Thursday, June 8, 2017

Knowing God and Being Known by God



In every time and every place humans have worshiped God, questioned God, doubted God and tried to explain or describe God. We have also judged others because they arrived at conclusions different from ours. We want to be certain about areas of our lives in which certainty can be elusive. In these cases, human beings often hedge our bets by providing alternative answers or multiple possibilities. This is often the case with our God questions.

The post Jesus Athenians were no exception. The Apostle Paul proclaimed to them: “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way, for as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’” Then Paul continues, “The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.” (Acts 17:22-31)

“. . . he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’.” (Acts 17:22-31)

“In him we live and move and have our being.” Wow. What a gift, what an opportunity to know God and continue to grow in that relationship. The Gospel of John records the reminder that “Jesus is in the Father and we are in him and he is in us” (John 14:1-14), or as Catherine of Siena said, “the soul is in God and God is in the soul, as the fish is in the sea and the sea is in the fish.” We know God by being in God and God being in us. God is over, under, around and through us, and we are over, under, around and through God.

This does not solve the ultimate mystery of who God is or what God is or where God is, but, it allows us to experience God. The Church then becomes a community in which and through which the Spirit is given and shared, and in which we can share our experience of God and hear others share their experiences, thus learning more about God as we learn more about others and more about ourselves.

The Church as the Body of Christ makes it possible for us to serve the world in the name of God, whether we have all the answers to all of our questions about God or not, whether the “unknown” God suddenly becomes known to us or not, or whether our doubts or confusion about who God is and how we know God magically disappear or not. It assures us that we will not be alone in our journey to find and know God and to be found and known by God. It means that our faith will not give us easy answers or be a simple faith. It also assures us that our faith will be exciting, bold and filled with as many questions as it is answers.

As Jimmy Buffett would say, “Where’s the Church, who took the steeple. . .The God’s honest truth is it’s not that simple.” But! It’s exciting, challenging, life-giving and fun. And it will change the world!

Thanks be to God!





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