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Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Fr. J. D. Ousley
21 August 2005Romans 11“Search Engine”
In the Name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.
You're probably tired of hearing that "computers have changed the world." But, of course, computers have had a huge impact on the ways that we do things.
Students, for example, no longer need to go to the library. If they want an answer to questions, they don't even have to open a book!
Instead, students turn on their computers, and they connect to the Internet, and they submit their questions to what is called a "search engine."
Search engines aren't really "engines" — they're not like the engines that pull trains. Rather, they are immensely complex software programs that can access all kinds of information on Internet web sites.
So if you want to know the historical background of a passage from the Bible that you heard in church, you don't need to buy a scholarly commentary. All you have to do is go around the Internet until you find a web site that has Bible commentaries; then you use that site to look up the passage.
Thanks to computers, we now refer to some texts like the Bible as "searchable" — meaning that your computer can find a particular word in that text. Indeed, search engines have given a whole new dimension to the practice of what we call, "re-search!"
And so then we might wonder whether computer science could help us to appreciate the wisdom of a remark in today's Second Lesson. In the reading, from St. Paul's Letter to the Romans, Paul exclaims, "How unsearchable are [God's] judgments and how inscrutable his ways."
"How unsearchable are [God's] judgments." The infinite nature of God is beyond the capacities of our finite minds to grasp.
According to Paul, we can't understand what God does: we can't fathom the decisions that emerge from God's infinite being.
Because God's inner self transcends our capacities of knowing, God's "judgments" and God's "ways" are "unsearchable." Or, in the other word Paul uses that means the same thing: they are "inscrutable." God's ways and judgments can't be "scrutinized" by human minds; no amount of research can enter the mind of God.
Now this understanding of the nature of God shouldn't come as news to us. Not only did St. Paul make the observation some two thousand years ago, but Old Testament writers centuries before Paul also appreciated the divine mystery. The Book of Isaiah, for example, recognizes that God's "ways" are not "our ways."
This is a hard truth, though, for a lot of people to accept. These folks think that religion should answer their questions. Religion should provide knowledge of God.
An early Christian heresy was "Gnosticism" — which means "knowing," "Gnostic" teachers believed they had secret knowledge of the divine that they could reveal to chosen followers. In our times, New Age groups also believe they discovered secrets about the ways of God; the influence of modern Gnosticism can be detected in the fictional "revelations" in the popular novel, The Da Vinci Code.
And while New Age Gnosticism seems to me to be as fanciful as the ancient versions that flourished around the time of the early Church, I would agree that religion is able in some ways to pass along knowledge of spiritual matters.
For the Bible is called, "holy" because it tells us about God! For that matter, Holy Scripture reveals things about ourselves, who we are as human beings. And Church tradition--summarized in the Creeds and in our worship — also helps us to some comprehension of spiritual mysteries.
But Scripture and tradition only bring us to the foothills of the mountain of divine truth. However well we know the Bible, however extensive our reading of theology, the ways of God will remain ultimately unsearchable.
And that limit to our knowledge is very frustrating to us who live in a technological age. We're accustomed to being able to find out things we want to know. The answer to all questions is: "Look it up!"
I have a program on my computer that allows me to search all my files and messages. So I don't even need to remember facts I once noted. In order to access information that I need, I just tap out the subject I'm looking for and the names of the files that mention that subject instantly appear.
Now this search engine grants me a remarkable amount of power. The array of information on my computer becomes "searchable;" And I can make use of it whenever I want to. I can, in effect, search myself!
The British scientist and philosopher, Francis Bacon remarked, at the dawn of the scientific age, that "Knowledge is power." Knowledge helps us do things.
Even when science is conducted with the "pure" intention of expanding the range of human wisdom, scientists are aware that discoveries they make about, say, the nature of sub-atomic particles, can help other scientists to do things of questionable value, like construct atomic bombs. Knowledge grants to us power over the natural world.
And all the discoveries of modern science–like the computer–have certainly made our lives a lot easier. No wonder so many people believe that any problem can be solved by research.
Yet our human pride in the accomplishments of technology may have contributed to the apparent conflict between science and religion. For even though science is vast and powerful, it is utterly unable to research the mind of God. And some scientifically minded people go on to conclude that religion, therefore, isn't worth pursuing. If God is infinitely beyond their understanding, why waste time thinking about him?
But it seems to me that we who are religious might draw a very different conclusion. If we humans can't probe the essence of the divine, well, perhaps God will reach out to us!
And this, of course, is what Christianity teaches: "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth." God is among us; we don't need to search for God because he is already searching for us.
As King David said to his son, Solomon: "And you, Solomon my son, acknowledge your father's God and serve him with whole heart and willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and discerns every invention of men's thoughts."
And this idea should, in fact, be reassuring. For aren't there times when we get so confused about things that we feel we don't know ourselves?
Aren't there times when you'd like to plug a search engine into your soul–so you could discover what you really feel about someone? Aren't there times when you need to make a decision and you just can't figure out the best choice to make?
These are occasions not for science but for religion. "The Lord searches all hearts and discerns every invention of human thoughts." Because God has already searched out our souls, God's Spirit can help us to make precisely these sorts of decisions.
When we don't know our own minds, God does!
And now unto that same God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be ascribed as is most justly due all might, majesty, power, dominion and praise, now and forever, Amen.