Memorial of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton, Religious
Protestant fundamentalism, which has found its way into the Catholic Church, arose amidst the perceived threat of historical criticism and evolution. Historical criticism, a method of reading the Bible that attends carefully to the historical context of each book of the Bible and how that context shaped the text, seemed to undermine the supernatural origins of the Bible. Evolution, of course, challenged the divine creation process described in Genesis. These new ways of thinking about the Bible made a lot of people nervous. Where would all this lead? Would people stop thinking that the Bible is true?
Fundamentalism offered a solution: a propositional religion that promised to deliver the experience of certainty. The idea is that there are certain propositions that are clear, forever true, and essential for Christian faith. They include propositions like the following: God created the universe in six twenty-four days less than 10,000 years ago, God has ordained that women must always be subordinate to men, and Adam and Eve were real historical figures as well as the origins of all humans who came after them. The promise in all this: if you assent to these supposedly fixed propositions (which, ironically, have changed some over time), then you will have certainty. You will know the truth, and your salvation is assured.
The story in front of us from the Gospel of John is so different. The closest we get to a proposition is “behold the lamb of God.” On second thought, that’s more of a command than a proposition. Moreover, what does “lamb of God” mean? Instead of a proposition, Jesus (who would certainly know the truth and could share it) asks a question: What are you looking for? And the answer: a teacher. These new followers of Jesus want to learn. They don’t presume to have knowledge.
Rather than pontificate, they offer a witness: “We have found the Messiah.” How do they know that? What evidence do they have? They have been following Jesus for, at most, an afternoon.
I love this story because it is not about a propositional faith. Is a propositional faith really faith? These new disciples somehow came to the wisdom that they were in the company of the one promised—the one who would liberate all from oppression, ignorance, abuse of power, sin . . . . Somehow they knew that. And they followed him. Now, that sounds like faith.
I love to read Bible commentaries. I am someone who wants to know the Bible. And hopefully I can know it better over time. But, I’ll never know it. Not fully. Just as I will never know the mind of God. One of my favorite moments in the Mass is when the celebrant refers to “these paschal mysteries.” Not “these paschal certainties.”
It’s as tempting today as it was in 1919 (when the fundamentalist movement emerged) to desire and to seek certainty given all the uncertainty that surrounds us, whether concerning this or that war, this or that politician, this or that news outlet, and so forth. But I think the models of discipleship that we encounter in today’s reading invite us to go another way—the way of the mystery of faith.
-Sue Trollinger