Is.

22: 19-23
Cycle A Rom. 11: 33-36 27 August 2017
Mt. 16: 13-20
INTRODUCTION:
Let us concentrate on a very brief but punchy
passage from the end of Romans 11:
"How deep are the riches and the wisdom
and the knowledge of God! How inscrutable
his judgements, how unsearchable his ways."
This passage completes a major
section of the Letter from
Chapters 9-11.
1
In those chapters,
Paul treats about
Israel, God's Chosen
People, in relation to
the Church.
Do not forget
that Paul was
a devout Jew.
1 In the meantime, he
received the revelation
of Jesus. He knew then
that he had to re-think
much of his religious beliefs
as a Jew.
What is the effect of Jesus'
Resurrection on the ancient
Jewish tradition?
1 How do we make sense
of the old Jewish
religion in the light of
Jesus' dying and rising
and gloriously reigning
as King?
1
How do we understand
Gentiles (Greeks and
Romans) coming to the
faith when salvation was
supposed to come through
the Jews many of whom
were rejecting the
Christian Faith?
1

For a Jew who has

become a follower of
Jesus, this becomes a
cause of great confusion.
This question is being treated
in Chapters 9-11.
1 At the end of the
discussion, as a theologian,
Pau throws up his hand in
self-surrender or rather
exalts in wonder and
worship and says,

"I don't really get it" and blurts: "How deep are
the wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable
his judgements, how unsearchable his ways."
2 Similar theological issues exist!

How do you reconcile

God's foreknowledge
and human freedom?
2

If God knows
everything
beforehand and his
knowledge can't fail,
am I really free?
2

If I am not free,
am I responsible
for my behavior?
2

Or how do we
reconcile God's
universal wish of
salvation with
damnation?
2

Or if God's love is
infinite, how do
we reconcile this
with human
suffering?
2
How could God
allow the innocent
to suffer so much?
How do we square
God's love with a
child having
leukemia?
2
This is what a
theologian does for a
living but at the end of
the day many times the
theologian concludes as
Paul did
"How inscrutable his judgements,
how unsearchable his ways!"
3
This is not
fundamentalism or
fideism or superstition.
This is not giving up in
unbelief or in Gods
non-existence.
3
Rather it is a
prayerful
surrender at
the end of a
long struggle to
know.
3
Here are two examples to illustrate!
First, a person you
have known for a long
time and lived with at
close range; yet he will
still surprise you when
he says and does things
that remain
inscrutable to you.
3
I have known couples married for
more than 50 years who become
more mysterious to each other than
they were when they started their
married life.
3
Here are two examples to illustrate!
Second, children trying
to understand the
motivations of their
parents and yet huge
swatch of their parents'
actuation remains
inscrutable to them.
3
The friend in the first example
and the parents in the second
can say in the words of St. Paul:

"How inscrutable are his/her/their

judgements, how unsearchable
his/her/their ways."
 CONCLUSION:

When dealing with God, we are dealing

with a person. Persons are always
mysterious.

+ART
 CONCLUSION:

Now we deal with an

infinite divine person!
Our minds are finite; compare that
with God's infinite power. Multiply
that chasm in an infinite degree.
+ART
3
CONCLUSION:

God is "inscrutable in his judgements

and unsearchable in his ways."
Do we just give up on him?
We surrender in faith in the
manner of a child. +ART