You Know Her
As the mother of a Mexican son, I have become sensitized to all the art that portrays Jesus as Caucasian, and how such images are considered to be an accurate depiction by many. My understanding was further expanded when I saw Mexican images of Jesus who looked much more like my son, and by the story of Our Lady of Guadelupe and her encounter with three children, all distinctly Mexican. Later, on a vacation in Hawaii, the image shifted again when I saw a Hawaiian image of Jesus on the cross in a church in Maui. We see Jesus through the lenses of our own culture, our own comfort zone, and our own life experience as well as through the lenses of cultural values and accepted language.
This is natural, but it is also limited! I have wrestled this week with the limitations of the language we use to describe God. This week, the reading from the Acts of the Apostles presented a particular challenge as it used the term “He” to describe God, no less than eleven times. It’s important to note that while we believe that the Scriptures were divinely inspired they were not dictated by God. The New Testament was written in most cases years after the events that took place when Jesus was living on this earth, and they were written down in a culture that was predominantly patriarchal. Some of the Gospels were not selected for the canon because the church itself was predominantly patriarchal. Some of the Gospels that were not selected for the canon include the Gospel of Mary Magdalen and the Gospel of Thomas; not because they were contradictory, but perhaps because they offered a different voice.
St. Paul is often singled out as being anti-feminist. I don’t believe this to be the case. Paul was a brilliant and dedicated follower of Jesus who worked long and hard to communicate the Gospel in all kinds of difficult circumstances. But yes, he was strong willed, flawed (like all followers of Jesus!) and a man of his culture and time in history. In his defense, he was a follower of Jesus in incredibly difficult circumstances.
In the reading today from the Acts of the Apostles, we find Paul alone in Athens, after being driven out of Phillipi, Thessalonica, and Beroea, a solitary witness, once again trying to be faithful in yet another strange and complex situation. Paul takes on the unenviable task of challenging limited ideas about God. Speaking to the Athenians, acknowledging that they are very religious, he also points out diplomatically (and I say this carefully as Paul is not generally known for his diplomacy!), that the God they describe as “unknown” is actually very near to us, dwells within us, and indeed inhabits the whole earth and all its occupants. He further adds that God cannot be described by our limited understanding or our attempts to portray or name God. Even our greatest works of art are at best, a groping attempt, as we try to understand who and what God is. Paul reminds us that “God is not far from each one of us, for in God we live and move and have our being.
Our culture, like that of Athens, is a culture of many idols: consumer goods, military power, personal fulfillment, and technology, to name just a few. How are we to witness to the indwelling presence of God in our own circumstances? If we pay attention to what Paul is really saying to the people of Athens, we can apply it to our own circumstances We will first of all learn to listen to the culture and not dismiss it out of hand, hearing deep within it the ways that people are seeking deeper meaning and in their own circumstances, searching for God.
The people of Athens considered themselves religious, and Paul respected that while at the same time, challenging them to expand their understanding of God. Behind all of the distorted aspects of today’s culture, is a search for something deeper; fulfillment, security, belonging….. ultimately a longing for the God who created us.
It is important to remember that God made the first move; in creating the universe, in creating each one of us to be a part of it; in giving each one of us gifts to share and our capacity for connection. We are, as followers of Jesus, called to witness to the risen Christ in our midst; but not in a way that is aggressive or dismissive. The reading from first Peter today tells us how to go about it; we should be eager to do good and not be intimidated, and we should be ready to tell people where our hope comes from if they ask, but we are to do it with reverence. We have witnessed some good examples of this kind of reverence in the past weeks through the gentle but firm words of some religious leaders, including the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope. I witness it all the time in members of this congregation through your gentleness, your quiet joy in living out your deep faith each day, in often challenging circumstances.
Our instructions on how to live our faith are further clarified in the Gospel of John: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”, and this is followed by the promise that Jesus will ask God to send another Advocate to be with us forever, and he follows this with words that are very dear to me: You know her, because she abides in you and she will be with you.
This is the promise of Jesus. We are never alone because the Holy Spirit is not only with us but abides in us.
So, let us not struggle too much with the limitations of our language for God, or our own ideas of who God is: at best, our language and our images are only a reaching towards the Holy. Neither let us be overwhelmed by the culture of our time and place, or by the fallible apostles who wrote down some of the stories of Jesus in their own time and culture. Let us trust instead the Spirit that dwells within each one of us. We know her and we can trust that indwelling because it is the Spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We are never, ever, alone. Amen.