I think.

Endings are to be avoided; beginning are where its at. But all transition begins with an ending. And our earth, our lives, our children are always changing. Because they are alive. T.S. Eliot said: What we call a beginning is often the end and to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from (Little Gidding, part 5). God does not think like we do about endings and beginnings.

Confession of sin maybe is not about naming our wrong-doing. Maybe confession of sin is about our wrong thinking – thinking that we are not beloved, accepted by a God of mercy. God does not think like we do about sin.

We have an expectation that God will keep us “safe.” Which, of course, God does. But God does not think like we do. We expect walls, armies, police. But do these make life safe? Life is not safe. None of us gets out alive – not with this body, anyway. Safety, instead lies in the living soul finding its true home in the heart of God. God does not think like we do about safety.

I finally read The Little Prince this week. It is one of those books written for children, which is really for the adults who are reading to them. There is so much wisdom here! After meeting all sorts of obsessed characters in the universe, the fox teaches the Little Prince when he asks to be tamed by him. What does it mean to be tamed by someone? It means ‘to create ties.’ It means that you will be for each other the ‘only one.’ And when you tame a thing, you are also responsible for it. That is why taming can hurt, while it is the thing the fox yearned for more than anything else. The fox tells the Little Prince, “Here is my secret. It’s quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes” (p. 63).

God does not think like we do. We count, name, encase. But all that is unneeded. The cases, the trappings, the counting sheets are all gone one day. But the mercy of God is from everlasting to everlasting. God has “tamed” us, created ties to us – at least this much is demonstrated in the incarnation – and so God is responsible for us. God created us and so, God loves us. Always. There is nothing we can do to change it.

So when we get lost, feel alone and vulnerable, just come back home. God is there with mercy enough for all of us. Isaiah finishes up God’s speech with high welcome: “You shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” Such a welcome! And don’t think you must be beautiful, physically fit, neat and clean – perfect. God doesn’t think like we do.