Discovering God 8 - God as Forgiving

    "I don't get mad. I get even." I don't remember the first time that I heard someone utter those words, but unfortunately it was not the last time...or even close to the last time. Over my years of ministry I have watched some of the most loving, considerate, self-sacrificing people be eaten up by anger over some past injustice. They have never been able to let go of some hurt that has been done to them. This causes them to obsess over ways to get even...to make the other person hurt as much as they have been hurt.

    This sense of getting revenge, of getting even, is a particularly human trait. Animals don't get even. A lion comes and eats a young gazelle...the other gazelles don't come together, form a lynch mob and go after the lion. That kind of life and death is simply part of the way the lion-gazelle world works. Humans on the other hand have this amazing ability to take everything personally, hold grudges and desire revenge. There are places in the world (Balkans, Middle East, and Northern Ireland for example) where grudges have been maintained for hundreds of years and are ready to explode into ethnic violence at a moment's notice. What people seem to have failed to notice however is that the revenge of one person or one ethnic group upon another never accomplishes anything. It only engenders more anger and hate. It destroys rather than heals.

    As we consider God as forgiving this may be a good place to begin. It is a good place to begin because it will allow us to see the purposes behind God's forgiveness. One of the concepts that I have been presenting from the outset of these articles is that God has a plan for the world. The plan is that human beings will become capable of loving God, loving one another and caring for creation. Sin (meaning choices and actions which lead away from loving) tears at the heart of God's plan. Sin breaks relationships and distorts them in ways that do not allow for loving relationships between persons and between persons and God. Sin runs counter to God's plan. Somehow then sin needs to be dealt with.

    Many of us assume that the way God dealt with sin varied between the Old Testament and the New Testament (sort of pre and post Jesus). In the Old Testament God dealt with sin through punishment (fire and brimstone kind of stuff). In the New Testament God dealt with sin by sending Jesus who offered us forgiveness. While that is the assumption of many, even a cursory glance at the Old Testament will show that forgiveness has always been God's modus operandi. We can see this clearly even in Genesis. Adam and Eve disobey God. They sin. So how does God deal with this sin? God makes them suffer the consequences of their actions, but then God forgives them. We see this in the fact that even after expulsion from the garden God makes them clothes and cares for them. The same is true of Cain and Able. Cain slays Able and lies to God. God does not zap Cain with a bolt of lightning or turn him into a newt. God forgives Cain and protects him. While I can only speculate as to why God would do this (other than it is the very nature of God to forgive) I will do so anyway.

    First God's forgiveness allows for restored relationships. As I mentioned above, God desires to be in right relationship with us. If God cannot forgive then our relationship with God will always be broken. We, as sinful human beings, do not have the capacity to be "good enough" to maintain our relationship with God (or with anyone else for that matter). God's forgiveness allows our relationship with God to be renewed and restored. Second God's forgiveness allows us to make new beginnings. Consider for a moment what it would be like to be in a relationship with God (or again with anyone else) where there was no forgiveness; where God always brought up the things we had done wrong. The only way in which we would see ourselves then would be as losers; as those who could do no right. Thus we would be trapped in our old sinful way of living life. Forgiveness, however allows us to leave behind our past and start over. Forgiveness gives us the chance to love God and others more fully this time than last. Thus we become more like the people God wants us to become.

    We are fortunate that the God of this universe is one who forgives. We are fortunate that God forgives not only one time, but an inexhaustible number of times. We are fortunate that forgiveness is at the very heart of God. The challenge for us then is to believe that this forgiveness is real and allow it to set us free to daily live new and loving lives.

    Next week: God and Creation

Discovering God 7 - God as Judging

    Once upon a time the Bible and all that is in it was considered to be absolutely true in every respect (as history, geology and biology). Then Western Europe moved into the Enlightenment. The world moved into an era of reason and science. As scientific discovery accelerated people began to question many of the most reverently held beliefs of the scriptures. Could there really have been miracles that violated the rules of Newtonian physics? Could Mary really have been a virgin after conception and after giving birth? Could the world really have been created in six days (and be only 10,000 years old) when we can see layers and layers of fossils stretching back over millions of years? Christians had their faith in and understanding of scripture put to the test, as many of us still do as we struggle with some of these same questions.

    Along this enlightenment path we have also struggled with our image of God. We have moved away from a God who is very "Old Testament", meaning angry and vindictive and have moved to a kinder, gentler God. We have imaged a God who is completely tolerant, who loves the sinner, but not the sin, and who opens God's arms to all regardless of who they are and what they have believed or done. This image of God then has put into question one of the most widely used (in both the Old and New Testaments) images of God; that of judge.

    God as judge is part of the language of the prophets, the psalms, the teachings of Jesus, the letters of Paul and the Book of Revelation. It has a long history of usage within the Christian tradition in which God is portrayed as the wise old man, sitting on a throne, who judges each person either according to their deeds (Old Testament) or their faith in Jesus (New Testament) and then makes a decision about their ultimate destiny. If you are faithful the judge sends you to heaven. If you are not faithful God sends you to hell. We can see this image in Jesus' language about separating the sheep and the goats (one of my son's once favorite songs had a line, "Sheep go to heaven and goats go to hell."). This image makes us nervous because God is supposed to be nice and kind. God is supposed to look at all of our sins and the world's ills and like a loving aunt say, "It's OK, you really didn't mean it. Here, have a cookie." God is not supposed to hold us accountable for our actions.

    While we may wish God were so, there is a significant problem with casting aside the image of God as judge; and that is how then will God be able to recreate the world as a place where justice is done? As we consider the image of judge let us remember what God's saving plan is all about. God's saving plan is not simply getting people into heaven; it is about redeeming this world and everything in it. God is about recreating this world as a place where we love God, one another and care appropriately for creation. This being the case then, God must make first make some decisions about what conduct brings this about (life giving ways of being) and what conduct does not bring this about (death dealing ways of being). This is the first part of God as judge. God judges which ways are proper for restoration.

    God then must also decide if our actions (both as individuals and as societies) help to establish this new creation or diminish its restoration. God must judge whether we are being partners with God or standing in opposition to God and God's work. God must make a judgment. If there is no judgment, if God merely allows everything regardless of whether it enhances God's rule and reign or restricts it, then injustice, pain, death and destruction will be the final outcome of this world. There will be no new creation and new world in which there is neither, death, mourning or crying. God must ultimately hold us accountable for our choices and beliefs or we will never become the people God wants us to be. God will judge because God desires us to become fully human and fully alive and not crippled by the evil we have created. God as judge leads to life and hope.

    Next week: God as Forgiving

Discovering God 6 - God as purposeful

Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Those were the words one of my former church members used one day to describe the Bible. We were in a Wednesday morning men's Bible study and the discussion had wandered away from the text and on to a more general discussion of why we ought to study the scriptures. It was in that context that the person at the table said we study the scriptures because they are God's Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth (BIBLE…if you had not connected the letters). I asked him what he meant. He replied that his understanding of the Bible was that it was a compendium of ethical instructions (some straight forwardly delivered (the Ten Commandments), some we had to figure out (Jesus' parables), and some that were theologically driven (Paul's letters)). The scriptures were offered to us as a way to help us live rightly and well before we are taken into heaven to live there eternally.

The bottom line for my friend and many in our society (and perhaps many of you) is that all 66 books the scripture can be reduced to an efficient and useful set of rules and regulations. In other words scripture is a practical self-help book intended to teach us morality, which would then imply that God's ultimate purpose is simply making us more moral people.

    As you can probably tell by the tone of my writing I do not agree with that analysis of scripture or God's purpose. So you might ask, if this is not what scripture and God's purpose is about how would I describe them? I would describe scripture as the story of God, humanity and creation and God's purpose as working to restore the right relationship between each. I realize that this is not nearly as catchy as "basic instructions before leaving earth", but I believe it is far more accurate. Let's begin by unpacking my definition.

The Bible is the story of God, humanity and creation. The Bible is a story. It is a seamless story that has a beginning (creation), a middle (the life, death and resurrection of Jesus) and an end (the renewal of creation as described in Revelation). Everything in between "In the beginning" of Genesis and "The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all, Amen" at the end of Revelation is part of this ongoing saga of God's interaction with the world. While there are some "instructions" contained within the story, they are not the purpose of the story or the story itself.

God's purpose as expressed in the scriptures is to restore the right relationship between God, humanity and creation. The scriptures are the story of God renewing creation in such a way as to make this world a place where people find joy, justice and peace. From the giving of the Law in Exodus, to the sending of the Prophets, to the coming of Jesus, to the creation of the church the scriptures tell the story of God working in a purposeful way to renew and recreate the world.

This is a reminder to us that God is purposeful. God is not merely a remote spirit who desires that we be nice. God is on a mission. God is on a mission to change who we are, how we live, how we relate to God's self, one another and the world. God is on a universal mission to reshape all of us. This is more than basic instructions before leaving earth. This is a plan for a seismic shift in human nature that would allow this creation to be "be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea." Habakkuk 2:14. In other words the purpose of God is a complete transformation in the here (this world) and now (in real time).

Next Week: God as judging