Ignorance

“ For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. ”

The Religion Page announces our sermon this morning as “Ignorance by the Rev. Peter Hansen.” This is not a misprint: for I see myself as an expert on this subject. Ignorance , as I know it, is a field as vast and misunderstood, as unexplored and unknown as, say, my study of Latin in seminary. Ignorance is ours when we embrace it. When it comes to Latin, or most any foreign language, I am dumb as a post.

I studied architecture in college and got a bachelor of architecture degree from Berkeley. Never having actually practiced architecture, I found work in contracting. I became an estimator and project manager for specialty industrial coatings contractors. I heard a definition for architects, engineers and contractors. An architect is one who knows a little about many things, and goes on to know less and less about more and more until he knows nothing about everything. An engineer , on the other hand, begins knowing a lot about very little, and goes on to finally know everything about nothing. A contractor , however, begins by knowing a lot about many things, but gets to know less and less about less and less until he knows absolutely nothing about nothing: due to constant contact with architects and engineers. When I finally knew nothing about nothing, 16 years after I began, I left contracting forever. Now I am an expert on ignorance.

There are many kinds of ignorance. There is not knowing . That is like the knowledge a baby has of calculus. The baby has never heard of it, never been taught even the basics of imaginary numbers or logarithms, and couldn't enter a discussion on Greek letters of any kind. This is simple ignorance . There is no moral judgment for one who simply doesn't know something. Most of you don't know much Swahili, but that's okay.

There is a second kind of ignorance where one has been taught certain information but is incapable of understanding it or incorporating the knowledge into his life or language. This is how much I understood of the two calculus classes I took at Cal. It just washed over me in floods of calculus problems and left me unchanged. I didn't get it. I read the book, I tried doing the math, I attended classes, but it didn't sink into my thick skull. This kind of ignorance is the same as being dumb . There isn't really any moral judgment in trying to know something and being unable to learn it. I did just as well with my 3 rd quarter of physics. This was physics for architecture students. The 3 rd quarter of this important phase of my education was atomic physics. Atomic physics at Cal meant to use the Greek alphabet twice over for any kind of magnetic field, pulse, charge, quantum leap or trajectory of subatomic particles after being bombarded with gamma rays that had just been discovered up at the Cyclotron. And that was the part I liked. But to me it was just a pretty light with sparks, loud noises and a funny smell. What actually happened, and how to describe it mathematically was beyond my grasp entirely. I would make a great architect . Of the reason they had us take this class on atomic physics, I was and still am completely ignorant.

A third kind of ignorance comes when a person has heard the lesson, has understood it enough to make a decision about the knowledge, and then decides he doesn't want to know it. This is also called “ invincible ignorance .” This is pretending not to know. This is a retreat from reality. There are many examples of this, and there is a moral judgment that attends this kind of ignorance. I learned some of this kind of ignorance while I was at Cal, too. It was there I learned to disbelieve in God the Son.

I had always been religious and had believed the stories told me about Jesus and His crucifixion, His resurrection and His coming again to judge the world. But along the line I came to doubt the Christian faith and what it concludes from those historic facts. I came to doubt the record of the Bible and those things inscribed by men of long ago. I began to think up my own religious convictions and believe that there is my truth and your truth , and in fact, I said, everything is true . There are just some truths that run deeper than others. This is a very convenient belief when you don't want moral judgments and you don't want to think very deeply or observe the effects that your actions have on yourself and others. Invincible ignorance of Christ's offer of salvation is a societal epidemic of the mind and heart—it rules our planet, writes our textbooks, teaches our university students and creates our entertainment industry. The movie, “The Passion of the Christ” was not even nominated for Best Picture in the Academy Awards for this last year, even though it was the most successful film in a decade and was talked about by every adult in our nation.

Light has entered the world. If one is blind, he can't see the light. But Christ opened the eyes of the blind . If the once blind man were to say he still couldn't see, and go back to begging, it would be a great sin against the grace of Christ's healing. In the Old Testament, when a person had violated the Law in ignorance, had unknowingly injured a neighbor or his property, there was a sacrifice to be made and all forgiven. Lev. 4:27-28 But when a person knowingly broke God's Law, there was no sacrifice for it, and the person must be exiled or killed. It was the strictest of standards.

Jesus came with forgiveness of known sin, of purposeful sin; of sins we were too ashamed to admit to anyone. The witness of Jesus Christ's life, death and resurrection became the watershed of humanity: which either saves a person or determines eternal punishment. There will be no other way, no second chance.

Saints Peter and John were entering the Beautiful Gate of the Temple when they met a lame man begging. Peter's prayer in the Name of Jesus caused this man's legs to be healed and he went dancing into the Temple. It was the Sabbath day, so the religious police arrested Peter and John for healing on Saturday. Peter made a wonderful speech, proclaiming Jesus as God's Son, whom the Jews had delivered for execution, denying Him before Pilate, even though he wanted to free Him. “But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and… killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses.” Then Peter indicated the man who was healed, saying: “And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know: yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.” Who could deny it: they all had seen the lame man at the gate. They were stricken by Peter's accusations. So he added, “And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.” Acts 3:12-19 For making this offer, Peter and John were put in jail for the night by the priests who had condemned Jesus to death. These priests had set a guard at Christ's tomb to insure He would stay buried, and when the soldiers returned shaken by what they'd seen of the angel and the empty tomb, these priests ordered a lie to be told about these events. This is invincible ignorance.

St. Paul would stand at the very center of Greek paganism to proclaim knowledge of the Unknown God for whom the Greeks had erected an altar. Even in their ignorance, they had acknowledged the “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being… For we are also his offspring… And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.” Acts 17:22-31

Ignorance is darkness. Christ is light. This much physics even I can understand. If Christ is light, then go to Him and be enlightened. To remain in the darkness is to cling to sinfulness, as Jesus said: “Light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.” John 3:19-20

St. Peter speaks of the conduct of Christians to be an example of God's grace in this world. If we obey the laws, respect authority, use our liberty to do good to everyone in the fear of God, we will silence the condemnation that comes even today against the Church through the ignorance of foolish men. It is our prayer that some of these fools will join us fools in the faith of Christ crucified, and so we love them and treat them fairly—even when they don't treat us in love or fairness. We live for Christ and as Jesus did, we must come under the misjudgment of some. If we are in the light, then His light must shine in us for His sake, and for the sake of those who still live in ignorance.

PFH+