2 TIMOTHY 3:14-17
LUKE 18:9-14
Gordon E. Ellis
October 24, 2004
HOW WE PICTURE GOD DETERMINES OUR WORLDVIEW
Our church is currently working with members of the Greater Southington JEWISH Congregation to prepare our newest MUSICAL. It’s a production called Children of Eden, and it promises to be our most ambitious and most EXCITING musical EVER. If you’ve LIKED our PAST musicals, then you DON’T want to miss THIS one. SO, get your tickets SOON!
Now Children of Eden is a JOYOUS, enchanting FAMILY musical, which speaks LOUDLY to the 21st Century. It’s BASED on the first 9 chapters in the book of Genesis in the OLD Testament. It traces the story of the FIRST human beings, Adam and Eve, and their adventures, both in the Garden of Eden, AND after they are expelled FROM it AS they FACE and struggle with BOTH the delights AND the heartbreaks of PARENTHOOD. The musical THEN goes on to share the story of Adam and Eve’s two SONS, Cain and Abel, and the consequences of their DEADLY rivalry. In Act 2, we journey with NOAH as he VALIANTLY sails the ARK into the unknown, and ultimately begins life ANEW, after the waters of the great FLOOD subside. It’s a WONDERFUL, wonderful musical! And THROUGH it, we see that these OLDEST of human tales are, STILL today, deeply connected to our everyday lives as children, as parents, and as SEEKERS of TRUTH. And AS we watch this show, we begin to ask some VERY important questions -- about FAMILY, about LOVE, about social responsibility, and of course, about RELIGION. It VALIDATES our daily struggles. It COMFORTS us as we try to make some SENSE of our own PAIN and SADNESS. It CHALLENGES us to REAFFIRM our BELIEFS. AND, it SUSTAINS us in our SEARCH for the TRUTH. I’m TELLING you, friends: you DON’T want to miss this musical, coming in mid-November.
Now, AS you WATCH the musical, you’re also going to struggle with something ELSE, which anyone reading the Bible OFTEN struggles with. And SINCE today is what I call BIBLE Sunday -- because we gave BIBLES, at our Bible Breakfast, to our SECOND graders and SIXTH graders -- I think it’s important to TALK about this issue. And the ISSUE is the nature of GOD. In the OLD Testament, we get a very DIFFERENT picture of God than we get when we look at JESUS in the NEW Testament. In fact, even just WITHIN the Old Testament, there are some VERY different pictures of WHO God IS. You’ll see it even in the MUSICAL, where GOD will both UPSET you and DELIGHT you. Now personally, I attribute MOST of the differences in the Old Testament to an EVOLUTION in our HUMAN thinking and understanding. Over time, we humans have GROWN and EVOLVED in our understanding of WHO God IS. In addition, because WE humans can only think very LIMITED and FINITE thoughts about God, EACH of us only experiences one little DIMENSION of WHO God IS, and so we all IMAGE God a little bit DIFFERENTLY. I like to think that we ALL learn different NAMES for God, in a sense. Even at different times in our lives, we learn NEW names for God. Sometimes God is our JUDGE! Sometimes God is our Shepherd. Sometimes God is our TOWER of strength. And it’s like that in SCRIPTURE as well. And then, in JESUS, we get still ANOTHER picture of God. And as Christians, WE believe that our BEST picture of God is the ONE that we see in JESUS. But for our WHOLE lives, that question NAGS us: WHO is GOD? And HOW does God relate to US? And it’s important to CONSIDER such questions because WHO God IS for us determines our WORLDVIEW, how we VIEW the WORLD. AND, it determines our LIFESTYLE, how we LIVE in the world. SO, it’s CRITICAL to keep GROWING and DEEPENING in our understanding of WHO God IS.
You know, it’s strange: when I ask ATHEISTS to DESCRIBE the God that they DON’T believe in, they INVARIABLY describe a God whom I wouldn’t believe in either. I mean: it’s ALWAYS a God that represents something less than HUMAN love, let alone DIVINE love. But it seems IRONIC to me that what most THOUGHTFUL atheists BELIEVE usually MESHES with, rather than contradicting, the message of JESUS. HOWEVER, instead of SEEKING, and perhaps EMBRACING, the God who loved the world SO much that He GAVE His ONLY begotten Son, that whosoever BELIEVES in Him may not PERISH but have eternal LIFE, these ATHEISTS, instead, are content to REPUDIATE a God whom they heard about, probably back in their YOUTH sometime, from some fire and brimstone, fundamentalist preacher, who may have embraced CHRISTIANITY, but CLEARLY was never converted to the Spirit of CHRIST. And the GOD of this PREACHER, this GOD that these sensitive and thoughtful atheists REJECT, is too often a God who resembles a Marine DRILL sergeant just handed a bunch of hopeless recruits. It’s a God who HAS to keep our DEPRAVED human nature under CONTROL, and who herds us forward in a path of virtue that is not LOVE, but love’s very OPPOSITE, which is FEAR. SO, LIFE for us, instead of being an unbroken JOY in the Lord, becomes dominated by DUTY, because you see: DUTY calls when LOVE fails to PROMPT. And SO, instead of being a voyage of discovery and adventure, LIFE becomes a matter of being ESCORTED on a well-charted COURSE by EXPERT pilots, because these expert pilot-PREACHERS see, as their primary purpose, PERSUADING people of the dangers and wickedness of the WORLD, FROM which people MUST be SAVED. And I call such people modern-day PHARISEES, like the one in our Scripture Lesson today. And BECAUSE these modern-day Pharisees believe that all things WORTH knowing are already KNOWN, they HOLD onto their convictions SO fiercely and SO clearly that they often make the REST of
You see: the PROBLEM begins when the Bible is taken LITERALLY, people thinking that it’s like a NEWSPAPER, that it MEANS exactly what it SAYS, and SAYS exactly what it MEANS. And those who TAKE the Bible literally often DO so without considering its CONTEXT, its SYMBOLISM, or its LARGER message. And I believe that MOST people who take the Bible LITERALLY DO so because THEY’RE looking EASY answers to very COMPLEX questions. BUT, it is WRONG to write off intellectual and moral ambiguities simply because you don’t have the security to live with uncertainty. Furthermore, it is WRONG to require CERTAINTY to the point of BLIND stupidity. And not only is it WRONG, but it’s downright DANGEROUS. After all: if GOD is like a Marine drill SARGEANT who has been handed a bunch of hopeless recruits, then those who BELIEVE in such a God will become like SOLDIERS, who are prepared to do ANYTHING they are TOLD to do, no matter WHAT, OR to WHOM. And friends, as I see it: CHRISTIAN fundamentalism can be JUST as dangerous as ISLAMIC fundamentalism! And on 9/11, we SAW just how DANGEROUS that can BE.
And to ME, WHAT we saw on 9/11, and a LOT of what we’ve seen go on SINCE then, from ALL parties involved, are diametrically OPPOSED to Jesus, whose central THEME was that there is something intrinsically SACRED, something intrinsically deserving of RESPECT, something intrinsically calling for and entitled to LOVE in EVERY single human being, no matter WHO they are or WHERE they live. You see, friends: SEEKERS of truth can build communities of LOVE and PEACE, while POSSESSORS of truth CANNOT, because they have too much ENMITY toward those who DON’T possess the truth as THEY see it, OR who possess some OTHER truth. I always thought that it was IRONIC that in WW1, the helmets of GERMAN soldiers were inscribed with the words Mit Gott, fur Konig und Vaterland (WITH God, for King and Fatherland). But don’t WE do the SAME thing? In VERY subtle ways, don’t we sometimes ACT as if JESUS were our
And it’s true on a PERSONAL level too! I was just flabbergasted recently to hear that the famous preacher, Jimmy Swaggart, a biblical LITERALIST, said in a SERMON about a MONTH ago that IF a gay man EVER looks at him romantically, I’m going to KILL him and tell God he DIED. Friends, HOW can a Christian SAY such a thing? After all, there is absolutely NO AMBIGUITY in the Bible about KILLING another human being. It is absolutely WRONG! It’s EVEN one of the 10 Commandments! BUT, there’s a LOT of ambiguity in the BIBLE about HOMOSEXUALITY. And EVEN if you DON’T agree with someone’s SEXUALITY, that person is STILL a BELOVED child of GOD. And God loves ALL people just as SURELY as God loves US!
You know: we gave Bibles to our KIDS today because WE believe, with St. Paul in Second Timothy, that the BIBLE is able to give us the WISDOM that leads to SALVATION through FAITH in Christ Jesus. BUT, we HAVE to remember that the Bible is a SIGNPOST, NOT a HITCHING post. It ALWAYS points BEYOND itself. It’s always saying: Pay attention to GOD, NOT to me. Pay attention to GOD. And the God of the PROPHETS, who saw God AHEAD of them as much as ABOVE them and within them; and the God of Jesus Christ; and the God of MARY, who sang the Magnificat, and of Mary MAGDALENE, whose SINS were those of WEAKNESS, but certainly NOT of malice; and the God of Peter and Paul, THAT God WAS, and IS, and ever SHALL be a God of LOVE; a God of ALL people, NOT just SOME people; and a God who wants US to CONTINUE God’s work of CREATION until that day when OUR children, and ALL the children of this world, live in a world without FAMINE, a world without BORDERS, and a world that is FINALLY at ONE and at PEACE. And friends, THAT is the God whom WE see in Jesus Christ! And it is THROUGH the lens of Jesus Christ that we must LOOK at EVERYTHING else that we READ in the Bible, so that our image of God is ALWAYS filtered through CHRIST. Furthermore, we need to REALIZE, as John Robinson, our Pilgrim ancestor said in his farewell address to the Pilgrims as they were leaving
Friends, I hope you will THINK and PRAY long and hard about this issue, because it’s EXTREMELY important, ESPECIALLY at THIS particular time in the history of the world. HOW we read the Bible, and HOW we picture God, WILL determine HOW we VIEW this world and INTERACT with its PEOPLE. A LITERAL reading of the Bible will produce a VERY different kind of people and a very different kind of NATION, than will be produced by THOSE with an EVOLVING understanding of God, which is WHAT you will see in Children of Eden, which, of course, is how I got STARTED THINKING about all this.
Anyway, I’d like to CLOSE my sermon today by reading you a brief STORY about the God I see in the Bible. And even though God is pictured here as MALE, MY image of God is BIGGER than BOTH male and female, so I NEVER call God HE, unless I’m quoting the Bible or this BOOK. THIS is a story by an Episcopal priest named Martin Bell. It’s called RAG-TAG ARMY. Listen.
SHORT STORY: Rag-Tag Army by Martin Bell (in The Way of the Wolf)
With thanks to my teacher & mentor, Dr. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. for some of thoughts & wording found in this sermon.