Face To Face With The Infinite

Isaiah 6: 1-8

Roger Lynn

June 21, 2020

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These are challenging days to be alive. All of the Covid-19 related stuff has weighed heavy on many of us, and continues to do so. Adapting to changing circumstances on what sometimes seems like a daily basis. Dealing with grief and loss in so many ways. Struggling to find the right balance between taking appropriate precautions and just wanting things to get back to “normal.” On and on the list could go. Then all of the issues around race that have been with us for a very long time and are now rising suddenly to the surface in a powerful new way in the wake of George Floyd’s death. How do we live together? What does it mean to truly honor someone else’s humanity? Where do I fit in the larger struggle? On and on the list could go. There is a lot on our plate right now, and it often feels more than a little bit overwhelming. And what I know is that we will not last long in the face of such challenges unless we are intentional about making sure to attend to the nourishing of our spirits. It’s important for us to pause from time to time and allow ourselves to be be embraced in the eternal presence of the Great Mystery.

Probably since the first time a human being stared up into the star-filled night sky we have been contemplating the existence of a some presence beyond ourselves. Sometimes we have come up with names to capture the essence of what we encounter. Sometimes we use descriptions. Sometimes poetry has been used. And sometimes we have simply been left speechless. But seldom have we been satisfied that the task is complete. There always seems to be more to explore and contemplate and experience and describe. So, I want to take a moment right now and do a little assessment of where are we are with that process? I know we can’t hear each other, but I invite you to speak some of the names or descriptions of this “great something beyond ourselves” that we contemplate. Perhaps it is something with which you resonate, or perhaps it is simply something you have heard others say. Your list might be short or it might be too long to finish in this moment. If you can do so, I invite you to type at least one of the names or descriptions into the chat stream located to the right of the video. 

No matter how big our list might be, we know that we have only scratched the surface, and we know there will always be more to add. It will never be complete. To say that God is more than we can comprehend is to engage in radical understatement. If we are honest we will admit that we cannot even comprehend how much we cannot comprehend – not because we’re stupid or bad, but simply because we are finite creatures, attempting to grasp the infinite. On our own we don’t even have the framework within which to begin to understand this Sacred Presence. Fortunately, that has never stopped us from trying. We do the best we can, using the frame of reference available to us, namely our life, to try to make sense of God. The result has been a list of descriptions that spans the spectrum of human experience. We use words which attempt to describe God’s character – loving, all-knowing, wise, holy, just. We use words which describe God in terms of a relationship with us – Parent, Creator, Comforter, Protector, Guide. And we use words which describe our inability to truly perceive God – overwhelming, awesome, vast, eternal, mystery.

When we finite human beings encounter infinite Reality, we finally have to admit that all of our best efforts fall short. It is easy to become completely overwhelmed. When Isaiah has his vision he sees just a piece of God’s robe and it fills the whole temple. In the face of such holy otherness, he feels as if he is undone. “I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips.” We try to figure things out. But it’s never enough. That much is no surprise. By definition that which is finite will not be able to fully grasp that which is infinite.

And yet, what is surprising is that we are not left on our own. We may not be able to reach out and grasp God, but God can and does reach out and embrace us. Over the many long years in which we human beings have been struggling to comprehend, name, and experience Sacred Reality, one of the things which has become abundantly clear is that Sacred Reality is always and forever reaching out to us, desiring above all else to be in relationship with us. Isaiah feels undone, but then he recognizes that he has already been brought into relationship. We are faced with a reality which we can perceive only in glimpses and hints, and only describe with a long series of words which barely chip away at the edges or else no words at all. We are in way over our heads, and yet we are brought into connection anyway. The chasm between us can seem insurmountable, but that is not what defines our reality. The Mystery which cannot be described can, nonetheless, be experienced.

In his novel “The Final Beast” Frederick Buechner tells about a young pastor who is having a crisis of faith. Then he has an epiphany. In the simple sound of two apple branches clacking together he hears the overwhelming rhythm of the Sacred Dance of Ultimate Reality. And while he has a sense of how overwhelming it is (“If we saw any more of the dance than we do, it would kill us sure . . . The glory of it. Clack-clack is all we can bear.”) he also comes to understand that to have such an experience is to encounter Joy (“Reality . . . the air we breath . . . this emptiness . . . If you could get hold of it by the corner somewhere, just slip your fingernail underneath and peel it back enough to find what’s there behind it . . . I think the dance that must go on back there, way down deep at the heart of space, where being comes from . . . There’s dancing there . . . It’s holy ground . . . the whole earth is holy ground.”)

When the finite encounters the infinite, it is the infinite which always reaches out to embrace the finite. Always! Regardless of the names or descriptions we use, or the recognition of the inadequacy of all of our names and descriptions, it is always the Eternal Mystery who acts first – calling us and enabling us to be in relationship. And then, from within the experience of that relationship, calls us and enables us to be in relationship with the world. 

In these strange, tumultuous, unsettled, and unsettling days in which we live, the only way we will not only survive but thrive is to recognize that we are not alone and we are not on our own. We never have been. We never will be. It is from within the experience of being connected to this Great Mystery that we can face and embrace the world. May we pray for the wisdom and the courage to respond as Isaiah did – “Here am I, send me!”