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Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
From the Center for Action and Contemplation
Week Forty-two
Ways of Knowing
To Know God
Wednesday, October 16, 2019
Today, we continue with Robert McAfee Brown, who uses an excerpt from the Book of Jeremiah to describe knowing God:
What does it mean to “know God”? Who are the ones who know God?
The questions seem simple and answers come immediately to mind. Those who know God are the ones who have had some experience of God about which they are able to tell us—sometimes a little too easily and glibly to be fully convincing, but sometimes in halting and fumbling ways that are themselves authentic pointers to the magnitude and awesomeness of the encounter they are trying to describe. Such people will tell us that they have found God in the face of another person, or in a sunset, or in a compulsion to obey a moral demand, or in a sense of the immensity of space and their own smallness, or by reading the Bible, or through meditating on the life of Jesus. The ones we call the “saints” are often those from whom we get our clearest picture of what it must be like to know God; their lives of prayer and meditation and good works have a transparent goodness that makes their appeal to the name and will of God convincing and compelling.
In contrast to such people, we know other people who make no such claims whatever. . . . For some of them, God is simply not an issue, and they live good, decent lives apparently unruffled by concern about God’s reality or nonreality. . . . For still others, God is something or someone they have consciously discarded. . . . They may live exemplary lives, exhibit concern for the neighbor, even make sacrifices for the cause of the poor and the destitute. But they no longer claim to “know God.”
The above description is fairly commonplace . . . but we will be doing serious violation to the Bible’s understanding of what it means to “know God” if we leave it at that. There is a short—and startling—episode in the book of Jeremiah [22:13-17] that poses the question of “knowing God” in quite another way.
Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness,
and his upper rooms by injustice;
who makes his neighbor serve him for nothing,
and does not give him his wages;
who says, “I will build myself a great house
with spacious upper rooms,”
and cuts out windows for it,
paneling it with cedar,
and painting it with vermilion.
Do you think you are a king
because you compete in cedar?
Did not your father eat and drink
and do justice and righteousness?
Then it was well with him.
He judged the cause of the poor and needy;
then it was well.
Is not this to know me?
says the Lord.
But you have eyes and heart
only for your dishonest gain,
for shedding innocent blood,
and for practicing oppression and violence.
I, Richard, would ask, if a “believer” does not practice some level of nonviolent justice and compassionate action, do they really know God?
Gateway to Presence:
If you want to go deeper with today’s meditation, take note of what word or phrase stands out to you. Come back to that word or phrase throughout the day, being present to its impact and invitation.
Robert McAfee Brown, Unexpected News: Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes (The Westminster Press: 1984), 63-65.
Image credit: Tableau No. 2/Composition No. VII (detail), Piet Mondrian, 1913, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York.
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News from the CAC
New Faculty
We are delighted to announce the addition of two faculty members to the Center for Action and Contemplation: Barbara Holmes and Brian McLaren. Many of our Living School students and Daily Meditation readers are already familiar with their powerful teaching.
Author of Joy Unspeakable, Dr. Holmes is committed to the struggle for justice, healing the human spirit, and the art of relevant and radical creativity. As Richard says, “There are people who talk about God, and there are people who know God. Barbara is the latter.”
A former pastor and English teacher, McLaren seeks to nurture "a new kind of Christianity" that is just and generous and collaborates with people of all faiths for the common good. Brian engages in contemplative activism focused on caring for the planet, seeking justice for the poor, and working for peace.
We look forward to hearing from Barbara, Brian, and the rest of our faculty—Richard Rohr, Cynthia Bourgeault, and James Finley—at the final CONSPIRE conference in May 2020. Sign-up to receive more detailed event information when it’s available.
Old and New: An Evolving Faith
2019 Daily Meditations Theme
As you witness so much division, fear, and suffering in our world, you may wonder what path—if any—there is toward healing and hope. Perhaps your church or faith has been important to you, but now you may be questioning if it is still a trustworthy or relevant guide. Does Christianity have anything of value left to offer?
Franciscan Richard Rohr suggests that there are good, beautiful, and true gems worth holding on to. At the same time, there are many unhelpful and even harmful parts of what has passed for Christianity that we need to move beyond. In his Daily Meditations, Father Richard helps us mine the depths of this tradition, discerning what to keep and what to transcend.
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Inspiration for this week's banner image: Perhaps it was the strangeness of the setting, perhaps it was the power of the moment, but, as I stood there, those stones began to speak. It was a clacking sound, a clattering sound, like the fluttering of wings, the descent of birds, the pounding of a hundred thousand hooves across the frozen tundra. —Kent Nerburn
