Christianity is about changed lives. Full stop. The depths of metaphysics and cosmology — questions about the nature of reality, the universe, and the divine — are completely irrelevant to us and to our faith. But, that doesn’t make those questions any less compelling to many of us. And so they have always been a temptation, something that we can easily mistake for faith, but is really a distraction from it. Today I’d like to look at a quick story from the life of Abba Zeno that deals with this in a bit of a humorous way.
The story goes like this:
Some brothers came to see [Abba Zeno] and asked him: ‘What does this saying in the book of Job mean: “Heaven is not pure in his presence?”‘ [Job 15.15]. The elder replied, ‘The brothers have passed over their sins and inquired about heavenly things. This is the interpretation of this saying: “God alone is pure,” therefore he said, “Heaven is not pure.” (Abba Zeno 4)
The monks come to Abba Zeno with a question that has nothing to do with the life of faith, but has nonetheless piqued their intellectual curiosity, a line from the book of Job that unfavourably compares heaven to God. Abba Zeno points out that they’ve strayed from matters of their concern, and then uses this fact to answer their question: Heaven is not pure, compared to God, because it’s filled with people who are likewise never able to keep their hearts, minds, and eyes where they should be.
I don’t think matters of theological speculation are bad things to contemplate, but the moment they start to distract us from the real things of faith — vigilance, self-knowledge, discernment, repentance, forgiveness, and learning to live well with one another before God — they become stumbling blocks just as much as other temptations.
In the life of faith, we need to keep first things first. And in the interest of keeping first things first, I’ll leave it at that.
Matthew Root 