What is God Like?

3 Pentecost C June 9, 2013

1 Kings 17:8-16 (17-24) Psalm 146

Galatians 1:11-24 Luke 7:11-17

 Lectionary Link

  What is the Lord God like?  The writers of the Bible  use many words trying to answer that question.  They use poetry and stories and salvation history to try to relate to their reading community, what the Lord God is like.

  What is the Lord God like?  The writer of the Psalms tells us:   The Lord is the one who made heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them;  and who keeps the divine promise for ever; and who gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger. The LORD sets the prisoners free; the LORD opens the eyes of the blind; the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;  The LORD loves the righteous; the LORD cares for the stranger; he sustains the orphan and widow, but frustrates the way of the wicked.  That is what the Lord is like.

  Is this what we really think God is like?  Those who see this world with hunger, oppression, sickness and  people neglected,  challenge this view of God whose existence would only be proved through realized justice and total eradication of hunger.  People who are trying to remove the word God as relevant to their lives want to challenge us theists as being intellectually impaired.

  We need to remind ourselves and all people who defend God poorly that the Psalmist did not write:  The Lord God forces justice to be practiced in the world.  God forces people to share their food so that no one is hungry.  God does not heal the blind because God does not permit blindness in the first place.

  Certain notions of God cannot be defended when this world is not exempted from random and non-random events of pain, suffering and afflictions?

  Perhaps the most adequate answer is that God is this pure freedom of creativity and rather than monopolizing all power through a divine tyranny, God allows a genuine degree of true freedom in everything within the divine environment.

  What would be totally unthinkable is the world as fixed and static entities that always interacted in robotic ways to avoid the competitions between systems which cause pain and suffering.  Automated, driver-less cars make sense for having no accidents; automated entities in this world would be lifeless and soulless life because potential conflicting peoples and entities is what characterizes genuine freedom and this is what makes us persons and not robots or machines.  We know ourselves to be people with a degree of freedom and we assume this is expressive of a greater being of creative freedom and it is not difficult to project personality upon this Great Being, because we believe the freedom that has created personhood, is a higher form of personhood than our own.

  So how would a God who cares for justice and yet permits freedom as the only conditions suitable for their being authentic personhood; how would such a God be and act towards us and everything that is not God?  How would God respect our freedom and yet instruct us to use our freedom in the best possible way?

  The task of any parent is to be a persuader since a parent wants a child to choose what is good and right.  This is what God is like; God persuades and lures us to surpass ourselves in excellence.  The Bible is a book written by very imperfect people under the influence of the divine lure to do what is right, just and loving.  The Bible heroes are those who as it were, “took the bait” from the divine lure and in their lives instantiated, lived out, what God is like.

  So have the examples of Elijah, Jesus and St. Paul.  In ancient times the child of a widow was very important to her life, not just for the obvious reason of mother-child relationship but also for continued connection with the father’s family as a social and economic safety net.  The prophets of God had to show what God was like as an example to us all?  Why?  In the play of freedom in this world we can become practitioners and victims of a kind of social Darwinism; living as though only the fit and the strong have the full right of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  The weak have no right to survive; they are a drag upon the life of the strong and therefore expendable.

  In biblical religion this sense of inevitability of the rights of the strong and powerful is countered by the revealed law and by the witness of the prophets who remind us what God is like.  And even people who have law can limit the function of the law for the benefit of a privileged few.  Even the law can become but a regulation between rich and powerful people stepping on each other’s toes.

  St. Paul saw that the boundaries of Judaism in practice were too narrow; there were too many outsiders to Judaism.  St. Paul came to understand that God was not one to exclude and so he devoted his life to the inclusion of the Gentiles in the message of God’s love.  He wanted to show the Gentiles what God was like; one who loved justice and one who cared for the widow and orphan and for the poor.  If God was to be good news in this world, the news about God was to be an actual reality for the most embracing common good.

  Today, we have the great task in our lives to show this world that the word God has a functional reality in this world.  If we don’t live the reality of God as love and good news and justice, then we may be responsible for the creation of more atheists, people for whom God seems to have no useful reality.

  The Bible and the people of the Bible did not finish the work of justice and love in this world, because they were not perfect and neither are we.  The Bible only represents a cursory start to the never-ending work of love and justice in this world.  Today, we have the examples of Elijah, Jesus and Paul who showed us what God is like; God cares for the lives of the vulnerable and God does not have any outsiders.  Let us continue in this work of showing the people of our lives what God is like.

  People who profess God can can actually live very unloving lives.  People who do not profess God can actually live just and caring lives.  But why not profess God and also strive to be just and caring in our lives?  For us, there is incredible significance in the experience of knowing an inspired sense of Great Love and Justice that challenges the human ego as being the sole origin of such wonderful attributes.

  We confess God, as indeed the best way, to check the humanistic ego, because we know that the power of our dominion when the humanistic ego is not checked by Higher Love and Justice results in horrendous outcomes.

  Let us go forth and show this world what God is like.  Let us the live the good news.  Let us love one another, love mercy and justice and walk humbly with our God.  Amen.