said in between his sighs and the groans of his love, My tears have become bread
SERMON 223A 215
Who is my God?
4. A certain lover of invisible goodness, a certain lover of invisible eternity, said in between his sighs and the groans of his love, My tears have become bread for me day and night, while they say to me every day: Where is your God? (Ps
42:3). How, indeed, could the groans of a lover avoid becoming his bread tears, so that he feeds on them as on the enjoyment of food, and finds relief in weeping as long as he cannot see what he loves, while they say to him every day, Where is your God?
If I say to a pagan, "Where is your god?" he will show me idols. If I break the idol, he will show me a mountain, show me a tree, show me some worthless stone from a stream; something, you see, he has taken from among many stones, and set in a more honorable place and bowed down and worshiped, that is his God.13 "There you are," he says, pointing with his finger, "there you have my god." When I jeer at the stone, when I take it away, when I smash it, when I throw it away, when I show my contempt for it, he points his finger at the sun, at the moon, he points at any star you like; one he calls Saturn, another Mercury, another Jupiter, another Venus. Whatever he likes, wherever he points his finger, he will give me the answer, "There you have my god." And because I can see the sun and can't smash it, can't pull down the stars, can't overturn the sky, he considers himself rather superior in showing me visible things, and pointing with his finger at whatever he likes, and saying, "There you have my god."
And then he turns to me, and says, "And where is your God?" When I hear Where is your God? I have nothing to show his eyes, I find nothing but blind, barking, jeering minds; I've nothing to show the only eyes he has to see with. The one I do have that I can show him, well, he doesn't have the eyes to see him with. It's a relief to weep, like feeding on bread in one's tears. My God, after all, is invisible; the person talking to me is demanding visible things when he says, Where is your God? I, however, in order to come to my God, as it says in the same psalm, meditated on these things, and poured out my soul over myself (Ps 42:4). My God is not below my soul, but is above my soul. How can I reach something that is above my soul, unless I pour out my soul above myself?
And yet to this bold brash fellow, demanding visible things, pointing to visible things, exulting in visible things, I will and must attempt, with my God helping me in any way he likes, to offer an answer.
O.K., fine; you're saying to me, Where is your God? My answer to you is: "Where are you yourself?" That's my answer, I repeat, and I don't think it's an unfair one. You asked where God is, while I ask where my questioner himself is.
He's going to say, "Here is where I am; you can see me, I'm talking to you." And I say to him, "I'm inquiring about my questioner; I can see his face, see his body, hear his voice, take a look at his tongue; I'm inquiring about the one who turns his eyes to me, who wags his tongue, who utters his voice, who asks questions because he wants to know the answers. The sum total of what I m talking about is the soul."
So I'm not going to waste any more time on you. You say, "Show me your