BACK TO BASICS: GOD

     A couple of months ago several people from our church were talking about how to deepen the spirituality of our congregation. And the discussion led to talking about prayer, and someone said: it would be good to have a really basic “how to” sermon about prayer. That’s next week, the second in a six part series on the basics of who God is and what our response to God might be.

      So in preparation for next week on prayer, let’s do some thinking today about the one to whom we pray: God. And let’s remember that the purpose of sermon time is not to answer all questions and end discussion, but to phrase the questions and begin the discussion.

      The Apostle’s Creed starts off: I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. Many among us would gladly alternate Mother, or substitute parent, but the basic thing to note is that the creed speaks about God in the role of creator. All our talk about God is metaphorical.

      Today I’m going to share with you in a very personal and direct way how I work with the notion of “God.” It’s the result of growing up in church, questioning pastors and Sunday School teachers, reading the Bible and theology and philosophy, dealing with disappointment and fulfillment. I believe it will end up being in the mainstream of Christian teaching, but it may not sound like that to you at first, because I have taken a long journey through philosophy to get to my faith statement. So just as I try to love and accept you, I hope that you can love and accept me and the route I take to get to the place where I can join you in faith.

      First, if we believe that God is the creator of the universe (and I do), then God is not a thing in the universe. Not an object. Not an entity. Not even a disembodied force. God didn’t decide 16 billion years ago: I’ll make light and matter and energy, and I’ll make these relationships we have come to call natural “laws” and I’ll make the forces---gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, the weak force. And then, hey, I’ll be an object myself (or an energy or a force.) People who believe that are called idolaters. We know that we’re not supposed to be one of those but seldom do we push ourselves to discard idolatrous thinking completely from our mind and spirit.

      But if we are willing to push ourselves a little here is the first step: if we take seriously that we believe in God as maker of heaven and earth, then God is the reality behind the electrons and the laws and the forces. Or as the theologian Paul Tillich preferred to put it: God is the “ground of being.” Not another being, but the ground of all being. God is the one who makes being possible (and light and objects and natural “laws” and forces.)

      The Hebrews started in this direction when Moses heard God say from the burning bush: “I Am that I Am.” Not sky god or thunder god or rain god or earth god. Let’s acknowledge that there are Biblical texts that undermine this direction. God may not be a rock or a statue or a totem pole but God is described in some texts as a force. “God has bared his mighty arm.” God has smitten….whoever. The wind that blew back the Red Sea.

      But then listen closely to the story of Elijah at the mouth of the cave: there was a mighty wind, but the Lord was not in the wind. Then there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. Then there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. Then there was a quiet voice. That is, the Biblical writer can, at times, get beyond the calamities that claim our attention to acknowledge that God is not to be identified with them.

      So what about all the smiting and other times when God seems to become identified with a force of nature? Are we going to say that’s a limited and naive perspective we are trying to outgrow? If we do, let’s acknowledge that it’s a dangerous thing to take those texts that make us uncomfortable and just attribute them to ancient naiveté. We need to be respectful. Nevertheless, we have the opportunity to stand on the shoulders of spiritual and intellectual giants: we should be able to see farther. The creator is not like the created; God is not a thing or a force.

      Second, the creator seems to have chosen a rather indirect manner to move the creation to wherever it’s going. God gave commandments concerning the tree of knowledge. God gave commandments concerning honoring father and mother and not stealing and not killing, creating at the same time the possibility that the forbidden fruit would be tasted and that parents might not be honored and the things might be stolen and people killed. And left it up to societies and cultures to deal with issues like the possession of knowledge and the care of parents and the respect for others and the reverence for life. And history is a record of how limited and flawed people have dealt with their freedom and responsibility.

      Not only do human beings in their freedom head in all directions, but the basic building blocks of nature are a lot more mysterious and unpredictable than we think they ought to be. About a century ago Heisenberg demonstrated that there is randomness in the physical order. Physics deals only with probabilities. Einstein didn’t like that: “God does not play dice with the universe!” And he dedicated the last two decades of his life to finding a unified theory where all the parts fit neatly together. He did not succeed nor have those who followed him.

      That’s almost as round about as evolution itself, with species randomly generating variations, and some variations surviving because of some favorable characteristic.

      There seems to be a raging debate in our culture about whether the Bible or Darwin got it right. Let me simply suggest this: if you’re trying to answer the question who (created the universe) and why, the Bible got it right. If you’re trying to answer the question what (came first) and how, look to those who are building on Darwin.

      Christians are creationists. We believe as the first article of our faith that God created the heavens and the earth. We teach it. We affirm it. As an article of faith. We don’t try to mix it in with the measurements and calculations of science and prove it. And we don’t depend on the public schools to do the job that only we are competent to do: affirm as an article of faith that God created the heavens and the earth.

      God is so cautious about tinkering with creation that God does not seem to need to move it in a straight line. And so God entrusted a special relationship to an obscure people called the Hebrews, who alternately respected and abused it. And sent prophets to offer guidance in their own fragile and limited way. And finally sent Jesus, God’s only son, to get us redirected. And those who responded to Jesus have sometimes got it gloriously right with global acts of compassion and sometimes got it tragically wrong with religious persecutions and wars.

      So God created a universe with randomness and unpredictability, and humans with freedom and responsibility. First the gases and lumps and velocity and gravity, and then life emerging with single cells and more complex functions, then animals with relationships to each other, then humans with feelings and dreams and relationships and imagination.

      I greatly prize the freedom that comes with the transcendence of God. I’m glad that God does not micromanage. Perhaps that comes from being relatively comfortable in life. I might want God to be more hands on if my family were starving.

      So we don’t nervously scurry around to point out the gaps in scientific knowledge in order to say: See? That’s God a work. Not if we believe in God as the ground of all being. Rather we are grateful to scientists who measure the stuff of the universe: the matter and the energy and the relationships between them. That’s not our task.

      Our task is to point beyond the universe to that which gives it being and gives it meaning. In so doing we use metaphors for God such as Father/Mother/Parent and King, and the relationship of God with the Universe as Kingdom, and our accountability to God in our freedom as Judgment. These are metaphors---they are meant to stretch this wonderful gift of human language and understanding. When we literalize them, we are right back with the idolaters again, ranking the creator along with the created.

      But we don’t affirm with the deists that the creator is like a watchmaker who put together all the parts of the universe and wound it up and left it alone to run for eternity. (We’ll think more about this next week when we talk about prayer.) We affirm that God engages us through the guidance we call commandments, through prophets and teachers (including those of other faiths), through reason, experience and tradition. And most importantly, through God’s Son Jesus Christ.

      We have hardly begun to explore the healing and the compassionate intervention God does with the world through these means. But if we live in faith, perhaps a little piece of this direction will come our way. Some family will eat food we provide and say: God is with these people. Some one will go to a school in Nicaragua provided in part by our donations and say: God is with these people. Or receive help in a disaster. Or come among us for spiritual companionship. Or ask profound questions of a church school teacher. Or be lifted in faith by an anthem. And say: God is with these people.
That God is not the projection of our small imaginations. That God is the Creator of heaven and earth. That God is the ground of all being. And the ground of all good.