Here the brothers of the Taizé community offer a series of short meditations on questions of God, the Christian faith and what it means to believe. We all seek a meaningful life. The questions asked here lead on to intimate communion with the mystery of God.
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CONTENTS
Introduction
I God’s identity
How can we know God?
Why do we call God ‘Father’?
What does it mean to say ‘God is spirit’?
Is God almighty?
What does it mean to believe in a Creator?
Is God a judge?
II God’s activity
Does God intervene in events?
Does God change us?
What does the Bible mean by speaking of a covenant?
What does the Bible mean by ‘the will of God’? Is God just?
What is God’s attitude towards the suffering of the innocent?
III Jesus’ identity
What does it mean to say that Jesus is the Son of God?
Why did Jesus sometimes use the expression `Son of man’ to speak of himself?
Why did Jesus perform miracles?
What do Jesus’ words ‘I am the Way’ mean?
What can we know about Jesus’ prayer?
IV Jesus’ message
What does it mean ‘to enter the Kingdom of God’?
Why did Jesus speak of the Kingdom of God only in parables?
Why did Jesus begin his teaching with the Beatitudes?
Is poverty a Gospel value?
Why does Jesus call the commandment to love one another a ‘new’ commandment?
Why is love of enemies so central to the Gospel?
Does St John avoid speaking about loving our enemies?
V Death and resurrection
Why did Christ have to suffer?
Why did an instrument of death become the symbol of Christianity?
What enabled the disciples to understand the meaning of the cross?
Can the suffering of an innocent person save us?
Why was it so hard for the disciples to recognize the Risen Christ?
If Jesus is risen, why do Christians still speak so much about his death?
Why do we speak of the resurrection of the body?
VI Spirit, soul, death
Is the Holy Spirit an energy or a person?
What does it change to receive the Holy Spirit?
Can we feel the presence of the Holy Spirit?
What does the Bible mean by ‘the soul’?
Is the soul immortal?
If everything God created is good, why is there death?
VII Prayer
Why do we ask God for things if God knows everything and loves us?
What is the relationship between God’s will and our desires?
Is it possible to remain in the spirit of praise?
What was the role of singing in the prayer of the first Christians?
Why do we pray to Jesus and not just to God?
How can we understand the petition: ‘Lead us not into temptation’?
VIII The Bible and the Church
What can we get from reading the Bible?
How should we approach the Bible?
What can we do about differing interpretations of the Bible?
Why belong to the Church if God gives his love to everybody?
Can I live my own faith outside of the institutional Church?
What is the relationship between the Kingdom of God and the Church?
IX Sin and forgiveness
What is original sin?
Does God always forgive?
Does God punish?
Should we regret our sins?
What role does repentance play in Christian life?
Is it always possible to forgive others?
Does not forgiving run the risk of tolerating or justifying evil?
X In the steps of Christ
Do we have to leave everything behind to follow Christ?
What should we do when Christ seems to be calling us but we are not sure that we can respond?
What is the importance of the commandments in our relationship with God?
What is a sacrifice?
How can we make our lives a sacrifice?
Should believers try to distance themselves from society or to adapt?
XI Joy, peace, hope
Is joy possible when there is misfortune, injustice and violence?
What is the value of joy? Is it useful?
Who are the peacemakers that Jesus praises in the Gospel?
How can we persevere in the hope for peace?
What is the source of Christian hope?
Does the Gospel promise us a better future?
How can we root our lives in Christian hope?
INTRODUCTION
Human beings are seekers. We find no fulfilment in blindly following routines, but wish to live in a way that is something more than just a matter of keeping to well-known, familiar paths. And faith, trust in the living God, does not eliminate this characteristic trait of humanity. On the contrary, faith encourages this attitude of searching to reach its full flowering, leading it towards ‘what eye has not seen, nor ear heard, what has never entered the human mind’ (1 Cor. 2.9).
As seekers, human beings are always asking questions. But we should not imagine that sooner or later we are going to find the answers which will bring our searching to an end once and for all. As we seek, little by little we come to realize that every true answer is a step in a process which constantly leads us further forward. In our quest for what is essential, we go ‘from beginning to beginning by means of beginnings without end’ (Gregory of Nyssa, fourth century).
The young and not-so-young pilgrims who arrive week after week to take part in the intercontinental meetings at Taizé come with all kinds of questions about the Bible and the Christian faith. The brothers of the Community, while seeking to support them in this process of searching, do not want to play the role of spiritual masters. Instead they hope to offer, from their own exploration of the Scriptures, some elements of reflection that can serve as starting-points for deeper investigation. This book offers a series of short meditations on some of these questions, which were originally published in the bimonthly Letter from Taizé. They suggest lines of thought, closely linked with Bible passages, which aim to help anyone wishing to enter more fully into the mystery of a God who always remains beyond what we are able to grasp.
CHAPTER ONE
GOD’S IDENTITY
How can we know God?
Before being a certainty for us, God is a question. Who has not wondered at one time or another about the meaning of life? ‘Why does the universe exist?.’ ‘Why am I here on earth?’ ‘Is there any logic behind the course of human history and of my own life?’
The religious traditions of humanity affirm that these questions have an answer which does not depend on us alone. The Bible speaks to us of a good God, the creator of all that exists, who is very close to human beings. As St Paul explained to the philosophers of Athens, ‘He is not far from any of us, for in him we live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17.27-8).
The starting-point for coming to know God is thus the conviction that God does not play hide-and-seek with us but wants to be known. That is what Jesus tried to explain to his hearers when he said, ‘Seek and you will find .. . Whoever seeks finds’ (Lk. 11.9-10). He was speaking about seeking God in prayer. Seeking God means first of all opening up the depths of our heart to God in a dialogue made up of trust and simplicity.
All who enter in this way into a relationship with the Mystery at the heart of life are immediately brought to take part in an adventure that is not always easy. In order better to know the true God, they must gradually let themselves be divested of their own habitual ways of seeing. For if it is true that God is close to us, it is also true that ‘God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and God’s ways are not our ways’ (see Isa. 55.8-9). For Christians, God is light without any darkness at all, and so in order to know God we must `walk in the light’ (1 Jn 1.5-7) by living according to his will of love, by a life of attention to others.
In our search for God we are not left entirely to our own devices. We can benefit from the experience of a great many women and men across the ages. In ch. 11 of the letter to the Hebrews, the author speaks of ‘the great cloud of witnesses’ on which our faith can rely. He does not, for all that, keep silent about his conviction that after speaking ‘at many times and in many ways’, God has now spoken his final word to us in Jesus Christ (Heb. 1.1-2). In Christ, God takes on a human form and walks alongside us.
Why do we call God `Father’?
`You are beyond all things: how can we call you by another name?’ These words come from Gregory of Nazianzen, a bishop and thinker of the fourth century. And yet God does not refuse to be compared to a shepherd, a bridegroom, a friend, a father or a mother. ‘As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who worship him’ (Ps. 103.13). ‘As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you’ (Isa. 66.13). And when Jesus’ disciples ask him how they should pray to God, he gives them a prayer that begins with the word `Father’ (Lk. 11.2-4) or ‘Our Father’ (Mt. 6.9-13).
If Christians call God ‘Father’, then, that is not because they have made a choice among all the different possible names of God, but because Jesus addressed God in this way. As a result, it is not the word ‘father’ in itself, but the life and the prayer of Christ that tell us who God is. ‘No one knows the Father but the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him’ (Lk. 10.22). We should not focus on what we associate with the word ‘father’ (or ‘mother’, ‘friend’, etc.) based on our own personal experiences. The meaning of God’s name ‘Father’ is defined by what God was for Jesus.
In his mother tongue, Aramaic, Jesus pronounced the word Abba (Mk 14.36), which means ‘Father’. Some people even want to translate it as ‘papa’ or ‘daddy’ in order to emphasize the fact that Jesus trusted in God as a little child. But we should not forget that Abba also means ‘my father’ (Mt. 26.39) and that, in the Old Testament, it was the privilege of the king to use these words in addressing God. When the king was inaugurated, God proclaimed, ‘He will call out to me, “You are my Father'” (Ps. 89.26). In the Aramaic version of the same psalm, we read: ‘He will call me Abba.’
Seen with this as background, we can understand that the relationship between God and Jesus was not only one of filial trust. In this relationship, God is the one who trusts first; God trusts in Jesus. At the time of Jesus’ baptism and on the Mount of Transfiguration, God’s voice is heard saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’ (Mt. 3.17 and 17.5). As he had earlier given authority to the kings of Israel, God gives Jesus legitimate authority and full power for his mission. That is why in addition to the expression ‘my Father’, Jesus can also refer to God as ‘the One who sent me’ (Jn 6.38) or ‘the Father who sent me’ (Jn 12.49).
Calling God ‘our Father’ means knowing that God loves us. Christ, as the Son, reveals just what this love is. It is not a love that holds us back, but a love that trusts. The Father’s love gave his Son a mission. That same love entrusts our life to each of us, liberating hidden gifts and energies in us. God shows himself to be our Father by saying to us, ‘You are my beloved child; I am happy about what you are’.
What does it mean to say ‘God is spirit’?
These somewhat enigmatic words of Jesus are found in St John’s Gospel, in the story of the Samaritan woman. She asks Jesus where one should worship God. He replies that encountering God is not linked to a geographical place, and adds, ‘God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth’ Un 4.24). By affirming that it is possible to enter into a relationship with God everywhere, Jesus is faithful to the tradition of his people Israel. An age-old prayer says to God, ‘Where could I go to escape your spirit; where could I flee from your face? If I go up to heaven, you are present; if I lie down in the nether world, there you are’ (Ps. 139.7-8). God can come to anyone, wherever they are.
But Jesus also confirms the religious feeling that God cannot be worshipped just anywhere. We must worship ‘in spirit and in truth’. This does not just mean ‘spiritually and truly’ but rather designates a place for worship. This place called ‘spirit and truth’ is communion in God, a temple ‘not made by human hands’ that Christ built by his resurrection (Mk 14.58). God who is spirit never ceases to create his own sanctuary in people’s hearts by strengthening them in love. He turns us into ‘living stones’ who together build ‘a dwelling-place in the spirit’ (1 Pet. 2.5).
`What is born of flesh is flesh, what is born of spirit is spirit’ Un 3.6). The difference is radical. God is ‘spirit’; we are ‘flesh’, in other words powerless to go beyond our limitations as created beings. When we pray, we may find ourselves in front of an impenetrable wall, or even a void. We cannot reach God by our own resources. Our entire being is ‘flesh’, even the mind with which we search for God. God is beyond what our senses can perceive and our intelligence conceive. Sometimes doubts arise, and even the meaning of the word God becomes unclear.
God is not identified with any reality of this world. It cannot be said of God ‘he is here’ or ‘he is there’ (compare Lk. 17.21). His presence is as fleeting as a breath: ‘The wind blows where it will; you hear it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going’ (Jn 3.8).
The fact that God is spirit does not simply mean that God is totally other. In the Bible, ‘spirit’ is not a static notion, but designates something dynamic – an activity, energies that transform. That God is spirit means that he is searching for us constantly. Life radiates from him and is communicated to us. God transforms us too into spirit according to the words of Christ, ‘What is born of spirit is spirit’. God is spirit; God is alive, and in him we too ‘live and move and have our being’ (Acts 17.28).
Is God almighty?
In the Creed, we say, ‘I believe in God, the Father almighty’. These words are hard to understand. If God can do anything, could he not prevent evil? Why does God let innocent people suffer?
It is possible that we do not understand correctly what believers intended to express when they began to call God `almighty’. Sometimes, the meaning of words changes or is lost as time passes. In the Creed, and in the Bible from where the expression comes, the word `almighty’ translates the Greek word pantokrator. This word is used ten times in the New Testament, nine of which are found in the book of Revelation. It is not a word from philosophy; it belongs to hymns that greet the coming of God’s reign: ‘We give you thanks, Lord, God almighty, for assuming your great power and beginning to reign’ (Rev. 11.17).
Persecuted Christians who praised God for his power and his reign knew well from experience that God was not powerful in the way that powerful people of this world are powerful. God has no armed forces, money or media empire. Nonetheless, there is a reality called ‘God’s reign’ that is universal. In other words, no situation, not even a desperate one, escapes God’s dominion nor is excluded from his love. ‘Almighty’ was a word of hope for those who used it in this way.
Rather than focusing simply on the words, to understand their meaning we have to look at Christ: ‘They will look upon the one they have pierced’ (Jn 19.37). Powerless, nailed to a cross, he kept on loving. When humiliated, Christ revealed the unheard-of power of God’s love. `God’s weakness is stronger than human beings’, writes the apostle Paul (1 Cor. 1.25). In the book of Revelation, John expresses this by a vision (Revelation 4-5): God’s reign is symbolized by a heavenly throne-room, with its court that proclaims day and night: ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God almighty.’ But then John is astonished to see in the middle of God’s throne ‘a Lamb standing, as if slaughtered’. God reigns over the entire earth with and in the crucified Christ. His reign is also the reign of the Lamb. Since Easter and for all time, in God — in God’s heart, one with God — there is someone who is poor and wounded, Jesus who gave his life. The Father almighty is the God whose love is powerful in all things, for ‘he believes everything, hopes everything, puts up with everything’ (1 Cor. 13.7).
We do not know if Jesus ever used the word ‘almighty’, But he began a prayer by saying, ‘Abba, everything is possible for you’ (Mk 14.36). It was an expression of his trust and hope in God his Father. And we too can pray, `God, you love me; everything is possible for you. Listen to me! Answer me!’
What does it mean to believe in a Creator?
When people had only the rudimentary chronological indications found in the Bible, they thought the world began five or six thousand years before our era. Today, the age of the universe is estimated at thirteen thousand million years, and that of the earth at a bit less than five thousand million. Life appeared over three thousand million years ago and, even if it is hard to determine a precise moment, human beings appeared two, three or even four million years ago. These discoveries have pushed back the origins of what exists to an unimaginably remote past. But more important still, they teach us not to confuse the notion of creation with the beginnings of the universe. For if God created the stars as well as human beings, then we are speaking of a process that extends throughout an almost endless period of time — the entire thirteen thousand million-year period the universe has been in existence.
Looked at more closely, the Bible itself does not situate God’s creative activity in a remote past. God is ‘the Creator of heaven and earth’ and he has never stopped being this. ‘Tirelessly’, God is always at work (Isa. 40.28). The Hebrew expression translated by ‘creator’ is a verbal form of indeterminate tense. God created from the beginning, but God is also the one who, here and now, ‘sends out his breath and beings are created’ (Ps. 104.30). The Creator, an everlasting God, always remains the same, present for each of his creatures, ready to come to their aid. ‘He calls all the stars by name’ (Isa. 40.26) and ‘he gives breath to the inhabitants of the earth’ (Isa. 42.5).
From its earliest expression in the Bible, faith in the Creator freed believers from fear. It expressed their trust in existence. Earthquakes will never succeed in causing the earth to topple, for God has placed it on firm foundations; no flood will wipe out all life, for God has set a limit to destructive waters (Ps. 104.5-9). God keeps the most fragile creatures, human beings and animals, from ‘returning to the dust’ by continuously giving them the breath of life (Ps. 104.29-30). In our day, other phenomena such as the possibility of an ecological catastrophe or a collision with a huge meteorite can awaken fears. Faith in a creator God keeps such fears from paralysing us.
Creation is God’s constant triumph over the forces of destruction and death (Ps. 74.12-17). The Creator saves everything that exists from the absurdity of nothingness. Creation is pulled out of the ‘darkness over the deep’ (Gen. 1.2). But so that no one draws the conclusion that everything began with chaos and darkness, the Bible affirms that `in the beginning, God created’ (Gen. 1.1). No, in the beginning there was not chaos; in the beginning is God.
Is God a judge?
In the Bible, the verb ‘to judge’ is frequently found in the prayers of the oppressed: ‘Judge me, Lord; defend my cause against the merciless’ (Ps. 43.1). Judgement is not feared but desired. It means that God puts things back in their place by coming to help the poor and exploited, by setting a limit to the arrogance of the proud. Waiting for God’s judgement means having the hope that the course of events will not end in absurdity. The victims and the executioners are not on the same level, because God ‘collects tears in his wineskin’ (Ps. 56.8). In order that no suffering and no attempt to love may be lost, God ‘repays everyone according to what they do’ (Ps. 62.12).
That is why, from the psalms down to the Magnificat, the Song of Mary, God’s judgement is celebrated: ‘Let the nations rejoice and sing, for you judge the world with fairness’ (Ps. 67.4). ‘God scatters the proud-hearted; he pulls down princes from their thrones and raises up the lowly’ (Lk. 1.51-2). Even in the twentieth century we have witnessed such upheavals, the fall of tyrannies.
Would we use God’s judgement as a pretext to threaten and condemn those who in our opinion are deserving of God’s wrath? According to the apostle Paul, exactly the opposite is true. Recognizing that God alone knows the heart of each person keeps us from judging others. He writes, ‘Why judge your brother or sister? … All of us will have to stand in front of God’s judgment-seat … Each of us will have to give an account of himself to God’ (Rom. 14.10-12). Paul does not mention ‘God’s judgment-seat’ in order to threaten but rather to free us from useless burdens, mutual reproaches and condemnations. All human judgements are only partially just, since they are mingled with desires for revenge or calculated cowardice. Fortunately, the court of last resort is God, who is light with no shadow of darkness (1 Jn 1.5).
The thought of a coming judgement has sometimes led believers to judge themselves harshly, and even to sink into despair. This harshness, which can disguise itself in pious clothing, is a deep and serious misunderstanding. In reality, it is a form of refusal. Wanting to be our own judge instead of letting Christ come is one way of clinging to ourselves. Here we should listen again to St Paul. He writes, ‘It matters little to me how you or any human court may judge me. I do not even judge my own self … It is the Lord who is my judge’ (1 Cor. 4.3-4). The certainty that my only judge is the Christ ‘who loved me and gave himself up for me’ (Gal. 2.20) gives surprising freedom.
