The Universal Tao

And the Tao became flesh and dwelt among us.

Propers: The Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 14), A.D. 2020 A

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

In classical philosophy, of the sort buzzing about at the time of Jesus, something was known to be true because it had to be true, logically, formally. Two and two are always four. A squared plus B squared is always C squared. Socrates is a man; men are mortal; therefore Socrates is mortal. These are necessary truths—they can’t not be true. And so the contours of truth were as stable and dependable as the stones that made up the great pagan temples.

The truth we have in Christ, however, is not “necessary” in this sense. The promises of God in Christ are pure gift, pure grace, pure election. They are lavished upon us freely and undeservedly. They require no prior theory or logical supposition. We know this revealed truth, not because we recognize that it must be true, but because we perceive it, in the glory of Christ, to be true. In Jesus, truth is both an offer and an invitation. Its gracious lucidity and splendor ravish the mind’s assent. The Beauty of Christ, the Goodness of Christ, reveal to us the Truth of Christ.†

This is why Jesus says that God has “hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and [has] revealed them to infants.” He’s not being anti-intellectual. But the truth revealed in Christ is not limited to scholars and theologians. Far from it. The truth of God’s grace and mercy and election in Jesus Christ is for all—beyond understanding, beyond theory, beyond the limitations of the human mind. And our only proper response to this overwhelming grace of God is joy—joy and assent! We are given God’s gifts freely, and we are to share them freely with all.

Now, because God’s gifts are for all, we shouldn’t be surprised to see glimpses of them in all cultures. Take China, for example, where Christianity is growing in leaps and bounds. In China there is a philosophy, a religion, called Taoism. Its primary scripture is the Tao Te Ching, authored by the great sage Lao-tse. In it, Lao-tse writes: “There was something formless and perfect before the universe was born. It is serene, empty, solitary, unchanging, infinite, eternally present. It is the mother of the universe. For lack of a better name, I call it the Tao.”

Now, to a Christian, that sounds rather a lot like God. In fact, when John’s Gospel is translated into Chinese, the Word of God—as in, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”—is identified as the Tao. Jesus, the Word of God, is the Tao of God. And when it comes to knowing the Tao, Lao-tse didn’t put a lot of faith in theoreticians or intellectuals. “The wise are not learned,” he wrote. “And the learned are not wise.”

Rather—and here I’m quoting from the Tao of Pooh—“Scholars can be very useful and necessary, in their own dull and unamusing way. They provide a lot of information. It's just that there is Something More, and that Something More is what life is really all about.” You don’t have to be a philosopher to know the truth of God. You don’t have to be a scholar or an intellectual or a priest. You just have to be grateful and thankful and humble. And a lot of highly educated folks can’t quite seem to pull that off.

Listen instead to our psalm from this morning, to its ridiculous, superabundant promises: “The Lord is gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. The Lord is good to all, and his compassion is over all that he has made. “All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your faithful shall bless you … The Lord is faithful in all his words, and gracious in all his deeds. The Lord upholds all who are falling and raises up all who are bowed down.”

Now that is truly remarkable. Just listen to the scandalous way that the psalmist keeps repeating, keeps singing, over and over again, that one word “all.” The Lord is good to all! His compassion is over all! All your works shall give thanks, O Lord! All your faithful shall bless you! Faithful in all his words, gracious in all his deeds! The Lord upholds all who are falling, and raises up all who are bowed down! All, all, all, all, all!

It is a cry of ebullient praise, an ecstasy at the glory of God’s infinite mercies. The psalmist cares not one whit for complex theories of atonement, justification, sanctification, heaven, hell, penance, purgatory, mortal sin, venial sin. All, all, all, all! All shall be raised! All shall be lifted! All shall give thanks! All shall bless the Lord! How does that work? Who cares! He’s God! He is our Father, our Savior, our Christ and our King! He is good to all, and has compassion over all.

You could not have a clearer prophecy, a clearer cri de cœur, than this rapturous declaration of God’s universal salvation for everyone and everything that He has ever made or ever will. Don’t let theologians ruin it for you. Don’t let pastors throw in all their caveats of but-but-but! “But justice! But punishment! But the lake of fire!” But nothing. He upholds all who are falling, raises up all who are bowed low. I thank you, Father, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent, and have revealed them to infants.

For an infant knows Good News when she hears it, does she not? An infant knows to delight in grace and in mercy, in care and in loving-kindness lavished upon her as free gift by her doting, compassionate Parent. And don’t let anyone ever take that from her. For the wise are not learned, and the learned are not wise. We are not saved by right theology. We are not saved by correct answers on some cosmic multiple choice test. We are saved by grace alone. And you don’t need understanding for that. All you need is sure faith, and childlike trust, that God always and already loves and has saved you,

This is what children know and theologians forget: that God is the God of all, and His compassion is for all that He has made. This is the Good News of Jesus Christ our Lord. And it is true—He is Truth—purely out of grace and love and mercy and divine compassion, which can never be exhausted, never be resisted, and can never ultimately be denied. For He is not the Savior of some, the Lord of some, the God of some. He is the God of all; the Father, the Spirit, and the King, of all.

And whether we know it yet or not, He has died on the Cross, and gone all the way to hell and back, purely out of love for you. For if we are to embrace the love of an infant for her Father, how much greater must the Father’s love for all His children burn? If all the assembled powers of death, damnation, and hell could not hope to stop Him—could barely even slow Him down—what chance do you think your paltry sins have in the face of such infinite, inexorable, white-hot grace?

The Risen Christ is coming, and coming for us all. And nothing shall stand in His way.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

† Credit where credit is due: The first two paragraphs above are taken, in some cases phrase-for-phrase, from Fr Patrick Henry Reardon’s reflection in the St James Daily Devotional.