Church of the Crossroads, Sermons

Church of the Crossroads
Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
October 9, 2005 Neal MacPherson

THE CHANGING GOD
Exodus 32:1-14
Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23
Philippians 4:1-9
John 17:20-24

Recently, I have noticed how many people refer to God as “the God of Christianity” or “the Christian God” as if there were one, standard, uniform conception of God to be found throughout scripture and the history of the church. Usually, when people refer to “the God of Christianity” with a kind of disdain or dismissal, they have in mind a conventional conception of God. I would call it the “cosmic Santa Claus” idea of God. God is like a cosmic Santa Claus who brings favors to those who are nice and misfortune to those who are naughty. In other words, God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. With this kind of God in mind, the task of human beings is to be good enough so that they will be among those who are rewarded. This conventional understanding of God is to be found in the faith of children, but it always surprises me when adults hold the same view. As we adults make our way along life’s path, we cannot help but encounter human suffering that is undeserved and not a consequence of anything that has been done. One would hope that the experience of unmerited or undeserved suffering would change the idea of a God who sits out there apart from the world rewarding the righteous and punishing the wicked. Unmerited suffering surely complicates this simplistic conception of God. As we grow in our human experience and reflect upon our understanding of God in light of these experiences that have no explanation, we come to know that there is a mystery that surrounds the whole idea of God, and that we can never fully understand the ways of God, or the nature of God, for that matter.

Back to the folk who speak of “the God of Christianity,” or the “Christian God” with disdain and a dismissive attitude. Sometimes, if I am bold enough, I respond to these folk, “Now, exactly which God do you mean when you speak of the Christian God?” “If you are going to dismiss God, I would like to know which God you are dismissing.” “If it’s the Cosmic Santa Claus God, then I’m entirely with you.”

The truth is that even in the Bible the conception or understanding of God evolves and changes. It is not that God changes. It’s just that the way human beings understand God changes.

In the beginning of scripture, God is the all-powerful creator who by a word creates the world and all that is in it. God is in charge. In the beginning, there is no reciprocity between God and the creation. It is true that the “earth is the Lord’s and all that is therein” but there is no obvious ongoing mutual interaction between God and the creation. This is also true when it comes to human beings. When God interacts with someone like Abraham, the initiative always comes from God. God calls Abraham to go to a far country, and Abraham goes. Abraham wouldn’t even think to question the ways of God much less question God directly. Even when God asks Abraham to go and sacrifice his son Isaac, Abraham obeys without question.

With Moses, the human understanding of God begins to change. Moses and God interact in a much different way than do Abraham and God. We recall the story of the burning bush and God’s call to Moses to lead the enslaved Hebrews out of Egypt. As with Abraham, the initiative for the contact still comes from God, but Moses participates in the encounter as a lively, legitimate partner. We read, “But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’” The lively interaction continues back and forth.

In today’s reading from the 32nd chapter of Exodus, we have a further example. The story is a familiar one. Moses is up on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments. He has been gone a long time, and the Israelites get a little anxious. They proceed, with Aaron’s blessing, to make an image of a golden calf which they then worship as the gods who brought them up out of the land of Egypt.

God sees what the people have done and up there on the mountain says to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, and of you I will make a great nation.” So far, we have the familiar story. God will reward the righteous but will most assuredly punish the wicked.

Moses, though, begins to argue with God. The conversation is filled with both pleading and demanding and humor. Moses reminds God of God’s commitment to this people. How, then can God consume them? Moreover, Moses appeals to God on the basis of God’s reputation. What kind of reputation will God have among the Egyptians if God destroys the very people whom God has chosen as God’s own people? “Turn from your wrath,” says Moses, almost as a command. “Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people.” After all, God has made a promise. “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.” Are the promises of God conditional? The encounter between God and Moses ends with God changing God’s mind. God repents, and does not bring disaster upon the Israelites. God does not remain the same, and so it is little wonder that our human understanding of God cannot help but change also.

Notice that Moses does not plead with God on his own behalf, but on behalf of the community. Notice also that for the first time in the Bible, we have a reciprocal relationship between a human being and God. Moses, a human being, actually persuades God to change God’s mind! It is almost as if Moses is God’s partner.

The key idea is that of relationship. God is not a cosmic Santa Clause, up there and out there, dispensing favors upon those who are good. Rather, God chooses to enter into a mutual and reciprocal relationship with human beings and with the whole of creation. This is a key notion in the way the whole conception of God evolves in the Bible. Our understanding of God is relational. Even here in the Book of Exodus, God is envisioned as a covenantal God, a God who desires and is ready to enter into a deep abiding relationship with God’s own people.

There is still a long way to go, however. Here, the reciprocal mutual relationship between the divine and the human is limited to Moses, the representative and leader of the people. Eventually, every human being will have the opportunity to be brought into this kind of relationship with God.

In my own understanding, the most profound flowering of this relationship between the divine and human is to be found in the Gospel of John. Jesus prays to God not only on behalf of his disciples but on behalf of all who will come after them.

- John 17: 21-23

From the understanding of God as a covenantal partner much like a mutual relationship between two separate human beings, we now come to an understanding of God as an indwelling presence. God is in all and all are in God. This, of course, is not to say that God is no longer a transcendent reality, a reality beyond humankind. God is still God. Human beings are still human beings. Yet, in John’s Gospel, the relationship between the two is marked by a deep intimacy and mutuality and reciprocity.

There is so much more to be said. Every time we begin to speak of the nature of God, we enter a world of complexity and mystery. Our understanding continues to grow and change. So, my friends, when we hear someone speak of the “God of Christianity” or the “Christian God” as if there is only one, standard understanding of God, let us find the courage to open up the conversation by asking, “Now, which God do you mean?” The conversation that might follow may prove not only to be interesting but also a means by which by both partners in the conversation may grow in faith and understanding. And what a gift that would be.

Let us now sing Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s hymn By Gracious Powers, a hymn that expresses the faith of a mature person of faith, a hymn that gives thanks for God’s abiding presence in our lives, even when life’s journey takes us along paths difficult and hard to understand.

Amen.

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