Wisdom, Judgment, and Thomas Aquinas

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Rev. Molly F. James, PhD

Chapel of our Lord, Episcopal Church Center

Feast of St. Thomas Aquinas, January 28, 2020

Psalm 119:97-104 ; Wisdom 7:7-14 ; Matthew 13:47-52

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word, who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

So, perhaps like me you are having trouble reconciling the combination of texts we have for today’s feast of St. Thomas Aquinas. The reading from Wisdom seems quite appropriate. It is one of my favorites, actually. Such a good reminder of what really matters in life. The most important things in life are not things. Learning, gaining wisdom, deepening our relationships with God and each other are what really matters. Then the psalm continues that trend by affirming the value of following God’s law and how growing in the understanding of God’s law helps us to gain wisdom and just to be better people. Understanding the rules God has set out for us does indeed help us to be better followers of Jesus. This all seems to fit quite well for the Feast of Aquinas, one of the most revered scholars in the Christian tradition who helped us to understand how the writings and teachings of Aristotle could further enlighten our own Christian faith. Aquinas certainly has helped us to grow in wisdom. 

But then we get the Gospel reading, which is all about Judgment. It feels a bit out of left field. It is a harsh text - with its talk of fiery furnaces and weeping and gnashing of teeth. Yikes! As I have discussed with you all before, texts like this make me nervous. They do not sit well with me. I do not hold to the image of an angry, vengeful God who seeks to punish us for all eternity for our misdeeds and shortcomings. I believe in a just, merciful God who desires abundant life for each and everyone of us. So, how do we reconcile these texts? How do we reconcile Justice and Mercy with a fiery furnace? 

The key for me in understanding here comes from how I have come to understand hell. As I think I have shared with you all, my favorite definition of “hell” comes from Rowan Williams’s book Tokens of Trust. In it he describes hell as God eternally knocking on a door we are struggling to hold shut. I like this definition for a number of reasons. It does not discount the reality of hell. It also emphasizes God’s mercy and desire for each of us to know the depths of God’s love for us. And it does not shy away from holding us accountable for our actions. The choices we make do indeed matter. 

If we experience “hell,” it is because we are choosing to ignore God’s persistent invitation to us to move deeper into relationship, to understand God and ourselves more fully. Now it may seem a silly thing to say that we “choose to ignore” God. I mean, why would you do that? Who could possibly choose to ignore God? It is GOD after all. But here’s the thing. Invitations from God do not always come on embossed stationery with clear descriptions and a reply card. They do not come in packages that clearly indicate they are from God. And indeed, the evil one, can be very cunning and very tricky. Sometimes we can be fooled into thinking that we are following God’s invitation, but really we are following our own self-interest. We can be fooled into thinking that achieving a goal or completing a task is more important than a relationship. We can be fooled into thinking that the “abundant life” must be the easier way, and so we choose the path of least resistance. But the abundant life can indeed be a challenging path, as is any path that invites us to grow in wisdom and to deepen our relationship with God. 

So, if the evil one is so cunning, how do we know which path to choose? I think we have some good answers in our Scriptures today - we seek the path that is in line with God’s laws, God’s commandments to us. We seek the path that will enable us to learn and grow. As our Presiding Bishop has so succinctly put it, “If it’s not about love, it’s not about God.” So, we see the path that is loving and life giving, even it is the harder path. Even if it requires confronting difficult truths. For, as out text from Wisdom reminds us, “All good things came to me along with her, and in her hands uncounted wealth.” 

I invite you to follow in Aquinas’s footsteps -  to seek out wisdom in unexpected places, and to never stop seeking to deepen your knowledge, your understanding, your connection to God. No doubt the gifts that will come from accepting God’s invitation are many. AMEN. 

Recognizing the Truth

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Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
Chapel of our Lord, Episcopal Church Center
Feast of Gregory of Nazianzus, January 2, 2020

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word, who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

When you are in the ordination process, you are required to write your bishop a letter at least four times a year on what are known as the Ember Days. They were an opportunity to update my bishop on what was going on in my life- spiritually, academically, etc. While I had friends and classmates who only occasionally received replies from their bishops, my bishop was always very good at writing me back and sharing her wisdom with me. I remember in one particular exchange, I wrote her about discovering so many connections between what I was learning in my classes. She replied that is how we know the Holy Spirit is leading us to Truth.

I come back to that idea and phrase often. The idea that Truth is not understood in isolation. We understand Truth as it connects with what we already know, and we understand it best in community. I think this is really important. We cannot be sure of Truth just in our own heads. We need community - we need the questions and insights of others to fully understand what is true. I think this bears out in our own experiences. I think most of us are capable of rationalizing quite a lot of things. We can be good at convincing ourselves what we would like to believe or what we would like to be true. It is only when we share our internal process with someone whose wisdom we trust and respect that we realize that it might be possible that we are fooling ourselves or just that we are missing a key aspect or insight. Think of the ways that our minds are enlightened or new connections are made as we learn from family, dear friends, teachers, colleagues . . . sometimes even our own children!

We gain a fuller understanding of ourselves and of the world around us through relationship and conversation. While some of us are independent and driven, convinced we can learn “on our own” through a discipline of reading and research. Even then we are not really learning alone, we are learning from experts in whatever field we might be studying. It is through that engagement with others, whether they be long dead theologians or thinkers or dear companions with whom we have the privilege of in person conversations, we learn the Truth more fully because we learn from each other and together.

These days, when you can find information on the internet to agree with almost any idea or point of view, it can feel hard to know what the Truth is. Certainly it can not be said that something is true because we read it somewhere. We need to be more discerning and engaged than that. Here are some discernment criteria or questions that I find helpful. I hope they are helpful to you as well.

Does this new piece of information fit with what I know already? Does it add to, enhance, deepen my knowledge?

Does this information fit with my understanding of who God is? Does it fit with who Jesus is and what it means to walk in the Way of Love, as we have understood from our Scriptures?

Does this information build up God’s kingdom? Does it enable me and those around me to have the abundant life to which Jesus calls each and everyone of us?

The Truth that Jesus was talking about, the Truth that will set us free is not simply just new information that is based in reality. It is far richer and more nuanced than that. The Truth is that which enriches and deepens our lives and our understanding. Now, of course, you may be wondering what this all means for the reality of evil in the world. Certainly there are terrible things (violence, hatred, etc) that are all too real. People die. People are irrevocably harmed by these facts. Evil is real. There is no disputing that. But the reality of evil in the world is not the Truth. It does not set us free. It does not build up God’s kingdom or our own lives. In fact, I think one of the most helpful definitions of evil (thanks to St. Augustine) is that it is the privation (or complete absence) of good.

Evil is a force in the world that can do real damage, but it can never win out. That is the fundamental Truth we hear over and over again from our Scriptures, from our own learning and from our own experiences and relationships. The Truth is that God’s Love is more powerful than anything on earth, than anything we can do to each other. God’s love, God’s Truth always, always has the last word. And indeed, trusting in God will set us free. AMEN.