GOD'S WAYS ARE NOT OURS

JULY 26, 2008

In the book of Deuteronomy 6:4-5, we read perhaps the most important affirmation of the entire Old Testament, called the SHEMA: "Hear O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your strength."

So concerned is the author that his hearers fully appreciate the importance of this acclamation that he then instructs them: "Take to heart these words which I enjoin on you today. Drill them into your children. Speak of them at home and abroad, whether you are busy or at rest. Bind them at your wrist as a sign and let them be as a pendant on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates."

If the author were writing today, he would tell us to advertise this announcement on television between every show, put it on every billboard, refrigerator door, and on the back cover of every magazine and newspaper. The author knew how easy it was to forget this truth, and to put false gods at the center of our lives.

The name that theologians have given to this teaching is "monotheism", a word which means belief in only one God. It was because the Jews so strongly held to their belief in only one God that Jesus Christ provoked such controversy by his claims. He claimed to be sent by God. In Chapter 8 of John's gospel, he described himself as the light of the world and said that no follower of his would ever walk in darkness. No, he said, he shall possess eternal life. Trying to help the people understand that he was different, he said: "You belong to what is below; I belong to what is above."

When the Jews then claimed Abraham for their father, he said, "I solemnly declare to you, before Abraham came to be, I am." He also said that he was the way, the truth, and the life, and elsewhere he said, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he should die, will come to life; and whoever is alive and believes in me will never die." At the last Supper, he told his apostles, "He who sees me sees the Father" (Jn 14:9).

These claims of Jesus were an unbearable scandal. If the Lord is God and Lord alone, how could Jesus possibly identify himself with God? Would not this mean there were two gods?

Some of the more open minded religious leaders acknowledged that Jesus was a teacher sent from God. But God's Son? How could God possibly be one, and yet be both a Father and a Son? St. John's Gospel tells us that the Jews sought to kill Jesus because he made himself equal with God.

While the Jews were scandalized, the Greeks rejected Jesus because what the Church said of him seemed foolish. Nothing, they thought, could cross from what was eternal and unchanging to what was temporal and material. So the Greek intellectuals ridiculed John's affirmation: "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God... and the word became flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn 1:1,14).

The Apostle Paul discovered the secret of faith. It rested not on human wisdom, but on God's power and grace. When he realized this, he stopped trying to adapt his message to make it pleasing to his hearers, and began to preach only the cross. In 1 Cor 1:18-25 he explains:

"The message of the cross is complete absurdity to those who are headed for ruin, but to us who are experiencing salvation it is the power of God. Scripture says, `I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and thwart the cleverness of the clever.' Where is the wise man to be found? Where the scribe? Where is the master of worldly argument? Has not God turned the wisdom of this world into folly? Since in God's wisdom the world did not come to know him through wisdom, it pleased God to save those who believe through the absurdity of the preaching of the gospel. Yes, Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, and an absurdity to Gentiles. But to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's folly is wiser than men, and his weakness more powerful than men."

+Bishop Raymundo J. Peña

last updated 11-Jan-2010 8:22 sitemap