WHAT are we OPEN to?
The Humility of Accepting God’s Mysterious Love and Truth
As I pondered and prayed through the theme of “openness” this month, this post didn’t fit the mold of the others. Here it is, anyways… A bonus post of sorts.
We Aren’t God and We Don’t Know Everything
We speak of “faith” in God often. Faith implies an element of trust despite not having a full understanding of God. Often in scripture it feels like Jesus spoke in perpetual riddles – sometimes literally in parables – presenting a puzzle that requires a pilgrimage through life and towards God the Father through Jesus to solve.
Yet, we know Jesus is surely pointing us to the Father. Jesus said in John 6 (the ‘Bread of Life Discourse’) that no one has seen the Father except for the One who came from the Father: Jesus (verse 46). No one can come to the Father except through Jesus and His flesh, and no one can come to Jesus except if the Father ‘sends them’. Even those truths, which are key to the Christian faith, are back-and-forth mind benders. The Gospel is both exceedingly simple and exceedingly mysterious to the human mind – and that’s alright. We must be both comfortable with the mystery and faithful to the truths which have been clearly revealed by Jesus and His Spirit.
The people who heard Jesus’ discourse in John 6 found it difficult to understand. Many turned away. If the truth were only simple – if God were simple – He might be easy to reveal and accept. Instead, there is some mystery inherent to our faith, which is what makes it “faith” in the first place.
Be Open to God’s Love – Don’t Merely Seek Knowledge
1 Corinthians speaks of the imperfection of human knowledge in a beautiful way in chapter 8: “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by Him” (verses 1-3, NRSV). Therein lies the ‘answer’ to the question of what faith requires us to be open to: the love of God – not the pursuit of personal knowledge.
To accept that we don’t know everything of God requires both humility and openness to mystery. If we think we know everything or crave certainty, we’re on a slippery slope to over-simplification, fundamentalism, or – with a little ‘imagination’ – conspiracy beliefs. None of us is God – we’re supposed to trust Him and lean not on our own understanding. But, still, Christians must believe that God has revealed Himself through His Son and left us His Spirit and His Church. If we’re on a “journey”, we have a map that we must adhere to, but we haven’t seen the terrain firsthand yet. It requires trust in Jesus to lead us.
Be Closed to All Else
When we are spiritually open to love, mystery, and the miraculous realities of spiritual life, we must ensure it is the God of Love we are open to. The trend in “spirituality” and the “new age” is a general openness to everything. We know that not “everything” is good. The spiritual world is real, and it is not full of only goodness. Did anyone else’s mom ever tell them, “Don’t let your mind be so open that your brains fall out!”?
We discern what is not good and true by adhering to what we know to be good and true. We are called to be both “open” to God and His love and closed to all else. Some examples might analogize this imperfectly.
God’s revealed truth, through His Son, His Spirit, His Word, and His Church are like a harness that holds us as we are open to exploring the mysteries of love that we don’t yet know. Exploration is not incompatible with structure and guidance. Mountain climbers are brave enough to scale a new mountain face, but wise enough to bring equipment. As we allow ourselves to be open to God’s mysterious love, we should apply the structure God’s wisdom provides through His Word, His Church, and His Spirit to ensure we’re not wading into murky spiritual waters. As per 1 John 4: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God” by testing whether they “confess Jesus” (verses 1-3).
Personally, I accidentally waded into ‘murky spiritual waters’ recently, so I have a fresh word of caution to speak to you all. I heard a song I liked during several consecutive massage appointments. The first couple of times I heard it, I thought it was annoying and repetitive. The third or fourth time, I thought it was interesting, and I sat in my vehicle after my appointment looking up the lyrics that I could remember in order to find it. I then played it on repeat and sang along to the bridge (if it could be called a ‘bridge’) at the top of my lungs during my drive home. It felt oddly powerful.
Now, I firmly believe that music can be very steeped in spirituality and hold real power – for good or for bad. Something about the lyrics wasn’t sitting quite right with me by the time I pulled into my driveway. I dove into the black hole that is the internet to look up the artist. By reviewing its webpage and the lyrics of one of its other songs, I immediately knew that its members practiced witchcraft.
A catchy tune with a theme about opening one’s self up to blooming (seemingly consonant with the spiritual theme I am pondering this month)… Lyrics full of just enough twisted truth to hook me… A song I can’t get out of my head that now makes my skin crawl… What had I opened my heart up to?
I guess my point is that, in our largely secular society, sometimes we forget that there is a real spiritual world. When we’re ignorant of that reality, we don’t test and question it. It is somewhat popular to be generally “open” – through yoga, meditation, etc. Openness to the spiritual world is essential to Christians, too. However, we must be cautious that we’re not loosely open – unconstrained by God’s truth. Faith that there is a God includes both an openness to His fullness even in mystery, and a compatible adherence to the structure of revelation He’s already provided through His Son and His church.
In two of the recent Sunday gospel readings, we heard of how the disciples on the Road to Emmaus recognized Jesus: in the Word and in the “breaking of the bread” (the Eucharist). Cling to those, let go of any notion that you know everything, and be open to the mysterious love of the Lord – and closed to all else.
