THE FOOL SAYS THERE IS NO GOD

 

THURSDAY, FOURTENTH WEEK IN ORDERINARY TIME

Hosea 11:1-4,8-9; Ps 80:2-3,15-16; Mt 10:7-15

The Foolishness of Idol Worship

The only thing that drives or makes us to idolise a creature or make an idol for worship is ignorance of God and his goodness to us. When we lack the knowledge of God, his existence, and benevolence to us who are his beloved creatures, we foolishly and ignorantly set up a shrine for ourselves. We are also ignorant when we seek to serve God in our own way, and not the way he wants us to serve him. As noted yesterday, what drives the setting up of an idol is our desire to do our will. The scripture calls the one who thinks there is no God a fool. We are indeed foolish when we set up our own god for worship because we lack the knowledge of a basic truth, namely, that we live and move in God. Our life is a participation in God who created us for himself. If God created us, He also cares for our welfare and provides us with all we need to sustain our lives here on earth. It is part of our bounden duty to rid ourselves of this ignorance. We must resolutely seek God and desire to know him. He made us that we may know him, love, and serve him, as we noted yesterday. None of us is born with innate knowledge of God; we all have to seek his revelation and direct our way to him. To the one who searches, God reveals himself to him. The Lord himself urges us to seek, to search, and to knock, that the door would be opened to us.

God decried our common ignorance of him in the passage from the prophet Hosea. What he speaks about Israel applies to every one of us who lacks the necessary knowledge of God. “Thus says the Lord: When Israel was a child I loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt. But the more I called to them, the further they went from me; they have offered sacrifice to the Baals and set their offerings smoking before the idols.” Our ignorance is really great and very sinful. God provides everything we need for life; even life itself is his gift to us. Yet we are wont to fly to creatures and demons for protection and welfare. There is no other God but our God; He created heaven and earth; He gives us life, health, light, knowledge; every good thing is a gift from him. His love and care are not only for Ephraim, but for all he made. “I myself taught Ephraim to walk, I took them in my arms; yet they have not understood that I was the one looking after them. I led them with reins of kindness, with leading strings of love. I was like someone who lifts an infant close against his cheek; stooping down to him, I gave him his food.” God loves and cares for us as a mother does for her tender children. We are supposed to hear his voice and get used to his loving presence. Our fixation with sensible things is the cause of our ignorance and ruin. If only we would learn to pay close attention to the loving presence of God demonstrated through creation.

The Son of God became man to awaken us to this wonderful love of God for us. God refuses to give up on us, even as we follow our foolish ways and idols, but decides to make himself visible even to our senses. “Ephraim, how could I part with you? Israel, how could I treat you like Admah, or deal with you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils from it, my whole being trembles at the thought.” God came in our flesh and blood to reveal his motherly love and care for us. He sent out the disciples and charged them to spread his grace everywhere without charging anything. “As you go, proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is close at hand. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out devils. You received without charge, give without charge.” That they may truly witness the providence of God the Father, he bid them take nothing along. “Provide yourselves with no gold or silver, not even with a few coppers for your purses, with no haversack for the journey or spare tunic or footwear or a staff, for the workman deserves his keep.” It is only by living with this complete trust in the Father that we know the providence of God. The success of our proclamation of the Gospel depends on our faith in God’s providential care. Both the missionaries who go on mission and we who remain in our homes, we all need to embrace God as our commonwealth and everlasting inheritance. In ignorance of God, we have all gone astray. “Let your face shine on us, O Lord, and we shall be saved.”

Let us pray: O God, who in the abasement of your Son have raised up a fallen world, fill your faithful with holy joy, for on those you have rescued from slavery to sin you bestow eternal gladness. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.