Daily Lesson for August 15, 2018

Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Judges chapter 13 verses 15 through 18:

15 Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, ‘Allow us to detain you, and prepare a kid for you.’ 16The angel of the Lord said to Manoah, ‘If you detain me, I will not eat your food; but if you want to prepare a burnt-offering, then offer it to the Lord.’ (For Manoah did not know that he was the angel of the Lord.) 17Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, ‘What is your name, so that we may honour you when your words come true?’ 18But the angel of the Lord said to him, ‘Why do you ask my name? It is too wonderful.’

To know something’s or someone’s name is an attempt to gain some kind of control over it.  When Jesus met the man with the demons on the shore of Gerasa Jesus asked, “What is your name.”  And when Adam set out to tame the world, the first thing he did was name all its inhabitants.

But there are some things too wonderful to be named. There are some encounters too mysterious and awe-filled to reduce to words. This is the numinous, the ineffable, the indescribable.

In theology there are two terms which may help us here. One is “cataphatic”.  This is the theological undertaking of seeking to say what God is. God is love. But the other theological concept is “apophatic”. Apophatic theology is the branch of theological thinking which speaks of God only in forms of negation — what God is NOT like. 

In modern times the cataphatic has overtaken the apophatic. We have reduced God and the things of God to something or someone who works for us. The message of God becomes one of self-help, or better business principle, or marriage tip.  The modern world — built on our scientific need to objectively prove everything — demanded that the Church prove its need for existence by making its message functional and utilitarian. The Protestant in America readily consented. 

But there is void in this we all know. They are some things about God which cannot be reduced to power point principles (all alliterating).  There are some things still mysterious. Still unknown. Still beyond all human domination. There are indeed some things too wonderful for us — things which even in these days refuse to be used, but avail themselves simply to be enjoyed, wondered at, and amazed by.