A Theology that Works by Rev. Jane Siebert
Recently I was sitting with a woman whose husband was dying in the hospital bed next to us. We were watching his respirations slow and his blood pressure drop on the monitors. We were strangers prior to this night where my job as hospital chaplain and her love and dedication as a wife brought us together. As we waited for death to release her husband from his earthly struggles, conversation moved into that rarified space that sometimes opens up at such moments. She asked, “What are we going to do in heaven? Will I be with my first husband or this one that is dying? Why are we here?” We brought our own ideas about the answers to these questions into this dimly lit hospital room and shared them as she patted and comforted her unresponsive husband. We talked about the changes that his death would mean in her life and she turned to me and softly said, ”I have such a weak faith. All I seem to have are questions.”
I thought back to a time in my own life growing up in a church that did not honor questions. I remember being told as a youth that I had too many questions. I was to have the faith of a young child and just trust… just believe…. just have faith.
I quietly thanked God that now I can draw on a theology that works in times like this, as I shared my beliefs with her, “Your questions do not mean that your faith is weak. Your questions mean that you are growing and reaching out to know God better. You are journeying past the answers that had previously satisfied you. During times of crisis and life changing events such as death our questioning goes very, very deep. This is OK. In fact it is good, not easy, but good.”
She looked at me with tired, tear-rimmed eyes and nodded her head. She said nothing, but I could sense that she had been struggling with this issue for some time. While her shoulders were still slumped with the sadness she was bearing, it was as if part of the weight had been lifted and she could go on and face tomorrow.
For me, this is one of the tenets of our Swedenborgian theology that attracts me the most. We are encouraged to question. We are not told what to think, but rather are told to “eat the scroll”, like the prophet Ezekiel. We are to digest the information…to eat means to appropriate, take it in and make it our own, really affirming that it makes sense to us. And only then, to accept it. Scripture has been opened for us to explore at a new level through the inner meaning of the Word that Swedenborg was given. As it says in True Christianity, “Now it is permitted to know………”.
When we are not allowed to question, our questions don’t go away; they remain hidden questions and they block our growth. But when we are encouraged to question, we have the freedom to seek the meaning structures that can begin to address our questions – and then move towards our next question.
And we must always remember that because we are finite we will only be able to recognize an appearance of the truth.
“No truths are ever pure for us, or even the angels – pure meaning devoid of appearances. Pure truths belong to the Lord alone, because they are divine.” (Secrets of Heaven 3207.3)
Because what we find in our search for truth is only an appearance, we must not get stuck in our answer, but realize that it is our understanding for where we are right now in our lives, and this understanding may change as we grow. It is when we think we have THE TRUTH, that we get in trouble, because The Truth is beyond us.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”, saith the Lord. (Isaiah 55:8)
We know the truth, “God is love”. This is an ultimate Truth, but in our limited, finite minds, we can never fully appreciate what this means. We still can believe this truth, love this truth and use this truth in our lives, but we must allow it to remain bigger than we can conceive in a sense of sacred ambiguity. And each of us may have a different perception of this ultimate Truth. What does it mean to you that “God is love”? We would all answer in our own way because we are all at differing stages on our walk with God. It is OK to see things differently and this should not cause us undue concern.
“Although it does seem as though the divine is not the same in one person as in another – that the Lord is different, for example, in a wise person than in a simple one, different in an elderly person than in an infant. (Different in a Buddhist than in a Christian) But this difference is deceptive. The person is the recipient vessel of divine love and divine wisdom. And the recipient vessel may vary; still the divine is the same in the one as it is in the other…” (Divine Love and Wisdom 78)
God is one, unchangeable, ultimate. We are different from each other and we differ as to the stage of our life and our perception of the Divine, but these differences should not separate us, but rather draw us together to reflect the whole, the oneness and yet infinite variety of God.
So what about questions that we have and what should we do with them? From the scripture we read today in Matthew, we are told to ‘ask and it will be given to you; seek and you shall find; knock and the door will be opened’. We often think of this verse as asking for things, but as we read in 1 Kings, when Solomon was given the advice to ask for what he wanted, he asked for discernment, the ability to know what is true. He didn’t ask for things, but rather for discernment, and because of this, all was opened for him. God wants us to know. God does not want to keep us in the dark. God wants us to ask and seek and knock. The wisdom is there for us to find and this search draws us near to God, because the answers are given through God’s revelation.
“By birth, we are given the ability to discern what is true.” (Divine Love and Wisdom 258)
Kids have an uncanny ability to know when you don’t know what you’re talking about. They are not what we call “wise” yet, but they can see through falsity and they can ask the greatest questions. I find comfort in knowing that this ability to discern what is true is born in us – in all of us. It is like the great equalizer in the rich and the poor, the healthy and the not-so-healthy, the bright and the slow learner, the child born in Pretty Prairie or San Francisco, Paris or Sueto, Peru or Swaziland. It is a gift from God and it can lead us to God through our searching. We read,
“Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
That is blessed assurance. It sounds pretty easy, doesn’t it? Ask, seek, knock. But you and I know that it is not always easy. We are going to have to “eat this bit of scroll” this morning and digest what Jesus was saying as we sort out what this means for our lives.
Six years ago I left a middle management job in corporate America. I did not know where I should go next, what I should do. I just knew that I did not like the person that I was becoming as that job usurped my being. I had hit the proverbial ‘brick wall’ that is God saying, not this way. For six years I have been asking, seeking and knocking. Today I am 3 months away from ordination and I still do not know specifically where I should go next or exactly what I should do. But as I look back I can see where I have received responses to my asking, where I have found direction to my seeking and where doors have been opened to my knocking. I feel I am on the right path. I feel the “Yes” in my heart and soul. God is assuring me that this is the right way for me even though I still am full of questions.
The first instruction in Matthew is to ask – ask God. When we ask our questions of God we humble ourselves and acknowledge that we rely on God, the ultimate Truth. In our Old Testament reading we have the example set by King Solomon. He was the son of David, building the Temple of the Lord, the leader of God’s chosen people. And yet we read in his dream that King Solomon addressed God, “I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties.” And he asked God for a discerning heart so that he could distinguish between right and wrong.
Only love can lead to truth. That is,
“to have perceptiveness in spiritual matters, we need to be absorbed in affection for what is true. Affection for higher knowledge deepens our ability to discern. When this gift is nurtured, we are granted the ability to see profoundly into the intrinsic nature of things.” (Secrets of Heaven 5937.7)
I think of the 42nd Psalm where we read, “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” It is this desire to know, to understand, because of our love for God, who first loved us. It is like the beautiful upward spiral. We seek truth because we love God, because we love God, we seek truth. And this search draws us nearer, nearer, nearer, blessed Lord. First we ask with our heart.
Next we seek with our understanding. This is a natural progression within our growing faith perception. Do you remember what happened right after the Lord granted Solomon the ability to discern truth in our scripture reading for today? In the next verse two women came to Solomon with one dead child and one live child, both claiming to be the mother of the live child. Solomon was called upon to rule which one was the true mother of the live child. Solomon was immediately called upon to trust that God had given him this gift of discernment. He sought the answer from God with faith, believing that he would be given the answer. And he made a very wise decision telling them to cut the child in half, giving half to each woman that claimed to be the mother. He knew the real mother would not allow it. God gave him understanding and faith.
Do you see the difference here with the woman whose husband was dying in the hospital? She thought that she had to have faith/understanding first. She thought that her questions meant that she didn’t have faith. But in these words of Jesus as recorded in Matthew, he says ask (with the heart), seek (with the understanding). Go ahead and question, believing that God will answer, maybe not in the way we expect, but an answer will come.
Our next instruction is to knock and the door will be opened. We cannot open the door; God does that. But we need to knock and put what we have learned to use.
“Our ability to discern what is true rises in tandem with our love of this wisdom and desire to put it into action.”(Divine Love and Wisdome 258)
It is only a head-trip if we just want to feel good about what we know or tell someone else so we seem wise. Without being put to use – being put to life – it dies. There is no energy gained, and a person can actually regress in perception. I am sure we have all seen cases of this, where someone seems to grow less wise. Almost always it can be traced to not putting to use spiritual knowledge that has been attained.
This last instruction is where we work on the quality of our vessel, to be wise and loving stewards of ourselves, because our ability to receive this truth from God depends on what kind of vessel we are. This relates to the quality of our lives, which is shaped by the way we live our lives. We “knock” by creating a healthy spiritual regimen in our lives: including prayer, hanging with a spiritual community, developing a challenging devotional study to stretch the mind, backing away from the brick walls where God is saying “no, not this way” and seeking the open doors where God is saying “yes, go here”.
Recently I was reading a children’s book, “The Friendly Snowflake”, by M. Scott Peck. The child in the book was asking her father about life after death. The father wisely said: That’s a very big question. In fact, it’s so big I’m not going to answer it. You see, some questions are so big you shouldn’t take anyone else’s answer for them… It’s better if you figure out your own. Often I think that’s why we’re put here; to find some solutions for ourselves.”
Amen
