For several years, I have carried the phrase Vocatus Atque Non Vocatus Deus Aderit with me wherever I go. “Bidden or Not Bidden, God is Present.” I read once that Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1961) had these words inscribed above the entrance to his home. Jung found it in the Latin writings of Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), a Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, social critic, teacher, and theologian. I read these words in an undergrad philosophy course and they are the words I remember most.
The sentiment is thoroughly biblical. One needs only to read Psalm 139:1-17, or Acts 17: 24-28 where the Apostle Paul tells his Athenian audience that the God he serves, the God who made the world and everything in it, this same God who created humanity with the hope that we “should seek God, and perhaps feel [our] way toward him and find him,” this God is the One in whom “we live and move and have our being.” This God, bidden or not bidden, is always present.
This fact is at the heart of the teachings of Jesus as well who promised that He would ask the Father to give us another Advocate, One Who would be with us forever…. You know [this Advocate], because he abides with you, and he will be in you. I will not leave you orphaned (John 14.15-19). The entire force of the passage embraces the promise that God will be with them (and us) – always! It is a promise that does not depend in any way on us at all, but rather on the very nature and character of God Himself.
I found a line from a poem, apparently based on the quote by Erasmus, by some unknown author, that well sums up our attitude and our thoughts, “Bidden or unbidden, God is present at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end, at our birth, in our daily lives, in tragedy and celebrations, and at our death, God is present.” So, we remain undaunted and even positive, standing our ground, in the midst of this transient and brief tempest. If God is with us, who or what can ever stand against us?
In Luke’s Gospel we read that Cleopas and his companion left Jerusalem, distraught over the recent events that had culminated in the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus, the one in whom they had placed all their hopes. And to make the situation appear even worse, they were now having to contend with an amazing claim from some of the women, and attested by some of the men, that this same Jesus was once again alive. It was all simply too much to hope for, and so they chose to leave Jerusalem, the place where their hopes, once burning so bright, had been extinguished. In point of fact, they were running away!
....Frederick Buechner asked a question in his classic sermon on this text, "Where Is Your
... 'Emmaus'?”
We all have one. Maybe it’s the mall where the noise of commerce and the rush of people keep you from thinking about life. Maybe it’s a bar where the booze and the beer nuts help numb you to the more bitter truths that swirl outside the windows of that darkened, smokey room. Maybe it’s a matinee at the movies where you go to take in what Hollywood has to offer… Maybe it’s the TV remote that takes you away from it all as you mindlessly channel surf every evening. We try to escape our troubles. That’s when we head to Emmaus. Maybe we can escape our grief and troubles.
Or we can lean into the promise of Scripture and learn the lesson of the Emmaus Road experience, that God, the Father through Jesus and in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit will never, not ever, abandon us. Bidden or not, God is present. Always!
Peter +
