THE GOD ONLY YOU CAN KNOW

Look at how we relate to each other.

Based on personal experience, we know there are certain dynamics all of our one-on-one relationships have in common. These dynamics range from love to hate, loyalty to rejection, forgiveness to revenge, intimacy to estrangement, etc.

Pick any one of your close relationships.  Notice how, the more “personal” it is, the easier it is to identify with these different dynamics. Relationally speaking, we have a lot in common with each other.

After all, isn’t this is why we all love a good love story? We can relate!

But, if we peer into the particulars of any one of our relationships more deeply we see something else: Absolutely every single relationship we have is unique and different from all the rest. In fact, the more intimate the relationship is, the more unique it becomes. At this writing, the world’s population is estimated to be 7,493,618,067, yet put any two of us together, and the resulting relationship will be different every single time.

Why would it be any different when it comes to God?

For each of us, our one-on-one relationship to God is wonderfully unique and personal—even intimate—and is meant to be so! This doesn’t mean we all know different “Gods.” It means we all know God differently. In other words, we each have a relationship with the God that only we can know.

TAKE IT PERSONALLY

What kind of advice is that?!

Ever since being children we’ve been told, “Don’t take it personally!”—no matter what ‘it’ is. No doubt, this is advice that serves us well most of the time. But depending upon the context, the opposite of such sage counsel might be just as helpful—or even more so.

Never mind who said or did it!

If we are willing to engage in a little self-reflection upon something painful that someone has said or done to us—something that we would normally “take personally” [read: “be offended by”]—we may gain surprisingly deep awareness into ourselves and our modus operandi. Doing so offers us much more than just insight. It can stimulate our own emotional health and well-being and even promote personal transformation.

The biggest stumbling block to accomplishing this is our ego.

This is the gist of what Jesus was talking about in his Sermon on the Mount when he discourages us from focusing on the speck we’re so quick to see in someone else’s eye while overlooking the log in our own. Utilizing unusually abrupt language, he drives home a point that actually has the power to positively transform us—and our relationships—if we will apply it.

But…

It’s a point that you and I won’t even “get” unless we’re willing to take it personally.

“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye.” (Mt 7:5 NRSV)

WHO WASN'T ATTRACTED TO JESUS?

Isn’t it interesting that children were attracted to Jesus? 

As was blind Bartimaeus, the tax collector Zaccheaus, the synagogue official Jairus, the Samaritan woman at the well, the wise Nicodemus, the hemorrhaging woman, the mute demoniac, the disciples, foreigners like the "gentile" Roman centurion, a mix of prostitutes, orphans, widows, sick and leprous, poor and powerless and many, many others. It seems they all sensed Jesus' receptivity, affirmation and safety.

Who, then, wasn’t attracted to Jesus? 

Many of the religious officials--temple and synagogue priests, Roman authorities, lay synagogue leaders like the scribes and Pharisees, the wealthy and the well placed like the rich young ruler--considered the same Jesus as unnerving, threatening and dangerous. They wanted nothing to do with him. In fact, many of them wanted to do away with him.

Did the former group, children included, somehow know that this Jesus offered them something they couldn’t get for themselves? Were the latter, both knowingly and unknowingly, so full of themselves and their ego-driven agendas that there was no need—in deed, no room—for anyone else in their lives? God, included?!

“Who wasn’t attracted to Jesus…and more importantly, why weren’t they?” These are good questions to ask ourselves when we leave God out of our picture.  

“...but Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs."  (Matthew 19:13-14 NRSV)

LEARNING TO STEER

Last week we considered a tricycle as a metaphor for using prayer to navigate the complexities of life and perhaps discover new ways of making a difference in the world. In this metaphor one wheel represents the part of our prayers having to do with thanking God, a second wheel represents asking God, and a third wheel represents listening deeply (and without an agenda!) for God. 

Today, using the same metaphor, I’d like to suggest that the “listening” wheel, whether we call it contemplation, centering prayer, meditation, reflection time, etc., is actually the best wheel to use for steering the tricycle we call our life. (Again, while these popular terms may connote different things to different people, all are variations on the theme of listening.)

In his historic 2012 Address to the Synod of Bishops in Rome, 104th Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams offered an excellent explanation for why this may be true:

“[Contemplation] is very far from being just one kind of thing that Christians do: it is the key to prayer, liturgy, art and ethics, the key to the essence of a renewed humanity that is capable of seeing the world and other subjects in the world with freedom--freedom from self-oriented, acquisitive habits and the distorted understanding that comes from them. To put it boldly, contemplation is the only ultimate answer to the unreal and insane world that our financial systems and our advertising culture and our chaotic and unexamined emotions encourage us to inhabit. To learn contemplative practice is to learn what we need so as to live truthfully and honestly and lovingly. It is a deeply revolutionary matter.”[1]

Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane suggests that he didn't just talk. He listened for God’s guidance (that is, he practiced contemplation) regarding the most significant decision he would ever make…"My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want." (Matthew 26:39)...and then followed it.

The rest is history.

[1]http://rowanwilliams.archbishopofcanterbury.org/articles.php/2645/

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