There Is Something We’re Not Seeing Here…
Reflection Roundup reports from conversations couched in relationships. Here, readers will find boots-on-the-ground and “live from the field” items important to Christian leaders. As always, listening broadly draws together differing perspectives from which we can learn but with which we may not concur. This month’s post contains a bit of personal story and a tie to a sermon from one of the Cappadocian church fathers, Basil the Great. I see my life’s work as ministry; my boots are on the ground, so reflection seems advisable at year’s end. May Christ’s light manifest itself in the world and show us what we will not otherwise see.
About a month ago, the Student Government Association and Student Life at Abilene Christian University, where I work, held their annual “Litmas” celebration on a Sunday night, offering a number of festive activities and live music featuring artist Jordy Searcy.[1]
The first 300 attendees were greeted with the gift of free coffee mugs. Members of SGA served hot chocolate and apple cider while a number of various food trucks and pop-up vendors filled the campus mall. As the evening progressed, the live music began, with Jordy Searcy performing a mix of traditional Christmas carols and some of his top hits. The tree lighting itself was a highlight of the night, as the towering tree was adorned with twinkling lights and decorations.[2]
Needless to say, ACU is a fun place to teach. The students are earnest, and absolutely top notch. Encouragement for faculty to be involved in campus life is a big “perk” in and of itself, but the fact that students welcome this with open arms creates a combination of factors that fuel what is known as “The ACU Difference.” I am a huge Jordy Searcy fan, as are my family members, so this night was truly a highlight of my semester as we were all there together. To top it off, at the end of the show, the students who organized the event passed out, to those willing to hang around, concert posters that Searcy had autographed beforehand, adding the phrase, “Thanks for listening!” When we got home that night, I carefully plucked the posters from the back seat of our truck and laid them on the top of a bookshelf on the way into the house.
Now, this is a fine story and all, but what is the point? Later that week, when I found “just the right spot” to hang my autographed poster (yes, I am fifty-two years old), I went back to the bookshelf only to find that it was not there—just the now-inferior, unautographed version I had grabbed for “back up” rested where I had lain it upon arriving home that night. Confessionally, I then went scouting around the house to see who had heisted my autographed poster. Weird behavior, I know. To shorten the saga, after I asked my family about it, my husband went and got it out of the truck. It was still in the back seat. The night I thought I so carefully plucked all my precious souvenirs from the back seat, thinking I was taking such great care, I had completely missed it. I hope the metaphoric implications here strike you gently. To be honest, I’m still reeling with the connections.
The revelation is walloping. No matter how hard we might try, with even very-small-stakes situations, we are never going to always be able to see clearly and completely. There is something important that we are going to miss. Additionally, my own shortsightedness led me to suspicion and accusation. Lord, have mercy.
Sadly, this has been true about humans and our nature for as long as we have existed, and it has played out in some scenarios where the stakes are much bigger.
In the fourth century, around the year 370, Basil the Great, also known as Basil of Caesarea, was doing some preaching in Cappadocia, a province of Rome in modern-day Turkey. During his presbytery there, it was an intermittent time between the rulers Constantine and Theodosius, and between the first two grand ecumenical councils, that of Nicea in 325 and Constantinople in 381. There was great dispute over what the people were not able to see, as beliefs about the nature and activity of God as expressed in the Father, Son, and Spirit were being discussed. Discussing is a gentle descriptor for the shape of things. Any church leader knows exactly how this goes.
From the time of the first father of faith, Abraham, the people of God who by Basil’s time called themselves Christians had been worshiping monotheistically, in accordance with the teaching of the Torah. Each time the Shema was repeated, those engaging in worship were recommitting themselves and their hearers to the service of one God: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone” (Deut. 6:4). Jesus’ incarnation, and further the arrival of the Spirit in a very concrete way in Acts, had left the faithful in a quandary, trying to reconcile what seemed to many like polytheism. God’s unsurpassing immanence and the economy of God now interacting with people, dwelling among, inhabiting and empowering, left controversy. How are people to describe and respond to what they cannot see and what surpasses human descriptors?
Around 370, in between those first two large church meetings, Basil delivered a homily called “On Not Three Gods.” Basil emphasized the difference between the three persons of the Godhead within the Trinity, but also that they are of the same substance and of stuff that is equally divine. God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit have simultaneously been present throughout all time. (It’s been here all along.) But more importantly, in his sermon Basil spoke to how Christians handle their differences, how we are to be known by our love, and how the greatest testimony to those outside our faith communities is how we display unity without flattening into sameness. Throughout his preaching, Basil emphasized the body of peace and love by which Christ created and now unifies the Church, imploring people to continue to come together for this mutual exchange of love. Basil took on the doctrinal discussion, but he did so in such a way as to emphasize that “there’s something we’re not seeing here.” There’s something impossible to see because, try as we may, we are not going to be able to shed our human limitations.
Do not inquire about what cannot be discovered, since you will not find it. For if you inquire, from what can you learn it? From the earth? It did not exist. From the sea? There were no waters. From the sky? It was not raised up. From the sun and the moon and the stars? They were not fashioned. Believe what was written in scripture, the Word was with God, and the Word was God.[3]
Basil said not only are there not three gods but one ineffable God whose ways are higher than ours. Much of the time there is the possibility that there is something we’re not seeing here. And herein lies the lesson from Searcy’s poster and from Basil: kindness and patience with ourselves and those around us, and humility that admits it is impossible to see everything, try as we might. Basil implores we have a faith that ceases requisite sight, rises above sense-making, and leans hard on the mystery of God.
“Whoever is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much” (Luke 16:10). May we be faithfully aware of our limitations both in small matters and on occasions that seem weighty and important to us. May we think the best of our sisters and brothers in the coming year and commune with them cognizant of the way our petty disagreements hinder our communal witness. May be aware of the mentoring and training our annoyances foster and consent, lessening our willfulness. May we posture ourselves to be available to what we are not seeing and hear what we might otherwise miss, be it the lost earring in the pair, tomorrow’s sunrise, or the still small voice of God opening our ears and softening our hearts.
Happy New Year, and may the God who often makes no human sense gently reveal to the eyes of our hearts what we are otherwise going to miss.
1. Sarah Thompson, “Gallery: Campus Unites with Tree Lighting and Jordy Searcy Concert during Litmas,” Optimist, November 21, 2023, https://acuoptimist.com/2023/11/gallery-campus-unites-with-tree-lighting-and-jordy-searcy-concert-during-litmas/.
2. Thompson, “Gallery.”
3. Mark DelCogliano, trans., On Christian Doctrine and Practice: St. Basil the Great, Popular Patristics Series 47 (Yonkers, New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2012), 274.
