Theology Leads to Doxology

Reflecting on the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Two Days after Sunday (Year A)

Scripture (semicontinuous)

Psalter: Psalm 8

Old Testament: Exodus 2:11-15a

Epistle: Romans 11:33-36

Scripture (complementary)

Psalter: Psalm 18:1-3, 20-32

Old Testament: Deuteronomy 32:18-20, 28-39

Epistle: Romans 11:33-36

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Prayer

God, you are the power of liberation, calling your servant Moses to lead your people into freedom, and giving him the wisdom to proclaim your holy law. Be our Passover from the land of injustice, be the light that leads us to the perfect rule of love, that we may be citizens of your unfettered reign; we ask this through Jesus Christ, the pioneer of our salvation. Amen. (Revised Common Lectionary)

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Reflection

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

“For who has known the mind of the Lord?

    Or who has been his counselor?”

“Or who has given a gift to him,

    to receive a gift in return?”

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen (Romans 11:33-36).

The Apostle Paul has spent much of the letter to the Romans explaining God’s plan of salvation through Jesus Christ In chapters 9-11, he struggles with the mystery of the gospel now given to the Gentiles while largely ignored by his Jewish sisters and brothers.

As Paul works through this conundrum, he realizes that he can only reason so far; that the mysteries of God are beyond mortal comprehension and so in the midst of his theological reflection, he breaks out into doxological praise. “Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom of knowledge of God! How in searchable are God’s judgments and how inscrutable his ways!”

Theology should always begin and end in doxology, that is in worship. The things of God are more than can be explained. The North African Bishop Augustine warned that God talk can evolve into idolatry if we speak of God in a way that confuses the Creator with the Creation. If we do that, we are no longer speaking of the divine, but we have constructed an idol.

In chapter 1 of Romans, Paul warns of the idolatrous proclivities of humanity and now at the end of chapter 11, he confesses that the true God of Israel is beyond human comprehension. Intellectual reflection on God, when done correctly must always give way to doxology… to worship.

Perhaps that is why the best theology in the history of the church has not been spoken, but has been sung.

PRAYER: O Lord, mercifully receive the prayers of your people who call upon you, and grant that they may know and understand what things they ought to do, and also may have grace and power faithfully to accomplish them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer)

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