Not me, but God

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/041015.cfm

This gospel for Thursday asks us two questions. One is rather straightforward. Do we believe that Jesus is truly God?  We believe it. We don’t believe it. Or, we’re just not sure. The second question is not so straightforward. Can we give all glory to God, and set ourselves aside?

The traditional Hebrew wording given to Moses by God on a mountain after God had already rescued the Hebrews from Egypt was Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh  or “I am whoI am.” I say “after” he’d rescued them, because the Hebrew people began their unique relationship to God with Abraham. Abraham is a descendent of Shem, one of the three sons of Noah. Abraham has been associated in time as a family chieftain living in the Middle Bronze era. That’s a 500-year period between1500 and 2000 BC. Moses probably lived at the end of the Bronze era, andAbraham at it’s beginning.

Four letters were attributed to the statement “I am who I am”, which was an abbreviation or acronym-type activity common also in our era. We have acronyms for everything. YHWH was an ancient form of an acronym, which is more appropriately called a tetragrammaton, or a four letter Greek summary, which we know in the the Latin alphabet as YHWH. The Greek alphabet is, well,Greek to us. In Hebrew, the letters are Yod, He, Waw, and He, or Yod-HeWaw-He. Over the years, the longer phrase has morphed into “Yahweh.”

In essence, though, this is all a distraction. The statement “I am who I am” culminates in the Old Testament from earlier uses of the word“Ehyeh” by God describing himself as early as Genesis 26:3. Ehyeh means “I am.” At the burning bush, Ehyeh is formally restated to Moses as “I am who I am” inExodus 3:14, as Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh. The full text of verse 14 is:

God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM’; and He said, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'"  Exodus 3:14

So, let’s review what Jesus said again. “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM.”

Putting those instances in scripture together, then, God drops hints of himself with the phrase “I AM” as early as Genesis. He later tells Moses to explain to the folks (who by the way are melting gold into the shape of a cow at that very moment) that “I AM” has sent Moses to the sons of Israel.And, hundreds of years later, Jesus tells a Jewish crowd, presumably Pharisees, the very same thing. In fact, he emphasizes the statement with “Amen, Amen,” or“Truly, Truly”, or “Let’s be very clear about this fellas. I am saying this out loud. I am giving you God code, here. Back before Abraham was born “I AM”. Ehyeh.

I often replay a conversation I had with a friend of mine about 8 years ago. He was an avowed agnostic. He knew the definition of agnostic, by the way. An agnostic is one who cannot know for certain whether or not God exists. It’s not a very old word, dating back to 1870, and attributed to Thomas Henry Huxley. Huxley, a zoologist was a pal of Darwin. He wasn’t an atheist. He just didn’t know. So, he manufactured the word agnostic. Huxley’s grandson is the inimitable Aldous Huxley, who wrote the Brave New World. These fellas were intellectuals, which my agnostic friend was also. And still is. My friend listened to these fellas. They were all pretty darned sure that they didn’t know God.

On a walk in Manitou Springs eight years ago my friend asked me how I could believe in God. I said the evidence was overwhelming, so the assurance wasn’t that much of a stretch for me. I told him I was surrounded by God, and I had no other choice but to believe in him. But, I also told him that belief wasn’t much of a thing to boast about, because belief wasn’t really the hard part. I referenced a statement by C. S. Lewis. I remember saying specifically to him that Lewis explained even the demons believed in God. In fact, they identified Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. Heck. Belief isn’t much to hang your hat on if all it means is that you’re as aware as the demons. The hard part is listening to God, not believing in him, I told him.

Oh, but then, he told me, you’re basing your information on scripture. That’s where the demon stories are all told. Yes, I told him. I was. He told me he’d read it, but never saw it as a defense, much less any credible evidence of God’s existence. He certainly couldn’t remember clarity around Jesus’ identity as an equal of God. I couldn’t remember the verse in John, which is 8:59, that we read today. I just told him that Jesus used the phrase“I AM” to describe himself as God.

When he asked what I thought of him being an agnostic I told him I was proud of him, because he was not a liar. He didn’t know God, and he admitted it. I told him he was an honest man. He grew very quiet at that. The rest of what happened was purely the Holy Spirit taking over. When he asked how I knew God I told him that I asked God to show himself to me in ways that I would not forget, and in ways that I would know that he was there. I told him I was very young, but rather serious when I asked God to do that.

A few months later my friend told me that he did the very same thing. He then began reading the Gospels, and then read the Bible from the front to the back. He told me he finally saw the scripture through God’s eyes, and after a few more months proclaimed to me that he was a in fact now a Christian. He returned to his Catholic faith and has become quite an amazing fellow.

I was a very proud at that whole thing, and then an amazing thing happened. He told me that I was not the one that brought him to God. He said he knew that it wasn’t me, but was God himself.

“If I glorify myself, my glory isworth nothing;
but it is my Father who glorifies me.”

Jesus is the one who knows how this whole thing works. My glory is worth nothing. Only Jesus truly understands what that means.

We want desperately to be the source of truth, but that’s the wrong desire. It’s just like belief. We want desperately to believe, too. Jesus clearly stated who he was, and the consequence was that they wanted to stone him. He said he was God. Eventually, at Jesus’ prescribed time, not theirs, they crucified him.

Believing is what the demons do, and they tremble in fear. Faith is following through. We know people might think we’re nuts, or even dangerous. We know that’s the case. Most of us also know that God will show himself to us if we ask. We’d rather not, just yet, have to deal with that. The evidence for God is so overwhelming, that at the prospect of God revealing himself to us we tremble. Kind of like the demons. Those who say that’s not true, simply don’t know. Belief is not the biggest problem. It’s shifting the glory from us, over to God.

Think about this following statement compared to what we’ve just talked about. Faith does not mean to believe in spite of the evidence. Faith means to act on our beliefs in spite of the consequences.

Leader: You were sent to heal the contrite of heart.

People: Lord, have mercy.

Leader: You came to call sinners.

People: Christ, have mercy.

Leader: You are seated at the right hand of the Father to intercede for us.

People: Lord, have mercy.