“Mystery:” Subterfuge for the Unbelievable?
 |
| Google Image |
I never particularly liked the
term. I always saw it as a subterfuge for a belief that was so obscure it
couldn’t be explained, or one that is utterly unbelievable.
But as I age, I’m beginning to see
that it’s probably the only word you can legitimately use to describe the
indescribable. How can you adequately describe God, whose existence is said to
be outside time and space, who is in and around everyone and everything, and
who stretches from here to beyond the ends of the universe? Those are
descriptions that we humans can’t fathom.
What’s more, how can you adequately
describe faith? It’s said to be a “gift,” but if so, why does God give it to
some and not to others? And if it’s a gift, shouldn’t that mean we don’t have
to do anything to acquire it or retain it?
Rational but Not Entirely of the Intellect
Scripture and church tradition may
provide good reasons for such descriptions of God and for saying that faith is
a gift, but they’re not provable. And that brings us to another observation
about faith: It’s rational, but not entirely a matter of the intellect.
“Moses’ burning bush was not an intellectual
exercise,” writes theologian Richard Rohr in his online Daily Meditation, “nor
did Teresa of Ávila’s ecstasies happen in a classroom. We rightly speak of
faith as a “gift” as opposed to any reasoned conclusion. You fall into it more
than reason toward it.”
Maybe this is what Jesus was
trying to say with his analogies to seeds. In the gospel of Mathew, he told the
story of the sower “who went out to sow” and the seeds he threw out had
different fates, depending on the varying environments into which they fell.
 |
Richard Rohr
Google Image
|
“…Other seeds fell on rocky
ground,” says the parable, “where they had not much soil, and immediately they
sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were
scorched; and since they had no root they withered away.”
His point was that God can provide
the seed, or gift of faith, but what happens to it depends on what the
recipients do with it. If no effort is made to deepen our faith, it can easily
wither.
Another “seed” story is in the
gospel of John. Jesus says that “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth
and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” He may be
talking directly about his own death, but I’ve also interpreted this to mean
that unless each of us “dies” – to self and to “the world” – we can’t “bear
fruit,” that is, have a meaningful relationship to God and others.
Jesus, who grew up in a rural area
where most people depended on the land for sustenance, knew that a seed doesn’t
“die” when it goes into the ground. He used the image because the seed, like
the dead, is “buried.”
Returning to the subject of
mystery, it’s interesting that the first definitions of the word in Webster’s
dictionary - at least the edition I have – are religious, starting with “a
religious truth that one can know only by revelation and cannot fully
understand.”
Innumerable Questions
Aren’t so many of our beliefs in
this category? Many of us have innumerable questions about them, perhaps
continually asking ourselves if they’re believable. Many are anchored in our
confidence that the Bible is the word of God in the words of humans. Others in
faith in our church.
We can gain valuable insight into
our beliefs through study and prayer, but many of them are ultimately – like
much of life, mysteries.
“We’re standing in the middle of an awesome
and major mystery,” writes Rohr, “life itself, and the only appropriate
response to this is humility.
“If we’re resolved that this is
where we want to go — into the mystery, not trying to hold God and reality but
to let God and reality hold us — then I think religion is finally in its proper
and appropriate place. Anyone who has undergone
God
is humble; in fact, (he/she is) the most humble of all.”
Comments
Post a Comment