Reflection - God's Knowledge

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/080416.cfm

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Matthew 16:13-23

I love a good mystery; and, apparently, I'm not alone. Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Sherlock Holmes, and Fr Brown were popular characters in the world in which I grew up. Authors like Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen have since been joined by John Grisham and Anne Perry among others. 

While quasi-historical pseudo-mysteries are the basis of movies and literary fiction, genuine historical mysteries are pursued by scholars from a variety of academic fields. How did they build the pyramids in Egypt. How were the building stones of ancient South American civilizations so precisely cut? Was Shakespeare the true author of all those plays attributed to him? Where did Captain Kidd bury his treasure? Television has even managed to merge fiction and fantasy with reality in such programs as Ancient Aliens, subverting known truth with an infusion of speculation.

One thing both fictional and factual mysteries have in common is the existence of clues. Archeologists, historians and other social scientists search out their clues in the pages of ancient writings, in the buried artifacts from primitive cultures and the discovered remnants of forgotten civilizations. Fiction writers don't have the same problem with clues. They. Make their own; and are enamored of both the subtle and the whimsical clue. Indiana Jones must find the headpiece for the staff of Ra if he is to ascertain the current location of the Ark of the Covenant. Robert Langdon, the scientist turned detective in The DaVinci Code, has to decipher a series of increasingly obscure clues in order to find the Holy Grail.

While the Bible contains a variety of literary genres, the mystery story is not one of them. Some people might object, speculating on the notion that the foreshadowings and prophecies of the Old Testament rightly fall into the mystery category. Personally, I don't consider that a tenable proposition. Failure to fully understand what God was or is making known just isn't in the same category as the hints intentionally secreted along the literary path by mystery authors. Nor does God require us to connect the dots of Scriptural teaching in order to perceive his message. God is very direct for those who are willing to hear. He promises childless Abraham that his descendants will be numerous. He says Abraham's descendants will live in a land flowing with milk and honey. He declares Himself their protector. He says that a descendant of David will endure forever on a kingly throne. We may not know exactly how God will accomplish what He says He will do; but there is little that could be called a 'mystery' except the manner by which He will accomplish his work. 

Take this morning's text from Jeremiah, for example. 

•      God says that some time in the future He will make a new covenant with Israel and Judah.
  
•      It will not be like the one made with their ancestors in the days of Moses.
  
•      That covenant was one which they broke.
  
•      Consequently, God had no choice but to remind them who is God.
  
•      So, God says, He will have to make a new covenant, a different sort of covenant.
  
•      This time He won't write laws on stone tablets for the people to read.
  
•      This time He will place the law inside of them.
  
•      He will write it on their hearts.
  
•      They won't need to have others teach them in order to learn to know God.
  
•      It will be within them.
  

God's pretty clear in this passage about the 'what' that He intends. There is no mystery there. He's also pretty clear about the 'what' that He will not do. There's no mystery there. Further, He's pretty clear about the 'why' --- why this adjustment has been made necessary. Again, no mystery. The only aspects that could even remotely be called a mystery are the 'when' and the 'how.' Both of these were revealed when the Father sent His Son, to be with us; and when the Son did not, " . . . though he was in the form of God, count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men." (Philippians 2:6-7)

There is a passage from the book, The Art of Loving, by Eric From, which is pertinent here.

“To respect a person is not possible without knowing him; care and responsibility would be blind if they were not guided by knowledge. Knowledge would be empty if it were not motivated by concern. There are many layers of knowledge; the knowledge which is an aspect of love is one which does not stay at the periphery, but penetrates to the core. It is possible only when I can transcend the concern for myself and see the other person in his own terms. I may know, for instance, that a person is angry, even if he does not show it overtly; but I may know him more deeply than that; then I know that he is anxious, and worried; that he feels lonely, that he feels guilty. Then I know that his anger is only the manifestation of something deeper, and I see him as anxious and embarrassed, that is, as the suffering person, rather than as the angry one.” 

When I first read this passage I was, of course, thinking of my knowledge of others and my love for others. Alternately, I considered it in broader terms: what these words say with regard to any person knowing and loving another. After all, that's what this entire book is about. But I found the passage somewhat disconcerting when I thought about these words as words informing me about God.

I begin with what I consider a fundamental fact: God respects the persons He has created. Because the alternative is not possible, God also knows me. 

His care and responsibility for me would be blind if they were not guided by knowledge. And the knowledge itself would be empty if it were not motivated by concern. There are many different types of knowledge; God's knowledge which is an aspect of love is one which does not stay at the periphery, but penetrates to the core. It is possible only when God sees me in my own terms. God may know, for instance, that I am angry, even if I do not show it overtly; but He knows me more deeply than that; He knows that my anger flows from anxiety, and worry; that I feel lonely or guilty. Because of His knowledge of me, He knows that my anger is only the manifestation of something deeper. 

God's knowledge of me, the knowledge that I am talking about is, as Eric Fromm puts it: "an aspect of love is one which does not stay at the periphery, but penetrates to the core." That core of my being is my heart. So, if there is any mystery here it is the mystery of His words. What has He written on my heart? He writes what He would have me know: I Love You!