Musings Along Lifes Way: The Best Things Cannot be Talked About

“You travel over sea and land to make a single convert, and once you have him (of her), you make him (or her) twice as fit for hell as you are.” Matthew 23:15 (as translated and paraphrased by Richard Rohr, in “Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality”)

Ouch! Is this Jesus speaking? You betcha. He is speaking this to the folks of his time who were “in the know.” They were the spiritual leaders, the ones who sought to teach others about God and God’s ways. Statements like the one above show us how radical Jesus was as he faced the religious authorities of his time. In Jesus’ time, as in ours, there are those who seek to explain the ways of God, who have definitive answers concerning the end times, morality, the spiritual observances of the faithful. These were the people who Jesus was addressing. Jesus spoke in the prophetic tradition that spoke not only of the known but also the unknown aspects of the Divine. At the heart of Jesus’ Jewish upbringing is the notion that God, in God’s totality, simply cannot be known. This is reflected in prophets like Isaiah when he says,

"For My thoughts are not (your thoughts,

Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD.

"For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways

And My thoughts than your thoughts."

Richard Rohr quotes Heinrich Zimmer who says, “the best things cannot be talked about,” and the “second best things are almost always misunderstood.” Think about that which is very best in life: qualities such as love and joy. Such qualities elude words as does a definitive explanation of God’s essence and Way. No language is adequate, all words fail. So, you see the best things cannot be talked about. And, “the second best things are almost always misunderstood.” The second best things are those things which point to the best things, the second best things are the signs and metaphors that participate in what Teilhard de Chardin called the Divine Milieu. These second best things have the quality of poetry, not explaining but pointing to and participating in the reality of the Divine in life. The second best things are misunderstood when they are concretized and lowered to the function of explaining things that cannot be explained. In our modern times, for example, some “fundamentalists” take the poetry of the Bible and solidify it to the point that many are waiting for, “the holy city, new Jerusalem” to come down from God out of heaven. (Rev. 21)” Unable to grasp the unknowing quality of faith such folks lead others to a faith that becomes one of believing certain beliefs rather than trusting in the One who is beyond any capacity that we might have to comprehend, yet is trustworthy beyond any of our expectations. Enter the parable.

Jesus chose not to explain God and God’s ways in his teachings. Instead, he chose speak of God through use of the “second best things” properly understood. These he called parables. Parables are well-used metaphors that open the hearer to an experience of grace, divine love, rather than to a cognitive understanding. Parables allow the mystery to remain inviting the hearer to participate in the mystery as she hears the parable. Parables are an invitation into the divine thoughts that are not our thoughts, the ways that are not ours. Parables are understood then not in our minds, to say cognitively. Rather they are embodied. With our lives as parable, we participate in the grace that God gives – a love and a grace that is beyond all our understanding.

Over the summer, we will continue to focus on parable in Bible Study and Meditation on Wednesdays and in Adult Study and Worship on Sundays. Parables dare us to embrace that which cannot be known. Blessings, David