How
do you get to know God?
Some get to know him in a blinding flash,
others find gradual illumination and many stay in the dark.
My own illumination has been through gradual
flashes. Ardinian, or rather Giggleswickian, served by confirmation classes at
my old school. The Chaplain counted a lot as Fr David counts for many of you.
It came also through a doctorate in Chemistry
researching carbon polymers. As I opened up new realms of knowledge through
neutron scattering, I had a sense Someone had seen these things
before.
Science works through humility so that
hypotheses that get disproved are good news bringing advance. My old
research field is a bit strange to me nowadays. I was fascinated though to read
in last month's Scientific American of carbon-breathing batteries that use
Aluminium to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere whilst making
electricity.
How
do you get to know God?
We scientists pursue truth but many of us
have a sense truth is with us and awaiting us. Reason and faith both lift us to
God. Saul of Tarsus whose Conversion we’re celebrating today, originally followed
a reasoned religion lacking faith. He lacked openness to the transcendent. God
was in his religious books and laws so he was rattled to encounter the first
Christians. They spoke of laws and indeed life itself transcended through the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of
the body and the life everlasting.
It was too much. He raged against it. But
Saul was to become Paul, the reasoned man became the man
of faith as heavenly light came over him on the Damascus Road. His eyes were
opened to a God built less to his dimensions and more to those of God who is
God!
How
do you get to know God?
As God is truth you need to seek truth, but
that's not enough. You need to be open to truth as something or Someone seeking
you!
The best of scientists like old Archimedes get
eureka moments - I see it! These
moments are, like Paul’s today, a lesson in humility, that is, in disbelieving
yourself so as to see something more wonderful. To get to know God – and what
an awesome, joy-giving and life-enhancing business that is - you need a readiness
to loosen from self pre-occupation, see the big picture of reality and be put
in your place!
That happened to Saul of Tarsus in a flash
which really put him in his place. He was temporarily blinded, and had to be
led by the hand into Damascus where he joined the very body he was
persecuting. Later on Paul wrote of this
in 1 Timothy 1:16 I received mercy, so
that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display the utmost patience,
making me an example to those who would come to believe in him for eternal
life. Paul saw himself as the foremost of sinners since he had persecuted the very body he came
to join and lead. If God can use me, he says, he can use anyone.
How
do you get to know God?
Former
Ardinian, Private Eye editor Ian Hislop writes of his formative days here and
how each day he walked out on to the terrace to look at the view with friends as
they shared aspirations for the future. God is before you in that inspiring
view as much as he’s before you in Chapel. It’s a bit of a leap from Ian Hislop
to St Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain but here goes. St Nicodemus who lived on Mount
Athos in the 18th Century also admired the grand views there. He
pondered and came up with an astonishing two liner that captures what it is to
be in the image of God. Human beings are
the macrocosm. The whole universe is the microcosm. I repeat: Human beings are the macrocosm. The whole
universe is the microcosm.
You can find God by pondering yourself, or,
one step back, reflecting on what it is
to reflect. As your mind and heart
contain the view from the terrace, and indeed, in a thought, the whole
universe, you become in a sense greater than all that is as you contain it. Human beings are the macrocosm. The whole
universe is the microcosm.
God
is God and always will be God. We’re made in God's image capable of his
glory but that capacity isn't automatic. People miss God through two
deceptions. They reason to the
exclusion of faith or they believe to the exclusion of reason.
The greatest threats to peace on earth are
folk who deny the transcendent and folk in possession of mindless religion. God
is love and love transcends reason – it goes beyond but not against reason.
To know God who is truth you need to be drawn
beyond any mental construct. You might also need freeing, as Paul was, from
false and compulsive images of God.
A few ideas this evening on how you get to
know God.
I want to encourage you to pray sometime, in
quiet, on your own – maybe on the terrace as you admire the view, maybe in the
Chapel Crypt before the Blessed Sacrament, to pray this honest and risky prayer: God if
you're there and you love me show yourself to me. Give me a vision of yourself
more to your dimensions and less to my own.
It's an honest
prayer - saying 'if you're there' tames reason as it admits we can't prove God is there however strong the evidence. It's a risky prayer because you're expressing a readiness to be put right
on God by God – but… God is love! It’s an ongoing
prayer - you need to wait for an answer. God
if you're there and you love me show yourself to me. Give me a vision of
yourself more to your dimensions and less to my own.
If you already know God you’re asking for a fuller
vision of him, something I find myself doing often, but not as often as I
should so I’m preaching this evening at myself too.
Have a go - you won't regret it!
In Paul’s own words to Corinth, God give you the light of the knowledge of
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. (2 Corinthians 4v6)
God who shone on Paul shine on us all!
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