If one follows the idea of natural religion, then one knows
God in nature, can discern God in things about you. This morning as I settled
into prayer a cardinal, our NC state bird, settled on the third floor deck railing at
the beach house. I was struck with wonder. There are no trees this high. Why
was the bird there? His color was so bright, his turning head so
multi-focused. From what he held in his beak, he was nest building. I wondered
at his creation, so much beauty in so small a creature. Gratitude rose in my
heart for his existence and his Creator. That is natural religion at work.
From a small creature, God is deduced.
As we move farther from nature, hold nature in less respect we
may drift from an awareness of God in things about us. Natural religion becomes
less natural. The numbing effects of the urban and material world may play more
easily in our mind and actions. When I read Daniel today and yesterday I had to
wonder. Did Belshazzar, the king, live so that he failed to deduce God, the
Most High God? When he chose to use the sacred vessels of Israel's Temple for
profane use, was it lack of knowledge of their original function, to give God
glory? Or did he in his station and power just desire them? His father clearly
kept them safely out of use. Why? Was it respect even for the sacred we do not
fully know or understand?
It is from this place of no nurtured awareness that judgement
comes, the writing on the wall. The supreme power of this discernable God is
revealed in the judgement of this pagan ruler.
MENE, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and
brought it to an end; TEKEL, you have been weighed on the scales and found
wanting; PERES, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and
Persians. Daniel 5:26-28
In Luke's Gospel, Peter has not yet come to a full recognition
of all that is in Jesus. Perhaps that was true for all before the experience of
the Resurrection. Jesus has just borrowed Peter's fishing boat as a
preaching/teaching station, making use of a natural amphitheater. Peter is
captured with the audience. In payment, Jesus invites Peter and the others to put
back out into the sea for a catch, the one that eluded them all night. When the
catch, coming at the wrong time of the day, is so abundant that it is swamping the
boat Peter recognizes that he is in more than the presence of a great teacher.
"Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" For he
and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken;
and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.
Then Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching
people." When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and
followed him. Luke 5:8-11
What is it that judges Peter? Is it his skepticism of God, of a generous creation and creator? Nature does not usually produce a harvest this way. Is he judged by some greed that he houses? Is it simply that he sees his own smallness of heart next to so generous a moment?
What is it that judges Peter? Is it his skepticism of God, of a generous creation and creator? Nature does not usually produce a harvest this way. Is he judged by some greed that he houses? Is it simply that he sees his own smallness of heart next to so generous a moment?
Notice his healing.
"'Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.' ... They left
everything and followed him." Nature has been useful here but the
encounter is with a power beyond nature. It is perhaps caught between the
generous fishing moment and Jesus words spoken to the crowd from Peter's boat.
Some great conviction of the heart, some deep hope about life, has taken hold for
now. The rest of his conversion comes later.
God can be deduced from nature if we are so open. But God's
full measure requires more than nature. That is the gift of the revelation of
God in Jesus Christ. That is why we both desire and need to continually read
the teachings of Jesus and the writings of the Church, meditations of this
revelation.
The author of First John writes his epistle to help the
budding church know Jesus' impact on their lives. The concern is more than
natural religion. Like Judaism before, there are moral implications to knowing
God and being in relationship to God and to one another. Our actions show our
practice. He reminds his readers that there are "mortal sins" for which there
is limited forgiveness. A serious, grave or mortal sin is the knowing and
willful violation of God's law in a serious matter, for example idolatry,
adultery, murder, slander. These are all things gravely contrary to the love we
owe God and, because of Him, our neighbor. Like Belshazzar we do not want to be
weighed in the scales and found wanting in the gravest moments of life.
There are also lesser sins, what we call venial sins. Where
slander (gossip aimed at destruction of someone's reputation) is mortal and
deeply serious, gossip which is accidental, unintentional is venial, less
serious, though requiring forgiveness and absolution. Faithful people practice
awareness so that we may not simply drift into a destructive life. Deliberate
acts of generosity, kindness, forgiveness of others are a sort of antidote in
the grace filled life.
Here is the writing on the wall that First John offers people
of faith.
We know that we are God's children, ... And we know that
the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him
who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the
true God and eternal life (for us). John 5:19-20
Daily we make our choices. Will we hold with natural
religion? Will we journey deeper? How will we practice our lives with the
writing on the wall that we find most true?
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