Josh Broward
June 7, 2009
-- This sermon is part of the ONE PRAYER SERIES. --
(( Before the sermon, we will watch this video.))
If you don't believe in God, you are an atheist. If you do believe in God, you are atheist.
Huh?
The early Christians were called atheists because they rejected the gods of Rome. They had the audacity to say that Rome's long-honored gods were false and that there was only one true God. So people called them atheists – people who don't believe in the gods.
Good Christians are still atheists in this sense today. Stan Martin was a professor here several years ago. He was fond of saying, “So you're an atheist … OK, tell me about the God you don't believe in. I probably don't believe in him either.”
Let's read our Old Testament Lesson: Isaiah 44:6-20.
J.B. Phillips wrote a little book called, Your God Is Too Small, and in it he argues that the greatest barrier to faith is poor, weak, small, piddly images of God.1 So often, we believe these bad images of God, and they really mess us up. Let me tell you about the Gods I don't believe in – at least I don't believe them most of the time.
God is not the whammy hammer. You know those little games at arcades or outside restaurants with the big rubber hammer. There are little moles or creatures who pop up at random times, and you have to pound them back down as fast as you can. Some people believe God is like that, just pounding us down as fast as he can - “Oooh, there's another uppity human! I'll get him! Pow! Pow! Pow!” God is not the whammy hammer.
God is not your father or mother. Yes, God is our “heavenly Father,” but God is not your mom or dad. God does not possess your father's weaknesses or your mother's quick temper. If your Dad was hard to please, if your Mom was a push-over, don't confuse that image with God.
God is not old-fashioned. God is definitely old, but God is also very, very young. Infinity goes both ways. Tradition is important to God. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But reformation is equally important to God. God is all about carrying forward the old traditions in new powerful ways. Jesus' biggest conflicts were with the old-fashioned religious leaders.
God is not the global wealth distributor. When we look out at the world and we see people living in poverty and kids dying before they go to kindergarten because they don't have clean water, then it's easy to blame all of that on God. But God isn't up there pressing buttons and pulling strings and sending money to some countries and taking it from others. God created the planet and the means for wealth, and he told us to share it. The distribution is our problem.
God is not a harsh, pressing coach. This is probably my greatest temptation. I believe that God really does expect a lot from us, but sometimes all I can hear is that whistle blowing in my ears: “Faster, Broward! Push harder, Josh! Don't quit! Don't give up. No rest, no rest, no rest!” God is not like that.
God is not a teddy bear. Sometimes we don't really want a God. Sometimes we just want this idea of a warm protector, something we can cuddle up with on dark, scary nights. God is much bigger than that.
God is not a TV dinner. I don't think you have these here in Korea, but in America – the land of super junk food – we have TV dinners, with these little compartments. Peas over here, mashed potatoes over there, baked chicken in the middle, and a little bit of cobbler for desert. Everything is neat and orderly, defined and easy, definitely convenient. God is not like that – some judgment and love on each side, some salvation for the main course, and heaven for desert. God is way messier and much less convenient.
God is not our friendly cruise director: “OK, now is everyone having a good time in life? Remember to put on your sunscreen. Ooooh, look, dolphins!” As my dad used to say, God is not primarily concerned about our happiness, but God is concerned about our goodness and the goodness of our world.
God is not gray. God is not lifeless, joyless, humorless. You might think God is like that when you look at some Christians and some churches, but God is full of joy and humor and laughter and hope and love and color and beauty.
God is not male. God is bigger than that. Both males and females were required to make humans in God's image (Genesis 1:27).
God is not white. God is way bigger than that. The human Jesus was probably a person of color, with coffee-and-cream-brown skin. But God himself is bigger than any color or ethnicity.
God is not American. Christianity is not American. America was fairly late to enter the Christian religion – only for the last 25% of Christianity's existence. God is bigger than any nation or people or group.
God is not Christian. It's not really fair for any of us to speak of “the Christian God.” God was God long before Christianity, and God is not religious. It's not like God needs a religion to understand himself or to relate to himself.
We could go on and on. God is not a sissy. God is not an environmental abuser. God is not definable. God is not in a box. God is not a beggar who only wants our money. God is not a church employee. And one of my personal favorites: God is not a nagging wife. So many gods, so little time.
We are like those people Isaiah talked about. We have crafted these gods out of our own imaginations and experiences, and we trust in something that can't help us at all. Yet most of the time, we can't bring ourselves to ask, “Is this idol I'm holding in my hand a lie?” (Isaiah 44:20).
But deconstructing all of these false gods is not enough. This still leaves us atheists and faithless, rootless and anchorless. We need to disbelieve these small, inadequate gods, but we equally need to believe deeply in the one, true God.
Today is Trinity Sunday. Around the world today, people will celebrate God as the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As Christians, we believe that God is fundamentally one and three. There is one God, but in a deep mystery, God exists as a family: Father, Son, and Spirit. All are one, but each is unique.
((Earlier in the service we read two passages, which you should read now if you are reading along on the net: John 16:5-15 and Galatians 3:1-14.))
There is no way that I can explain God to you today. But when we think of God as Trinity (Father, Son, and Spirit), a few windows open up to help us understand something of who God is.
First window: God is mystery. It has always been amazing to me that the Christian theologians who were most important in the development of the doctrine of the Trinity were also the most emphatic about God's mystery. Take for example, Tertullian, the guy who “invented” the word Trinity. He said, “That which is infinite is known only to itself. … our very incapacity of fully grasping Him affords us the idea of what He really is.”2
The Bible pushes us consistently to think of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – one God. But when we face this reality, we must admit that we don't really understand it. God is an amazing mystery. “Holy God to whom all praise is due, I stand in awe of you.”
Second window: God is diverse. We have heard some about this already from the Native American theologian, Richard Twiss (Video: "My Neighbor's Music"). If God is truly Three-in-One, then God is diverse at the very core of God's being. God – the essense of all that is – is diverse!
This has profound implications for us as a community. Here in this church, we will always have differences of opinion, differences of taste, and differences of theology, but I hope that we will never let those differences drive us apart. Somehow, we draw closer to God as we find unity in diversity. Somehow, in God's great mystery, we come to know God more fully when we come to know and to love people who are different from us.
Third window: God is humble. When we read about how God interacts with God, it is amazing how humble God is. There is this beautiful give and take of love and affection, a mutual submission and uplifting.
Jesus only does what he sees the Father doing. The Holy Spirit only speaks what he has heard from Jesus. The Father shares his glory with the Son, and the Son returns glory to the Father. The Spirit brings the Son glory. Everything that belongs to the Father belongs to the Son, and the Son shares it freely through the Spirit.
The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are completely open to each other. They have nothing to prove. There is no competition. They are completely secure in each other's love. They are fully humble and cooperative.
Any time we see arrogance or pride, that is a lack of God. Any time we see competitive worth-proving, that is a lack of God. God is humble.
Fourth window: God is welcoming. In John 17, Jesus prayed one long prayer for his disciples: “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. … Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. … Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them” (John 17:22-26).
God is a diverse, loving family, and God welcomes us into that circle of love. In Jesus' greatest, longest prayer for his disciples, he prayed that we will all be included in the flow of love between Father and Son, that we will enter the river of glory and love in the Family of God.
In one of Jesus greatest stories, he tells about son who ran away from home and wasted his inheritance on wine and women. When he comes home, he is covered in dirt and pig slop, but the Father runs out to greet him. The Father hugs him and kisses him and welcomes him into the family again. God, the Holy Trinity, is constantly welcoming us into the loving life of God.
Fifth window: God is flesh. There is a Mexican meal called chili-con-carne. It's chili (or stew) with meat. God invaded our world in the human baby Jesus, and theologians call that the incarnation. That means literally: the en-flesh-ment of God, or God becoming meat. God took on flesh. God became muscle and tissue and bones.
Our greatest window to understanding God is not a set of truths or logical principles. God's greatest self-definition is within a 33 year period of history. God's greatest answer to all of humanity's problems is expressed within the life of one human body. Jesus is God-con-carne – God with meat or flesh. God wanted us to understand God, so God took on flesh in Jesus of Nazareth.
This means a lot for us. The incarnation, the en-flesh-ment of God, implies that we will not convince people about God with logical arguments or powerful speeches. Peter Rollins, an Irish theologian explains, “God is not revealed via our words but rather via the life of the transformed individual”3 and – I would add – via the transformed community. People will not be very attracted to God by what we say, but they will be deeply attracted to God if we live God, if God is re-incarnated, re-enfleshed in us, if God takes on a body again in us. And this is what God is after all the time! God wants to live in us so that he can show himself to the world through us and heal the world through us.
God is not like us. God is not like those humans in authority over us. God is not the embodiment of our deepest fears. God is not the giver of our cheap hopes. Don't believe in those false gods. God is bigger. God is better.
God is … the Holy Trinity – Father, Son, Spirit. God is mystery. God is diverse. God is humble. God is welcoming. God is flesh.
So the next time you start talking about religion or God with someone, and they say, “I'm an atheist,” you can say, “That's OK. I am an atheist too, and so is God.” Then, the two of you can start talking about the gods you don't believe in, and … maybe … just maybe … your friend will begin to see the one true God living in you.
2 comments:
I think that one of the greatest dangers of the EC movement (reflected in many of the current posts that Nick is pushing around right now in his "disappointment" thread) is that in many circles, it's become far too deconstructionist, about what we aren't rather than what we are.
What God isn't, rather than what He is.
And about which publishing houses we truly trust to give us the coolest books about it. :P
The question that continues to haunt me is this: How do we continue to make sure that we don't turn momentary reactions to weaknesses in culture into traditions which will haunt us in the future when the culture no longer says those things?
Your post is cute...but it's also guaranteed to offend the sensibilities of a lot of people. Which, I suppose, makes you a little like Christ. But only a little.
As the Holy Priesthood, we're supposed to be embodying God toward other people. How's that going, so far?
Great stuff Josh! It makes me want to read the book you referenced. I wish I would have been in church on Trinity Sunday to hear you give this!
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