WITHOUT APOLOGY
I Peter 3:13-16
Matthew 22:41-46
"Always be ready to make your defence (apologia) to
anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do
it with reverence and gentleness".
"No one was able to give him an answer, nor
from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions."
Isobel always asks me the most difficult questions at
breakfast. I guess she knows that if she
asks me at night time I would simply close my eyes and pretend to be
asleep. But at breakfast I am supposed
to be wide awake and know all the answers to all life's most perplexing
questions, especially theological, philosophical and political. The fact that most of these have been asked
many times over the centuries and have never been fully answered by the best thinkers
does not satisfy her enquiring
mind. If I say "I simply don't
know," she invariably replies, "well you are supposed to know!"
The truth is, the really difficult questions about life and
death, suffering and pain, the seeming inability of people and nations to
pursue what is right, good and just, about why the poor suffer harshly and the
rich get away with so much, and about God, perplex all of us. And they do so because they are complex
questions that defy simple answers. In
fact, every attempt at an answer raises more questions ad infinitum. One of the greatest teachers who ever lived,
the Greek philosopher Socrates, refused to answer his students' questions. He simply put further questions to them,
forcing them to search for the answers themselves. In the process he opened up
fresh perspectives which enabled them to see their questions in a new way that
took them further in their journey of knowing, and deeper into the truth beyond
words. No answers would have done that.
When Jesus was asked questions he often replied by telling a
story or parable which not only forced his enquirers to think more deeply, but more
importantly challenged them to live and act differently. Jesus did not provide them with brilliant
responses that satisfied their minds, but took them beyond their comfort zones
with a challenge that unsettled them. No
wonder they stopped asking him questions.
As Eugene Petersen translates our text: "That stumped them,
literalists that they were. Unwilling to
risk losing face again in one of those verbal exchanges they quit asking
questions for good!"\
In the second century after Christ there was a small group
of Christian theologians who came to be known as the Apologists. They tried to convince unbelieving but well-educated
pagans about the truth of the Christian faith taking seriously the admonition
of the first letter of St. Peter: "Always be ready to make your defence to
anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you." The Greek word which is translated "make
your defence" is apologia, from which we get our word
"apology." The apologists were
not apologising for their faith; but defending it from intellectual attack.
Reading their writings today I don't think that their answers were always very
convincing. But it was then as it still
is today important to give a reasoned account of what we believe to be
true. Yet it is also true that such
arguments seldom make converts. In the final analysis it was the death of the
martyrs rather the reasons of the apologists that was the seed of the
church. Courageous and compassionate deeds
carried more weight than words. That is
why the witness of Pope Francis is so powerful.
When he went to Auschwitz last week he did not make a speech apologising
for the failures of the church to prevent the Holocaust, though he had
previously done so. He simply prayed in
silence. He knew that the best Christian witness is to do what
is right and to pray without denying that there is a time and place for words,
that is, for apologia.
I am ashamed of much in Christian history, but I make no
apology for speaking about faith in Christ in a time of doubt, of hope in God in
a time of despair, or of love for one's enemies in a time of violence. I do not claim to have all the answers to the
questions that are being asked with good reason by many people, but with St.
Paul, "I am not ashamed of the gospel." (Romans 1:16) I do not claim that we Christians have all
the truth, but I do claim that faith in God is fundamental to being human in a
world that is marked by great inhumanity, a world that no longer believes in
the God-given dignity of all people; I do claim that hope in God's future for
the world is fundamental to saving us from plunging headlong into global chaos; and I do claim that love is the only antidote
to fear, greed and hatred that is tearing global society apart. For these fundamental truths I am without
apology. These are not truths which only
Christians cherish, but they are fundamental to being Christian. They have to do with the way we live and the
way we act in the world. "Always be ready to make your defence to anyone
who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet" says
Peter, but when you do so, "do it with reverence and gentleness".
John de Gruchy
Volmoed 4 August 2016
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