Barneyisfat

I went stargazing with my German friends the other night. When we first walked together into the large field, the sun was still setting and just a few stars were visible. As the sun set further into the forest and our eyes began adjusting to the relative darkness, we began to make out a few constellations. We quickly identified the big and little dippers, mainstays of the night sky. Joe, our pastor for the week, taught me to find the north star in correlation to the dippers. The basics were clear and easy.

As the night grew darker and our eyes let in more and more starlight, more stars appeared. It was fun to find more constellations. Soon there were so many stars that I stopped trying to find the constellations and just started staring into space. I saw something of interest and decided I wanted to know where at in the sky it was. I looked for the big and little dipper … but I simply couldn’t find them anymore. There were so many new and different stars in sight that I couldn’t find the old familiar standbys.

I think that theology is a lot like this. At first we are shown the basics. “God is love.” “Love others.” We learn other tidbits of theology through these basics. As we continue to grow and our theology deepens we see more and more of the vastness that had been hidden for so long. Eschatology, angelology, hermeneutics, how many angels can you balance on the head of a pin? All of these things come running into our minds and we are thrilled with the new discoveries. Until we realize that, try as we may, we can’t pinpoint the basics. We know they are there – we know that God is still love and that we must still love others – but we can’t find them in the mess of new thoughts.

Should we therefore stop studying theology? Should we run inside and hide after identifying the first twelve stars the night has to offer? No, but we must remember to continually look to the basics that we may never lose our footing.