Lent 3: The Mystery of the Unknown God

Exodus 17:1-7
Psalm 95
Romans 5:1-11
John 4:5-42

As we journey through the Lenten desert, the readings from the Hebrew Scripture and the Gospel of John should hardly surprise us. Tales of water that flows from a rock, and Jesus’ offer of water that will quench thirst for ever, gushing up in those who drink it as a spring of eternal life; these are part of the imagery with which we have grown up, and heard a myriad of times. Yet, certainly the Israelites in the desert were amazed as the water poured forth from the rock. The woman at the well was perplexed and intrigued by what Jesus said; she had no context for his words. But still, they had the courage to remain in the presence of the unexpected, in the presence of the mystery and thereby discern the presence of the God in the encounters. For most of us, however, water in the desert is the expected Lenten imagery. It does not surprise because we are so used to it. It is relegated it to the status of “familiar”, and somehow its very familiarity blinds us to further possibility or revelation, keeps us safe from mystery We are all guilty of this – this domestication of the unexpected, the taming of surprise. And when we do not or cannot tame it, we ignore it altogether. With blinders to the unexpected, so much of that which is really surprising in the Scriptures and in the Tradition, often falls completely off our radars. It is one of the challenges of the spiritual life neither to domesticate nor ignore the surprising places, the surprising encounters, of our lives; but somehow, rather – like the Israelites in the desert, like the woman at the well – to remain with them and thereby discern in them the possibility of revelation.

On account of our own blinders, on account of our own unwillingness to be surprised, we often do not understand where God is revealing God’s self in our lives, we often miss the encounter with mystery. The disciples in the Gospel of John are no exception. With their blinders of social convention, they can not understand why Jesus is talking to a woman – and this particular woman. They return from their shopping only to find Jesus in conversation – and theological conversation, at that – with someone who is so completely beyond the social pale. It’s not enough that his conversation partner is a woman, but a Samaritan woman who is “living in sin”. They are surprised certainly, but instead of remaining in the moment of the unexpected and allowing the unexpected to challenge them with something genuinely new, they continue to try to make the situation fit within the only framework they are willing to accept – the inherited framework of who’s in and who’s out, who is clean and who is impure, what’s holy and what’s profane. Inattentive to the possibility of mystery, they miss the beauty and revelation in the encounter between Jesus and the woman.

In his poem, Lenten Thoughts of a High Anglican, John Betjeman writes about another encounter with a “loose” woman, the one whe calls “the Mistress” because, as he says, she has “more of a cared-for air than many a legal wife.” Among the English, John Betjeman is perhaps one the most well known and best loved of 20th century poets. He wrote with a real passion for the beauty of an England he saw as passing away – village life and village ways, with its ancient church at the centre. But, also he wrote with a love of the ordinary, not to mention with satiric humour about the less attractive of human foibles like self-righteousness and uncharitableness. In 1972 he was made Poet Laureate by the present queen. While most definitely within the high church tradition – as this poem suggests – he was nothing of a Newman. He was an Anglican by birth and conviction who believed the Church of England to be the Catholic Church in England; and in this poem reveals that very Anglican spiritual inclination to trust the created order as worthy to reveal something of the nature and presence of God, particularly when a certain vehicle of that revelation may be surprisingly unexpected, perhaps even socially unacceptable.

Undoubtedly, for Betjeman there is something attention-grabbing, even arousing, about “the Mistress”, there is certainly something of the air of sexuality and sensuality about her – her clothes, the sound of her voice, the movement of her body. For Betjeman these seem to sit well and without contradiction alongside the sensualities of catholic liturgy itself – the sound of bells, the “vapoury…veil” of incense, the beauty of the church furnishings. As he sits there in church he takes nothing in as simply familiar and while the clergyman encourages blinders –

The parson said that we shouldn’t stare
Around when we come to church,
Or the unknown God we are seeking
May forever elude our search.

while the parson encourages blinders, Betjeman allows himself to take in everything that is going on around him, the entire beauty of the created order available to his senses, both in the form of the liturgy and in the form of the “the Mistress”, without domesticating it or ignoring it. He stays with it and contemplates the possibility that a “hint of the unknown God” may just be revealed even in the “unorthodox and odd”; and – as one commentator noted – reminds us “of the idea that the incarnation of God is mysterious and inexplicable.”

Mystery, whether the mystery of being called into covenant as were the children of Israel or the mystery of a chance encounter with a stranger at a well, or even the mystery of beauty in another or the world – mystery. is by its very nature that which we will never and cannot ever fully comprehend. It reveals itself in the ordinary, so it is easy to domesticate and tame – fit it into our limited perspective. It presents itself in the surprising and unknown, the unexpected, so it is easy to ignore, allow it to drop off outside our field of vision. Sometimes, we can use the ultimate incomprehensibility of mystery to get us off the hook from having to engage with it at all, because the encounter with and journey into mystery is not for those who want definitive answers. Indeed, the nature of mystery is such that each time we think we have a grasp on it there is always another level, further depth. All we can do is stay with it, remain in its presence. Like the woman at the well, all we can do is continue to engage with the challenge mystery throws up for us: “Sir, you have no bucket? Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well?” (John 4:11-12) Like the Israelites, all we can do is stick with the journey to which mystery directs us without fully knowing where the journey will take us, even wondering “Is the Lord among us or not?”. (Exodus 17:7) Like Betjeman in his encounter with “the Mistress”, all we can do is keep alert to our senses, trust our intuitions and be open to mystery in the most unexpected of places, and never think it “unorthodox or odd” that we “glimpse in [them]…a hint of the Unknown God”. Wherever mystery beckons, it always points to the deepest truths; it always points to God.

Do you want to engage with mystery? Look for it in the unexpected and allow it to surprise you. Look for it in the “unorthodox and odd”, in the situations where you don’t feel quite comfortable; in the places where you do not want to go; then remain there awhile and experience what it might reveal. Widen your field of vision to include it, and then stay with it without trying to domesticate it or explain it too quickly. If we cannot do this, it is then, rather, that “the Unknown God we are seeking may forever elude our search”.