The Quandary of Knowing God.

Not so much the quandary of knowing God, but the quandary of knowing if you can know God, and to what extent.

Just the phrase "knowing God" means different things. If someone comes up to you in the mall and says, "Do you know God?" what do you think they mean? Do you think they are wondering if you've heard of him? If you pray to him? If you are in a "personal relationship" with him (which typically translates into "going to church every Sunday" for many who ask)? Maybe it usually means: if you know and agree with the same ideas of God that the asker of the question has of God?

It seems interesting to me that the feeling of certainty one has of knowing God and of knowing his will often becomes arrogance and domination in practice. The most twisted, horrendous parts of church history seem to come from people groups claiming to know God (and his will) perfectly and their attempts to enforce it. Though most of the evils come from the "enforcing it", it seems a logical jump that if you 100% know God's will, that you would bring his will to pass so far as it is within your power. If you weren't 100% sure of his will, couldn't you easily be persuaded by a group of like-minded people of what it is and what to do with it?

It's a dangerous path. Yet, if we can't know God really, how do we live? How do we not become paralyzed in fear? How do we navigate changes? Scripture isn't sufficient for explaining our modern world. Scripture isn't a map or a Grand To-Do List. It was written is a historical context that is far removed from our own and to a people that were in a different position than we (especially White America) are in. Though I agree that the principles of faith and love are steadfast through the ages, how those principles are navigated changes. How that is navigated even within the pages of scripture changes. Within the pages of scripture, we have people who let the Gentiles become a part of the movement, a disciple who states that there is no "slave or free" in Christ, and we have unclean foods that are "made clean". Things that had previously been made to seem permanent, overturned in an instant.

In John 17:3, Jesus prays saying, "Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." 

He isn't talking about heaven. Throughout the book of John, eternal life begins now. It is a way of life we enter into presently. It is not reserved for life after death, though it may include it. So eternal life, defined as "the Way of Jesus we enter into now", is defined as knowing God and knowing Jesus as an extension, revealing in a human form who God really is.

I contend that we grow into learning and knowing God. Scripture is helpful, but I contend that scripture is perhaps more helpful to understanding historical interpretations of who God is through a human lens. There is always an interpretive lens at work - even within the pages of scripture. Meaning that Jesus himself was the only true representation of him. Even the gospels don't reflect him perfectly because it was interpreted by humans who didn't know Jesus fully, though they walked with him.

Some of you are going to hate that I'm using this quote (and especially in this context), but it really connected this idea for me. In Good Will Hunting (my favorite movie), Sean - Will's therapist - comes to a stalemate with Will. Will previously tried to read into Sean's life and to make assumptions about who he was. Here's what Sean says to him:

You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally... I don't give a shit about all that, because you know what - I can't learn anything from you [that] I can't read in some fuckin' book. Unless you want to talk about you. Who you are. Then I'm fascinated. I'm in.

What is troubling to me is that the Pharisees, Sadduccees and just the general "followers of God"  did not recognize Jesus. Would they claim to know God? I'd wager that even if they didn't say it, they believed it. Everyone had ideas about who Jesus would be. The Pharisees in particular studied the scriptures. They knew of the coming Messiah. But they interpreted him wrongly. They were wrong about him long before they realized he was God-incarnate, which was *not* part of the original prophecies. They only experienced those truths by walking with him. 

Jesus testifies of himself and says to the people, "You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life." Basically echoing the idea in Good Will Hunting. My hope is that I take that step to talk about God with God, and about who he is. I hope that we would be fascinated and that we would say, "I'm in." That the word, the scriptures, might be the entrance but not the end. The end is knowing God - beyond the words, knowing the "Word" which was made flesh in Jesus.

Another thing that strikes me is that even the followers of Jesus interpreted him through their own lenses. It seems very strategic to me that Jesus selected followers who were very different from one another. A tax-collected, a Zealot, so on and so forth. Each of them had their own ideas about what it meant to follow God - especially the Zealot. How weird it must have been for him to presumably be the only Zealot among the twelve. 

We develop a better idea of who God is in a community of people where not all the members are like us. Can you imagine the difference between Simon the Zealot and Nathaniel, the "True Israelite"? I hope and pray that we would be a part of communities that are so varied in thought and perspective. That we wouldn't feel threatened. Especially knowing that God's view is always better than each one of ours. As we stumble along in those communities, bumping heads with the Zealots and the fishermen, we ought to unite more in humility and grace. Through that humility, God makes himself known - through the scriptures, through the true Word which is Jesus, through prayer, and through life among community. And not just through the Church community. Isn't it true that the disciples view of God expanded rapidly (albeit not without bumps) when the Gentiles were included in the promise of Life?

It seems to me that to move forward in faith, we must have some level of hope that we can know God intimately. To continue growing in that faith, we must have humility to grasp that "for now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now [we] know in part; then [we] shall know fully, even as [we are] fully known." 







And to trust that we may well see Jesus in the faces of those we thought of as furthest away from him. Praise be to God.