To Know God

Gospel: John 17: 1-11

To know God.  This is eternal life.  But what does this mean? Is it merely an intellectual proposition like many others to which we assent?  In the case of God this is not possible, for a finite being cannot possibly know an infinite being in that way.  Besides, intellectual knowledge does not conform to our experience in the spiritual life where every aspect of our being is engaged and the emotions are an important component of religion that is not present in mere intellectual knowledge.

The fundamental purpose of religion is the constant effort to be conscious of God's presence in our lives at all times, all places, and all circumstances of life.  To know this presence in one's life is not to define it or to understand it in intellectual terms.  It is merely to be aware of it and to experience it in one's life.  We come to realize that this presence of God encompasses every aspect of our being, and we see that this presence is enough.  We do not need  God to do anything.  We just have to be aware that God is present.

In the Christian tradition we come to this awareness through the person of Jesus, the presence of God on earth, the one who came among us in the flesh to make us aware of this presence of God.  Jesus manifested the love and mercy of God in his presence on earth, and he invited us to be that presence of love and mercy in the world as well.  He invites us to demonstrate to the world the presence of God so that others may experience its peace, healing, and liberation. 

Do You Believe?

Gospel: John 16: 29-33

Jesus asks his disciples a blunt question: do you really believe? They all claim to believe, but in a few short hours they will scatter to the four winds and abandon Jesus to die alone.  They make the claim of the belief in the glow and aura of good feelings and comfortable times.  But when the difficulties arise and when faced with the powers of the world threatening, the belief they claim to have disappears as quickly as they do from the scene.  

This question is asked of us as well.  Do we really believe? Many claim to believe, but most really do not.  We have all sorts of prerequisites set upon God before we believe.  We need the right liturgy, the right community, a comfortable lifestyle, and certain political and legal frameworks.  We place all sorts of conditions upon our faith life that have nothing to do with God at all.  They are all mere projection upon God of our egos and biases.  This we claim to be faith.

But Jesus shows us what authentic belief is.  He tells the disciples they will leave him alone, but he reminds them that he is not really alone - that God is present to him always.  Even in the midst of his arrest, imprisonment, torture, and execution, Jesus has the calm assurance of God being present to him at all times.  This is authentic faith, a faith that needs nothing but God alone.  When we can be content with God alone, then we can say that we truly believe.   

Worship and Doubt

Gospel: Matthew 28: 16-20

Come we now to the very end of the Gospel.  We have followed the Lord from the desert of temptations to this mountaintop.  We have seen remarkable things: Jesus healing people of all sorts of ailments; delivering people from the demons that oppress them; feeding countless hungry people.  We even had the opportunity to do these very things ourselves! Now we are at this mountaintop with the risen Lord, yet another wonder we have beheld.

At the same time we have experienced hardships in this journey.  We have seen Jesus opposed in many places, chased off by those who would reject him.  We were there when Jesus was arrested, put on trial, and executed in the most horrible fashion.  We found ourselves betraying the Lord, denying that we knew him, and abandoning him to suffer his death alone.  Our own behaviors and responses to the Lord throughout this journey have not always been accepting.

So here we are at the mountaintop, and Jesus about to ascend to heaven.  We worship, and we doubt.  This is what we have been doing throughout the Gospel journey.  This is the arc of every spiritual life undertaken with authenticity.  We are honest about our doubts, and we are honest about our worship.  We look to the heavens to be with the Lord.  We can only do so by taking up his work on earth, the work of mercy and love, in the midst of our doubts and weaknesses.