Take It Up With God

The pastor of the parish cluster to which I am assigned made the comment in the middle of his homily last Saturday that has just stayed with me since. I am pretty sure this wasn’t the line he was centering his homily around, but homilies have a way of striking different people in different ways.

He said, “Take it up with God!” 

There are many of us who think we can find a way around God’s law, or the “natural law”, both of which govern the essential matters of our lives. We do so by rationalizing, in other words, thinking in distorted ways. Our thinking gets distorted by our paying attention to unreliable sources of information in our outer and inner worlds. When that happens, our choices get misdirected and our passion for life unruly and disrupted.

Unreliable sources of information…… there are so many. How do you decide which news agency to read? How do you decide which doctor or dentist to consult? How do you decide which spiritual leader to follow? How do you decide which feeling you experience is trustworthy as a guide for action? How do you decide which career and vocation to pursue?

I, for one, try to make these decisions based upon the reliable witness of many before me, and by “taking it up with God.”

God had taught us for millennia that we are to worship him each and every Sabbath day, which for us Catholics means Saturday evening or Sunday. It’s not a man made law, it’s God’s law. If we have some rationalization for excusing ourselves from this law, no sense in blaming the pastor or deacon for informing us we are messing up; we didn’t make the law, God did. Take it  up with him.

If we don’t like the law that marriage is permanent and remarriage is impossible if your spouse is alive, don’t get mad at Father or Deacon, take it up with God; it is his law and we are bound to uphold it.

If we rationalize our way out of loving our enemies, we better not get mad at the Church for teaching us to forgive and have mercy; we better take it up with God.

My friends, to whom do you pay attention? Look to the witness of millions of people over the course of the ages. What have they said? Which Church has born this witness for over 2000 years? Maybe it has something to say about the direction of our lives. 

We cannot circumvent God’s law or the law embedded in our very human nature. Let us obey these laws, which in all frankness, are not that burdensome, especially in the face of the long-term consequences of not doing so.