Prayer, in other words, has the power to change things. They lack the vision Jesus receives, vision gained by means of close proximity to God. Because they don’t apprehend what Jesus apprehends, because they lack the intimacy Jesus has with God, their words and actions betray a blinkered mindset. Note how Peter, James, and John respond to the very same stimuli during the Transfiguration. From this encounter, the faithful receive fresh insight into the often hidden meaning of life. It is the same place Jesus goes, whenever possible, to be alone with God, in an effort to restore the sacred clarity of heart and mind. It is in the act of prayer, for instance, that John, the author of the Book of Revelation, receives a vision of the world to come, when the heavens shall descend and envelop the world finally in the fullness of God’s goodness. Throughout the Bible, it is here that the faithful frequently (and symbolically) go to pray. It’s not without reason that it occurs on a mountaintop, the traditional meeting place between God and human beings. In today’s passage from Luke, we witness the “Transfiguration” of Jesus. It all depends, as I say, on how they’re used. The problem is when these same “neutral” powers are directed toward lesser goods, or even the unseemly and sinful aspects of life. Affection, when directed toward the beloved, honors sacred love. Guilt, when applied to real and appropriate situations, honors God’s demand for truth and righteousness. Anger, if used for sacred purposes, honors God’s demand for justice. This same principle applies to all God-given human powers. The overall point, then, is that the mind can be recruited to “rationally” explain any number of “realities.” And it can be used for sacred or profane purposes, or anywhere in-between. And because the Christian believes and experiences God as real, certain understandings necessarily flow from that fact. To a Christian, of course, that “projection” is not a made up psychological defense, but the real God. As Freud famously argued, a primitive humanity needed a parental figure in order to cope with the unexplained uncertainties and mysteries of life. God for the secular scientist may be appear as but a mere projection of the human mind. Any appeal to the transcendent is by definition rejected. To a hardnosed, atheistic scientist, for instance, the “facts” are what can be known through the 5 senses. It all depends on our frame of reference, how we experience life.
What is a fact to one person may seem ridiculous to another. To put it another way, there is reason and there is reason. And if the apprehender has had no acquaintance with the Spirit, his or her mind necessarily will be working on an entirely different level, with a different set of “facts.” The mind can only categorize and classify information available to the apprehender. Knowledge of divine things, in other words, cannot be apprehended without an experience of the divine, the Other, the transcendent, the supernatural. Rather, his point was that faith cannot be apprehended by rational or scientific inquiry alone.īelieving comes first, then understanding. Anselm was not arguing that Christians needn’t bother with understanding things (in lieu of a blind faith). That immediately brought to mind the famous motto, “Faith seeking understanding.” What I hadn’t realized, until I looked it up, was that it was the very same man, Anselm, who had authored this similar paradoxical statement. It read as follows: “I do not seek to understand in order to believe.
Anselm, the 11 th century Archbishop of Canterbury.
This past week, at our monthly diaconate meeting, Lynn Bitzer passed out a quote from St. You never know where you’ll find sermon material. Preaching Text: “Now eight days after these saying Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.” (Luke 9:28)
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