If I am not mistaken, it was Abraham Herschel who said something like, “The Bible is not so much a theology for man as it is an anthropology for God.”Well, of course, it is both.The Bible is a theology (gives us a knowledge of God) and an anthropology (gives us knowledge about the human person).
I have already said a number of times that faith is a way of knowing or a way of seeing reality.It is an ability to see the truth about God (theology) and it is a way of seeing the truth about created reality (anthropology plus).
The gospel today (Lk 18:9-14) offers us a parable in which Jesus addresses this ‘anthropological seeing’.Most succinctly, the parable simply calls us to see ourselves rightly (righteousness) before God.
Think for a moment of all the time we spend in a day ‘putting on a face.’From all the activities in the morning to ‘make ourselves presentable’, the cloths we choose to wear, the smile (authentic or not) we wear for those we encounter, how we present ourselves to neighbors and, especially, on the job, etc.Now, of course, this is all a normal part of human interaction.
Still, and I think this is something Jesus would want us dead clear about, we simply must be aware of who we truly are when we stand before God.Even more, we need to be clear that there is simply no hiding the truth of who we are before God.God knows us!He knows the inclinations of our hearts.And, now this is good news, he can deal with it.He can and does ‘deal with it’ because he loves us and has it within himself to transform all the darkness into light.
And yet, what he will not deal with, is false-heartedness.He will not deal with all the little games we play—self-righteousness—to mask who we are before him.God demands, in other words, authenticity before him.
Ah, but here lies a real problem.How do we know we are being authentic before God?In the first reading today (Hosea 6:1-6), it even appears that God is confused by who we are.“What can I do with you, Ephraim?What can I do with you, Judah?” (v 4).
Indeed, perhaps Abraham Herschel was really on to something, maybe God does need a book to tell him about human beings.
Well, of course, God does not.Yet, the frustration placed in the month of God serves to remind us just how tangled the human heart can be.
Maybe this is a good reminder of the traditional place given by Christians to the daily Examination of Conscience.I had a friend, who has since died, who every night, just after she put the light out, would pray:“Father, is there anything today that I have done that has offended you?Is there anything I have done or failed to do that has set me against you or any of my neighbors?”Then, she shared with me, she would lay in the silence and listen to the movement of her conscience.Most often, for she was a truly faithful person, there was silence.Occasionally, she would be sat up in her bed, shown an act or failure from the day that was truly harmful to herself, her loved ones, her relationship with God.And then, she would repent of it.
A key here is that my friend trusted God to know her heart, indeed he needs no anthropology, and could show her.She trusted, too, that what she discovered could be dealt with in the mercy and transforming love of God the Father.Indeed, she had no need to hide from God, she could stand before him in authenticity.