Hidden from the Wise
From the moment we are born, we are gathering information and find patterns and connections. Our five senses perpetually perceive things about ourselves and our environment. Hungry, full, wet, dry, dark, light, loud, hushed, pleasant, repulsive, satisfying, nasty: we get familiar with these variances. From there we move on to more abstract comprehension. Language gives passage to a symbolic world and deeper consideration of things. Whether we are making observations to discern facts or creating concepts of fanciful imagination, our cognitive faculties are working every waking moment.
My third-grade teacher, Miss Evelyn Jay, would call thinking, “using your noodle,” which was its own little amusing moment for her students. The human brain is so active, it is no wonder that we sometimes think we know it all. There is a little edge of the wisdom tradition in the Bible that urges us to realize that however smart we are, we do not fully capture the things of God. Jesus is the revealer of the kingdom, and the Gospel record preserves a little prayer of his thanking the Ruler of heaven and hearth, his Father, for hiding special divine truths from the clever and revealing them to little ones. Jesus then holds out an invitation to come to him, who will reveal even more, given that he is the Son who intimately knows the Father. Let the passage, Matthew 11:25–30, soak in:
Jesus said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
The heavy burdens are the memorizations of complex mixtures of the Law of Moses and vast commentaries that are the studies of the Pharisees of his day. Jesus has the light burden of his revealed connection to the Father. It begins and ends with love. There is plenty of challenge to manifest in the actions of our lives, but it is simple, not complex. The gentle and humble heart of Jesus is the root of it all, and it gives rest to our souls.
This passage is used on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi at the Eucharist. The way of Francis was surely centered on profound joy in the love of God, perceivable in the creation. It is more about openness than intellectual constructs. Neither Jesus, Francis, nor the wisdom tradition itself is anti-intellectual. They are simply cognizant of the limits of human reason. They elevate the notion of revelation through the mystery of love. Our rationality is a good gift, it is just limited. Consider the wisdom Job gains.
Job wanted to know a predictable relationship between personal righteousness and a personal blessing. What he had endured defied explanation. He came painfully to know that a righteous person is not immune from suffering. He became the paragon of loss and misery. The further agony of that was spiritual: he agonized over the randomness that misery comes to the righteous and the unrighteous alike. Another lesson we read on St. Francis Day is from the Book of Job. It includes a few examples of the book's long list of things the Creator knows that humans cannot know, things the Creator does that the creature cannot do. Here is a taste of the section. (It almost sounds like a quiz for an episode of “Animal Planet”):
"Do you know when the mountain goats give birth?
Do you observe the calving of the deer?
Can you number the months that they fulfil,
and do you know the time when they give birth,
when they crouch to give birth to their offspring,
and are delivered of their young?
Their young ones become strong, they grow up in the open;
they go forth, and do not return to them. (Job 39:1-4)
The Almighty goes on and on with these rhetorical questions of Job. At length, the grand theophany sparks revelation. It promotes in Job a deep spirit of humility. Job drops his intellectual inquiry and does not return to it. Job falls into speechless awe at the unfathomable power and majesty of the Holy One. He surrenders. It is not that he gains intellectual insight, but that God’s awesome holiness absorbs all pretension. Job is taken into God’s terrifyingly unsearchable love.
I suppose we must concede: our brand of wisdom will not earn us access to the reign of God, it will only hide it. We are better off realizing we are infants, where God is concerned. That makes us candidates for the generous revelations of God.