Our age is marked by what has been called the ‘eclipse of God.’The possibility for most modern persons to ‘touch’ God in the fabric of daily life seems remote.God just seems so far removed from the technological sophistication, mass production grind and fast-paced flow of it all.Perhaps it has something to do with the incredible atrocities that marked our globe in the 20th century.Presently, the incredible scandals in the life of the Church that have come to light in these past two years adds enormously to it.Can anyone be trusted?Is anything as it seems?Is all this religion, spiritual stuff just a false façade?Ultimately, even, can God be trusted?Is God for real?
The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, no doubt having faced the incredible questions of faith raised by the apparent ‘absence of God’ in the midst of the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, is the one who originated that phrase about the ‘eclipse of God.’
“An eclipse of the sun is something that occurs between the sun and our eyes, not in the sun itself.When, as in this instance, something is taking place between heaven and earth, one misses everything when one insists on discovering within earthly thought the power that unveils the mystery.He who refuses to submit himself to the effective reality of the transcendence as such contributes to the human responsibility for the eclipse” (Eclipse of God, 23-24).
The problem with the modern person’s relationship with God is not, most certainly, in God and it is not even, as such, in persons themselves.Somehow it is in between the two.Buber’s insight, I think, that the rediscovery of God consists in submission in faith to the transcendence beyond sight holds the key.
It is, I believe, just what gets us to the heart of the life of Jesus, the essence of what is taking place in today’s gospel (Mt 6:7-15).The prayer he offers to us is a prayer of submission to God:submission to his will, to his coming kingdom, to his daily provision for our needs, to his mercy in our brokenness, to his ultimate protection from evil.The motivation Jesus offers for such submission is his very self, in whom we encounter the God who is Father, reflected in the gracious, extending, healing, present life of the Son.
Pope John Paul II, in the very last response given in his book Crossing the Threshold of Hope, speaks of original sin as Satan’s attempt to obscure the ‘radiation of Fatherhood,’ to somehow convince the man and the woman that God is not a Father who can be trusted.This is a story retold in so many ways, on so many occasions in human history and, I would guess, in most of our personal histories.Things happen, the twists of life occur that obscure for us the ‘radiation of Fatherhood,’ the radiation of God’s tender, present love for us as his dear children.Rather then submit, we so often are tempted to hide from God in fear.
I guess this makes me wonder:where do I go to hide from God?So many places to hide.Destructive relationships, endless activity, some form of emotion numbing drug, filling up the space with noise.Sometimes I wonder, personally, if I hide from God in my ideas about God.
Jesus says:“Your Father knows!”Whatever has brought about the eclipse of God in my life, hiding God from me, it has not hidden me from God!The Father sees me.The Father knows me.The Father loves me! Can I trust that and submit my life to him?