In my first post, I described how I would talk about
discipleship in terms of a collection of virtues. The traditional (and not-so-traditional)
practices of discipleship encourage and grow those virtues, helping us grow as
people of faith. When I was considering
where to begin, I thought about awe/wisdom/wonder as a starting point.
The author of Proverbs writes, “The
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
Many people bristle at the first noun, “fear.” One of the most common questions I receive
about Luther’s Small Catechism is his use of that word in talking about
the 10 commandments. His definitions all
begin with, “We are to fear and love
God…” Why should we have to fear God?
This question comes from the
church’s more recent emphasis on the love of God in Christ. We are always talking about love; God’s love;
God loves you; for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. I frequently talk about the love of God from
the pulpit because I believe that this love is a constant, a constant first
made known to us in baptism; the constant that makes the life of discipleship
possible. Because we are sustained by
the love of God in Christ, we are set free to live as disciples, to risk, to
try, to fail and try again.
So why talk about fear? The confusing thing about a focus on love is
that it tends to put God on equal terms with us. We act familiar with God as a constant friend
and companion. This is a valid way to
talk about God, but it limits our understanding of who God is as well as the
amazing nature of that love. When I hear
the word, “fear” in a theological sense, I tend to think about it in terms of
reverence or awe. I have sat at many
campfires, amazed at the beauty of light in the darkness, warmth on a cool
autumn evening, transfixed by the flit and flicker. Yet as welcoming as that fire may seem, I
also know how important it is to treat it with respect, how easy it is for fire
to burn out of control, how dangerous it is to get too close.
The ancient Hebrews had the
understanding that “you cannot look upon the face of God and live.” You would be consumed by the glory of God. It wasn’t that God was waiting to strike
people down, but that God was simply too awesome for simple humanity to handle. This glory was the reason that ritual became
such an essential part of worship. Any
chemist in a lab can tell you that it is best to handle dangerous materials by
having protocols in place, rules that walk the fine line between risk and
safety. Rituals are the repeated actions
that allow for safe approach toward the glory of God. It’s not that I think that the church will
literally be struck by lightning if we sing the Hymn of Praise before the
Kyrie. Rather, I believe that our rituals
of worship continue the tradition of approaching God with a sense of respect
and awe. I also believe that we can change our rituals
so long as we preserve the sense of awe out of which they grew.
A healthy sense of awe makes the
love of God an amazing proposition. The
God who formed the universe, the God who embraces infinity and yet knows the
spin of every quark, the God of hurricane and subtle breeze is deeply in love
of with you. The God who is boundless
chooses to be bounded in relationship to you.
The God who is formless chooses to be formed in the person of Jesus so
that you can be drawn into a deeper relationship with God, so that you might
see an example of what it means to love, the depth of that love, and the truth
in that love.
The
next couple of posts will look more deeply at developing a sense of awe, wonder
and respect for God. A fundamental place to develop the virtue of awe and wonder
is in the universe that God has made. We
look at the scriptural stories of miracles as moments of wonder, and yet we are
constantly surrounded by a creation that is wonderful. As the theologian Richard Rohr puts it, “The first Bible is the Bible of nature. It was written at least 13.8
billion years ago, at the moment that we call the Big Bang, long before the
Bible of words.” You are not wrong to
feel close to God in a sunset. You are
not wrong to feel close to God in walk in the woods. Pay attention to all the wonder that happens
around you and know that God is at work.
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