Lectionary: 75When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said,
"Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man."
For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him
and all those with him,
T he Old and New Testaments insist, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." That fear can be understood as reverence, awe, respect, piety, awareness of God, attention to God, and so forth. Everyone’s experience is different and unique, and very personal. I can still genuflect whenever I enter a Catholic Church, and I do. I would be afraid not to! Is that fear or respect? It doesn’t matter; I love the Lord and I fear displeasing him.
Periodically, something happens which reminds us of God's mystery and wonder; and we are awestruck:
- Isaiah was among several priests, all of them singing psalms and swinging smoky censers, but he alone -- and only for a moment -- saw the Wonder of God's majesty. In that moment he was struck with terror and thought he must surely die.
- Saint Paul was going about his business of purifying the Jewish religion when he suddenly "saw" -- although he saw nothing -- that Jesus Christ is Lord.
- Saint Peter was overwhelmed with his unworthiness when he realized who he had taken on board his fishing boat. When the Centurion saw Jesus die, he said, “Truly, this was the Son of God.”
The philosopher Rudolph Otto called the experience “Mysterium tremendum et fascinans,” a tremendous mystery, fascinating and terrifying. He described it as a “feeling that may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship.”
John Wesley, who founded Methodism, reported, “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
It seems that everyone has such moments, but we often misinterpret them. We might think we're going crazy, or if we talk about it people will think we’re crazy. We think no one would understand, and we should forget it; or we’re just too busy to pay attention to God even when he comes to visit.
But with moments like these, the Lord sometimes speaks directly to our hearts, teaching us that reverence, awe, respect, or piety; and we should pay attention. The Bible insists, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Our fearful awareness of God’s goodness, sovereign majesty, and purity must be the beginning, the first principle, the foundation of all our knowledge, every decision, and our whole life as responsible human beings.
We cannot build our lives on Descartes’ Cogito ergo sum – “I think, therefore I am.” Nor can we begin with I think, I feel, I want, or I need. Wisdom does not begin with me. Nor does wisdom begin with everybody knows, or everybody thinks, or everybody feels. Wisdom is not a majority opinion or common sense. The majority of people would not know the truth if it bit them on the leg, nor do they want to; and the Church doesn’t say what everybody thinks before we speak the truth.
Nor does our wisdom begin with the catechism, morality, or theology. It begins with the discovery – the revelation! – of our contingency: that we are not necessary, but God is! “I was not at one time; and I might not be at a later time;” but God was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.
We do not have to exist; the universe does not have to exist. As Stephen Hawking said, “We might explain how the universe came to be, but we cannot explain why.” That knowledge belongs to God.
Wisdom begins with,
“Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with your whole heart, and with your whole being, and with your whole strength.”
The world does not understand this, and does not want to. They think their wisdom begins with facts and theories, with science and opinions. They think like Scrooge, that those moments when they feel God’s mysterious presence might be “a slight disorder in the stomach;” or “an undigested piece of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, or a fragment of an underdone potato.”
They see no reason for Fear of the Lord. They ask, "Why should we wait for something that might never happen, for something that might not be?"
And because they refuse to fear the Lord they create nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction. They waste the earth’s bountiful resources on cheap entertainment, powerful machines, growth and progress that produces nothing but more garbage, more waste, more violence, and more suffering. They promote abortion and suicide, and rank people with artificial categories like black and white, gay and straight, cis and trans, citizens and aliens.
They’re building a Tower of Babel called Artificial Intelligence,a synchronicity that is supposed to know itself. But no one knows what self-consciousness is, so how can they create a self-conscious machine? They’re not even sure that they think, feel, or exist; their existence is an opinion based on cogito ergo sum.
We know the Fear of the Lord and we practice that fear with our Eucharist and sacraments, our liturgies and devotions, our daily and weekly prayers, our feast days and pilgrimages, our attention to human dignity and our moral standards. We know and believe and act as if God attends us, as if God holds us in the palm of his hand and never for a moment takes his eyes off us.
We practice gratitude for all things great and small; even when we may not feel grateful for misfortunes, disappointment, sorrow, and suffering. "God is here!" we say in darkness and silence, with hope, courage, and wonder.
And so we leave the secular world outside as we gather to pray in this Church,
to worship and praise and give thanks to God our Creator,
to God our Savior,
and to God our Sanctifying, Healing, Holy Spirit.