Saint Gregory the Great, sixth century monk and pope, said that when preaching to people who were intelligent and wise (that is, the sophisticated), the preacher should always “admonish” them “to stop knowing what they know.” That is, part of the preacher’s task—strange as it sounds—is to remind the intelligent of their ignorance; those capable of their limitations; those proud of their need for humility. “The wise are to be admonished to stop knowing what they know,” he said[1] If we can avoid being offended, it’s good advice. And timely.
It is, of course, plainly human advice, aside from anything to do with religion. As Wendell Berry wrote once, it’s the “first sign of intelligence…to know when you don’t know or when you’re being unintelligent.”[2] Any good teacher or any good coach knows that, as well as any student ready to learn or any player ready to become better. To do nothing but praise someone is to make that someone a fool; wisdom and character are the fruits of teaching, affirmation, and correction, gentle but firm truth. The son of a football coach, I know what this looks like. I’ve experienced it myself, and it’s made me a better person, maybe still arrogant at times but at least not ignorant, aware at least that all knowledge begins in humility, in knowing that I don’t know.
It makes sense, therefore, that Christ would urge the same. Preaching the kingdom of heaven, the peace of God, Christ comes up against the theological arrogance of the comfortable elite, the expertise and political power which beheaded the Baptist. He comes up against cultural and rustic ignorance in Galilee, among those confident in their faith and their religion and in the way things always were; which is why they were blind, Jesus said, and why he had nothing else to say but to remind them of the “day of judgment,” when then they would finally know, but tragically and in pain.[3]
Christ’s praise of the “childlike” in Matthew’s Gospel is therefore praise for what T. S. Eliot called the “way of ignorance.” “In order to arrive at what you do not know/ You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance,” he wrote.[4] It’s what Saint Augustine called the “meekness of piety.”[5] That is, the reason Jesus praised the childlike is because they were the ones who let go of thinking they knew it all, the ones humble enough not to be blinded by either culture or politics or theology, the ones humble enough to be taught by God.
And so, beyond the shallow sentimentality of self-congratulation, what does this mean for us? What would Jesus say to us? Would he praise us or talk about judgement? What do we honestly think? What do you honestly think?
As a preacher—and I know this may sound strange or even a little scandalous—I often am in the position of not being able to preach the gospel; instead, I find myself first preaching about how I can’t preach the gospel, about how we can’t even hear the gospel today (and I include myself in this). And that’s because we bring to the Gospel so many of our allegedly sophisticated prior commitments, our assumptions, all the stuff we tell ourselves we already know and won’t let God or anyone else tell us otherwise. Because what the Orthodox theologian, David Bentley Hart, says about us is true, that as modern people we tend to exhibit a “willful spiritual deafness.”[6] Whether we lean left or right of the questions of the day, most of us are anything but “childlike,” anything but intellectually or emotionally open to the truth which sometimes comes to us with the brutality of the prophet, the truth which tells us we’re wrong, which tells us we need to repent. That’s not a message we like to hear.
Some just can’t hear what the Church has to say about certain things; some only listen to Jesus when he says things that don’t bother them, reading only those parts of the gospel which fit with a sentimental view of God. Often we’re impatient or incredulous about the truth which is sometimes hidden in the other party, the other denomination, the other religion, in that one difficult person we just really don’t like. In the Church, in society; for example, in so many universities today, so many of us act like we have a right not to hear opposing views. All of it is symptomatic of “willful spiritual deafness,” our common affliction, our deliberate failure to listen to either God or neighbor or both.
Now what I am not advocating here is some sort of shallow liberal indifference or vague disingenuous openness to whatever half-baked opinions you happen to come across. Usually when I talk this way, too many people mistake me for a liberal, or for what they think is a “liberal.” I am nothing of the sort, and I don’t recommend it. Of course, nor am I a “conservative,” as that term is conventionally misconstrued. Rather, I am a Catholic, which I do recommend.
What I’m trying to say is that if we want to come to any sort of knowledge, any sort of understanding, any sort of truth, then we need to be humble enough to hear that truth—whether it comes from the mouth of a pope or parochial vicar; whether it comes from the mouth of a progressive or a traditionalist or whatever other label we inflict on ourselves and others. If you’re not open to hearing the truth from all of the above, then it’s you, not them, that’s the problem. It’s self-reflection you’re in need of not vindication.
Again, I’m preaching to myself here, preaching against my own ignorance, which I, like you, probably only grudgingly admit. But I think, if we’re honest, we’ll admit it’s a widespread ignorance; it afflicts most of us. And the danger is that not only is it socially blinding and dangerous, but ultimately spiritually blinding as well. That is, what Jesus is asking us to give up is that sort of willful deafness, that spiritual blindness, that pride which blinds us not only to others but also to himself. That’s the sin, the obstacle, the stubbornness for which I need to repent; and perhaps not only me, but you too—you sinners just like me, whom I love very deeply.
And so, I don’t want to lecture you on how to believe or what to think on this or that issue. I preach the gospel and teach what the Church teaches, and I always will. I’m not going to mess around with that. I respect you and where you’re coming from and what you think, and I hope you respect me too. We love each other, and so we respect each other. Nonetheless, that said, perhaps we should take heed to Jesus’s words today and become childlike again, childlike before God and childlike before each other. Letting go of our combative bravado, embracing humility, let us together take the little way of ignorance, meek and open to the truth, even though the world just keeps shouting.
Let us be childlike again. Because really that’s the only way we’ll ever know the meaning of those words, the only way we’ll ever be able to take him up on his offer. We the labored and burdened, it’s the only way we’ll have his rest.[7] Amen.
[1] Gregory the Great, Pastoral Care 3.6.7
[2] Wendell Berry, The Way of Ignorance, 60
[3] Matthew 11:2-24
[4] T. S. Eliot, “East Coker” (1940)
[5] Augustine, Teaching Christianity 2.7.9
[6] David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God, 312
[7] Matthew 11:28
© 2023 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield
