VERY LITTLE AT THAT
1. One of our nation's presidents used an expression unfamiliar to most Americans. Someone harshly criticized him—as seems to be the preferred form of public recreation in our country—and he responded to his accuser, He doesn’t know me any better than Adam's off ox. [2]
2. This figure of speech refers to a person who talks about another as if he really knows him or has first-hand knowledge when in fact he does not. It is a sadness that a great many Christians do not know God any better than Adam's off ox. They claim to know God, but lacking knowledge and a meaningful relationship with him, they actually know very little at that—perhaps just enough to criticize him harshly.
HOLY WAY OF LIFE
3. Certainly all Christians should endeavor to grow in the knowledge (theology) of God[3] and the moral life. The very best way, actually the only good way, for human beings to do this is by seeking and accepting a relationship with God who said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”. [Gen 1:26] By saying “grow in the knowledge of God”, we extend the circle of faith beyond mere talk about God to mean walking with Jesus in a holy way of life.
4. Of course, one should have knowledge of Jesus Christ, his Church and the call to personal holiness. Knowing about a person, however, will not substitute for a vigorous, dynamic relationship with that person. This is true as well for the human-divine relationship. God who gifted human beings with personhood possesses the fullness of personhood in his divine nature.
A POSTCARD
5. Knowledge implies responsibility. The one who possesses knowledge may not appropriate to himself unqualified power over it, nor is he empowered without restraint to control the subject of his knowledge. The divine majesty of God is unfathomable to all but the most humble person who kneels, and with bowed head, whispers You are God, I am not. You know everything, I know nothing. During a scholarly discussion between Rabbi Pinchas Lapide and Father Karl Rahner SJ, both theologians, Rabbi Lapide observed:
OF THIS inscrutability you once said with supreme irony: “What then does one know so precisely about the ‘loving God’?” In fact, what we both know about God would fit without difficulty on a postcard. [4]
To be sure, words on the back of a postcard never ransomed anyone. Nor has the Torah or the Bible.
“ENTRUSTING THEMSELVES”
6. A human being, in the greatest need, turns to another human being to ransom him from trouble or danger. Humanity itself, instinctively aware of its fall from grace, looks to the heavens for rescue but not just anything in the heavens. The whole of humanity seeks a person to ransom it from enthrallment to sin and to rescue it from death—a person to whom, in the words of Pope John Paul II, “they might entrust themselves”. [John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, no. 33 (1998)]
7. That person is Jesus Christ who as Son of God and Messiah gave his own life as a ransom. He freed us from enslavement to our own sin and the sin of the generations before us. Liberated from the power of death, we are in God’s debt. We are debtors who, in making a just return to God, the Giver of all that is good, rejoice in the truth that what we owe can never be repaid.
PROBLEMATIC EGO
8. It seems reasonable, then, that we should endeavor to know personally and intimately the God who accomplishes this marvelous work in us. Unthinkable then is the notion that as debtors to God’s mercy and forgiveness, we should stolidly refuse to repay him. Or even try. If we consider ourselves worthy of being rescued from all that is inferior, then the God who ransoms us is unquestionably worthy of our human delight and impassioned love.
9. If a person says there is no God, to whom of unquestionable worth does he approach in celebration of his humanity or to offer thanksgiving or express profound need? To himself? He cannot say I celebrate myself or I thank myself or I need myself without reference to his own problematic ego. To a person (inclusive of all persons) like himself captive to sin and subjugated to death?
“WE ENCOUNTER IT”
10. Refuting all arguments proselytizing human self-salvation is the theological virtue of hope. Hope impels a person to “search for the truth”. [Fides et Ratio 33] St. Paul shared his discovery of the truth with the Corinthian Church: “But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification.” [1Cor 2:7]
11. The philosopher Joseph Pieper, writing about hope’s foundation, remarked:
AFTER ALL, we ourselves do not invent or think up that which truly exists, including our own nature. Instead, we encounter it, as well as our knowledge of it, as something preexistent, as a prior datum. [JOSEF PIEPER, AN ANTHOLOGY. “Future without a Past and Hope with No Foundation?” San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989. p. 212. Print.]
Hope is in some sense intuitive prompting the person to seek the foundation essential for securing his own well-being in life. Moreover, hope empowers man’s longing to escape the power of death by impelling him to search for truth and its origin.
NOT JUST ANYTHING
12. The good is not accidental or haphazard. Neither is hope properly understood. Many people confuse hope with mere desire for what one wants. But hope is not practical, and as virtue, it not given to us merely to desire something in the material order. Hope is supernatural, given to the mind and heart of human beings as a flame by which the well-being of their spiritual nature may be illumined, indeed the prospect of survival into eternity.
13. If hope is not inclusive of the supernatural, it is nothing. Therefore we look to the heavens for rescue, but not just anything in the heavens. Divine truth is the food of hope, the realization of hope’s journey. The truth is ultimately and absolutely a person, the God-man Jesus Christ, the one who will not betray our trust. Pope John Paul II called this search a “journey of discovery which is humanly unstoppable”. [Fides et Ratio 33]
WHO IS MORE WORTHY?
14. Who is more worthy than our Lord Jesus Christ who is like us in all things but sin, God our heavenly father who sent his only-begotten son to us, and the Holy Spirit “the Lord, the giver of life” [5] proceeding from the Father and the Son? Has not our Lord Jesus Christ, by the gracious and extravagant gift of his own life, purchased our rescue, our ransom, our redemption at a great price? [cf. 1Cor 6:20]
15. What people are more worthy of the name Christian than those faithful disciples whom Jesus Christ calls his friends [cf. Jn 15:15], those whom God has adopted as his own children? [cf. Eph 1:5] Jesus praises God for the child-like trust of his followers: "Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes; yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will." [Lk 10:21]
DE FACTO OR AVOWED
16. Jesus is referring here to worthy persons of all ages and walks of life who embrace him openly, lovingly and without regret: "Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it." [Lk 18:17] The learned and clever are those who are suspicious, incredulous, double-minded and whiny. Persisting in stubbornness, they fall into de facto agnosticism or avowed atheism through spiritual indolence, "..those uncaring ones who yawn in God’s face because the God-question no longer holds any meaning for them".[6]
17. The learned and the clever chase the world’s goods and propagandize its illiberal activities:
THEY TRUST in what they see, because the things that are seen are beautiful. Yet again, not even they are to be excused; for if they had the power to know so much that they could investigate the world, how did they fail to find sooner the Lord of these things? [WisSol 13:7-9]
One cannot find the Lord of these things if he looks everywhere but the cross. What does a person discover when he beholds Christ crucified? He beholds his king suffering for him! He beholds his king dying for him! The Lord frees his soul from its crushing burden of sin. He is rescued from finality of death. In Christ, he is victorious against the principalities and powers of this present darkness. [cf. Eph 6:12]
LEAD OX
18. Yet many lost souls will not offer their hearts as a vessel to be filled with Christ’s love. Jesus’ selfless sacrifice on the cross will not be victorious in every human life. Many hear his voice, but do not accept his Word choosing instead, paradoxically, to freely choose enslavement to sin and the devil .[7]
19. A yoke, a piece of shaped wood placed across the necks of paired draft animals, enables beasts of burden to pull a cart, plow, chariot, or heavy load together. When two oxen are harnessed under one yoke, a driver walks alongside the animal trained as lead ox. The lead ox understands the drivers instructions. The off ox, as one might surmise, is the passive beast, the ox with the least experience.
HARNESSED TO THE WORLD
20. The off-ox is farthest from the driver and follows the lead of the first. A driver may be familiar with the off ox, but he knows well the lead ox. Analogously, we know about Adam our great ancestor of untold generations ago, memorialized in the book of Genesis only in the most fragmentary way. And, to be sure, we know absolutely nothing about the oxen he drove, if indeed, he owned oxen.
21. This suggests why the expression—he doesn’t know me any better than Adam's off ox—refers to someone speaking in profound ignorance. The man who denies God undertakes the long and arduous human journey with perishable provisions and a flaccid spirit. Harnessed to the demands and cares of the world, he is the off ox weighed down by his ignorance of the things that matter.
MEREST CHILDREN
22. The merest children, however, seek the Lord with all their being and accordingly they find him. [cf. Deu 4:29] They choose to keep God’s commandments and strive to follow his gracious will. Through discipleship and sacrifice, they learn to trust God in everything. They do not doubt that the Lord presides over every moment of their lives--"Thou dost beset me behind and before, and layest thy hand upon me" [Psa 139:5]--and that he knows them well.
23. Discipleship begins when one encounters Jesus Christ crucified and accepts him as the intimate Lord and Saviour of his life. God’s children are often ridiculed and reviled, but the cost of discipleship is obligingly paid from faith's treasury. Whatever may be said about devout Christians, they are not Adam's off ox in their relationship with God.
MYSTERY OF LOVE
24. When a disciple incarnates God’s commandments—applying the mind of Christ [cf. 1Cor 2:16] to prayer, praise, worship, acts of charity, his whole life—wisdom’s mission is fulfilled. True wisdom is God’s gift of spiritual sight, a light which rises like the dawn [cf. Isa 58:8] enabling a man to see the critical path of his pilgrimage to God.
25. We gain spiritual sight submitting patiently to the Holy Spirit’s instruction and being delighted by God's convincing love. God entrusts to the Church his mystery of salvation so that "your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God". [1Cor 2:5] Perfect love originates in Christ whose heart was pierced for all humanity, yet sadly its mission remains incomplete in the present age.
HARROWING OUR SORROWS
26. To know the Lord, one must draw near to the mystery of love, not for the sake of erudition or pedantry, but for the sake of adopting the mind of Christ. [cf. 1Cor 2:16] The mysterious hidden wisdom of God is incompatible with the world’s self-enlightenment. It will always remain an absurdity to the world’s mercenary, unscrupulous leaders. Love alone, even the love of the Good Shepherd, is not enough to sanctify the world. Love cannot carry the burden of sin. Nonetheless, Christ continues to suffer for every man who does not know him. He grieves for the loss of every soul that rejects him.
27. The children of God delight in bearing the yoke of their gentle Saviour. They remember how Our Lord yoked himself to the patibulum of the cross and, in lowliness of heart, harrowed our sorrows. He has won a hearing before God his Father for all who believe in him. Believers are confident that God recognizes them and knows their heart, for God revealed his filiation to man and himself as the most holy Trinity by saying, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”. [Gen 1:26]
GOD PERFECTS WITH LOVE
28. They surpass the learned and the clever in piety. They grow in the knowledge of God while also knowing God intimately. They petition God to take from them the useless burdens that man has no right to carry. The faithful follower of Christ is not naive, passive or inexperienced, nor is he ashamed of Golgotha. He relates lovingly to God through the person of the Holy Spirit dwelling within him. He leads others to Christ.
29. Hence divine love finds its strength in the law which it perfects: "For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished." [Mt 5:18] In turn, the yoke of Christ’s love guides the law to its fulfillment:
COME TO me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. [Mt 11:28-30]
It is a "secret and hidden wisdom" [1Cor 2:7] that Jesus Christ chose suffering to bring about the end of suffering and accepted death to vanquish death.
SPIRITUALLY MATURE
30. But love is perfected in temperance—a willed giving-up of a dear possession, the liberation of one to whom much love is entrusted—that the gift-giver may be freed from the morbidity of selfishness and narcissism. Love is the sacrificial offering that asks no purchase price. It seeks no market. Like hope and all that is virtuous in Christ, it’s vocabulary does not include “no”, “who cares?”, “the end” or “death”. What the law discloses in our hearts, God perfects with love. This is the divine wisdom we share with the spiritually mature.
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[1] Cycle A /Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time /Sir 15:15-20 /1Cor 2:6-10 /Mt 5:17-37.
[2] From a television news clip.
[3] Cf Rom 11:33; Col 1:1.
[4] Cf Karl Rahner SJ and Pinchas Lapide, ENCOUNTERING JESUS-ENCOUNTERING JUDAISM (New York: Crossroad, 1987) 38.
[5] SACRAMENTARY, "Profession of Faith" (1985).
[6] ENCOUNTERING JESUS-ENCOUNTERING JUDAISM, 75.
[7] "You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me; yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from men. But I know that you have not the love of God within you. I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive. How can you believe, who receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?" [Jn 5:39-44]
