“WHO COULD EVER KNOW THE   MIND OF THE LORD?”

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this Second Sunday in Lent, Year B, is a question, “Who Could Ever Know The Mind Of The Lord?”

Today’s readings trigger that question for me. Like everyone, at times I wonder about  the what,  the why and the how of the mind of God.

And as I thought about this yesterday, I realized it’s easy to ask the question - but very difficult to come up with answers on reading the mind of God. Hey, we often can’t even understand each other. Moreover, after I finished this homily, I found out that my homily is  more of a question than an answer. How’s that for covering oneself?

IT’S   PAUL’S  QUESTION

Paul near the end of his letter to the Romans - which we have an earlier part today as our second reading [Romans 8: 31b-34] - quotes an Early Church prayer and hymn, “How rich are the depths of God - how deep his wisdom and knowledge - and how impossible to penetrate his motives or understand his methods! Who could ever know the mind of the Lord?” [Romans 11: 33-34]

That last sentence - that's where I got the title for this homily. “Who Could Ever Know The Mind Of The Lord?”

Yet we hear people talking about God, how God works, what God’s will is - on a regular basis. Just listen - especially when tough things are happening.

Next, just listen to our own inner conversations when it comes to God.  We ask the question:  what does God want of me? We ask: what is God’s will? People lose their jobs and they wonder: maybe God has other plans - and maybe that's why I lost my job.

Fortunately, we haven’t heard anyone shoot off their mouth telling us that God is angry with the United States by sending these recent tornados. But we’ve heard things like that from time to time.

We also hear people voicing to others statements like these:  “This is God’s will.” “This is God’s plan.” “This is what God wants.”

I don’t know about you, but some people need to have some doubts before making these statements.

Francis B. Sayre said, “Religion isn’t yours firsthand until you doubt it right down to the ground.” [Life, April 2, 1965.]

Hesitation is part of humility. Not being so sure of everything is part of humility.

I love to quote the following from the Talmud: “Teach thy tongue to say, ‘I do not know.’”

TODAY’S FIRST READING

Today’s first reading  places us up on a mountain - where Abraham takes his son Isaac - to holocaust him - to kill him -to sacrifice him - because he hears a voice from God to do just that. [Genesis 22: 1-2, 9a, 10-13, 15-18]

It’s crazy - to kill one’s own son - as a sacrifice - because someone heard  a voice from God to do that. Was God really putting Abraham to a test? Check Chapter 11 of Hebrews which highlights this theme. 

There’s a half-dozen attempted explanations on what’s going on here in this story in Genesis. I don’t know what the true story or the motive why this story was put into the sacred Jewish scriptures. It's difficult to read the minds of those who got scriptures in the Scriptures.  Abraham is dated to have existed between 2000 to 1500 B.C.  These writings are a combination of several writers - the most primitive being from roughly around 1000 B.C. Some see this story as a "come back" at Abraham - because of his behavior towards his other son, Ishmael - by another woman , Hagar - whom he sent out into the wilderness. The theory that many scholars of today say is underneath this old, old story is that it’s addressing infant sacrifice - the killing of one’s first born in sacrifice to God. There is evidence that this was part of some people’s thinking in the Middle East around 1000 years before Christ. Then they say that this story was an insight - a breakthrough - that God wouldn’t want that. Put an end to this  practice. There is evidence that this was what happened in the Middle East around that time. A switch was made to sacrifice animals instead.

One of my questions is this: if God made an intervention in this story, why doesn’t He make interventions in our times?

Maybe God does. Maybe the story is an attempt by story to tell us how life works. Maybe God’s  interventions take place in human brains. Someone starts to think and says, “I just realized that the way I'm  thinking might not be right.” Realizing that they  might be wrong might be the first step towards a new way of thinking and they change. Is that the plan? Is that the way God works life?  Even that is tricky. “Who Could Ever Know The Mind Of The Lord?”

Listening to how people think, I have heard some people think God wanted their child to die. Then they find scripture texts to back that way of thinking. I would add that the Bible, our Scriptures, give lots of ways to think about lots of things.

What’s your take on the mind of  God? Which Scripture text do you gravitate towards to support your thoughts? Are there other texts you might want to check?

Once more I say that I have taught my tongue to say, “I do not know.”

However, I still ask the question: “God, why can’t you intervene and not let children die?”

Or I ask why didn’t God zap Hitler with a heart attack in the night or let those who were trying to assassinate him be successful? Why didn’t God intervene in the death of all those people killed in the holocaust? With the slaughters going on in several cities in Syria right now, why doesn’t God just let  Bashar Assad die in his sleep? Those being slaughtered scream out to the West to help? And I’m sure when they see mortar shells and bombs coming flying out of the sky towards them, they scream to God for help.  Why doesn’t God help? Why doesn’t God take on the role of Good Samaritan? He tells us to be one. Why doesn’t he stop everything to help those who need help?

Based on the evidence, God’s mind doesn’t work this way. Based on Scripture texts, God does help at times. Other times it seems like a great silence comes from God. In the meanwhile, the history of the world is War and Peace and then déjà vu all over again - again and again - and then again.

Soren Kierkeggard was fascinated by this story of Abraham - and writes about it big time in his book, Fear and Trembling. Israel was fascinated by this story - called the Akeda - or the binding or tying Isaac down for the slaughter. Why would God ask anyone to kill their child? Kierkegaard’s thought brings people to the reality that many times in life we face what Abraham faced: the death of a child or a parent or a spouse - and today we’d add that they are tied down by tubes and cords in a hospital bed.

Kierkegaard gives 4 variations on this story of Abraham and Isaac on that mountain. Rabbis in their sermons give lots of possibilities on the story. Once more it triggers the reality that sometimes we just don’t know. We don’t know what’s in God’s mind. We don’t know God’s motives and methods -  we don’t know the “why” of the here and the now as well as the next life - and so we cry.  And it seems God is asleep in the boat of life.[Cf. Mark 4:38]

Once more the title of my homily is, “Who Could Ever Know The Mind Of The Lord?”

TODAY’S GOSPEL

Today’s gospel brings us to another mountain. And Jesus goes up that mountain with his 3 favorites, Peter, James and John, and Jesus is transfigured before them - and they get to see a new side of Jesus.

Peter, James and John hear a voice from the heavens - God the Father - says, This is my Beloved Son. Listen to him.”

Then we have Mark’s take on the scene: Jesus talks about his death and rising from the dead.

Compared to Matthew and Luke, Mark stresses the cross - the heading for that reality - much more than the others.

And that leads us back to the Abraham and Isaac story. Christians have to ask whether God the Father wanted his own son killed so as to save the world. Why would God want such a thing? Why wouldn’t he be satisfied with the sacrifice of a lamb or the offering of the first fruits of grapes and wheat?

As Christians we hold that Jesus lets us in the door into the mind of God. That’s the great teaching of the New Testament.

Jesus said, “See me, you see the Father. Know me, you know the Father.”

Christianity holds that Jesus is the door that leads to the Father. Yet it’s Paul who says, “Who Could Ever Know The Mind Of The Lord?”

CONCLUSION

In this homily, I put on the table the question: “Who Could Ever Know The Mind Of The Lord?” I added that it’s easier to raise the question than to give answers to the question.

I don’t know the answer, other than to say, “I don’t know the answer.”

I don’t know the answer, other than to say, “Jesus Christ.”

Paul, when he was Saul, thought he knew what God wanted. He was sure that those who were following Jesus were in the wrong. He wanted to right them. So he want after them with the idea of closing them down. He fell on his face on the way to Damascus. He slowly saw that he was blind - and started to see that Jesus was the way to the Father. He saw that the followers of the Way were the Way to go.

Then Paul because of Christ started to enter into the mind of God.

Today’s second reading begins. “Brothers and sisters: If God is for us, who can be against us? He did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how we he not also give us everything else along with him?”

So we come here to Church to look at the cross - and look for answers to why people crucify each other. We come here to church and listen to the scriptures and we hear questions and answers. We come here knowing that God has spoken - his Word - to us. And that Word became flesh and walked with us.

Christ walked and talked. Christ at the end was willing to be bound to a cross and to die - saying he was doing this for us.

Why?

Why did he go this way?

Was it that people will stop crucifying each other? If that’s true, then that stopping has got to start with me - with us.

Just as Abraham put down the knife - we have to put down the knife - sometimes it’s our tongue - and we have to realize we come here to church to be released  like Isaac - and then come down for the high place and then live life to the full like Isaac did.

Just as the disciples went up the mountain with Jesus and heard, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him” - we come here to do the same thing - especially to hear God say to us, “You are my beloved Daughter - You are my beloved Son - Listen to me”

I would also think that we come here for listening prayer - listening to God’s mind and our own mind - and we’ll slowly put both together. 

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Painting on top: The Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio