Musings on the Daily Lectionary - Awe

The LORD is king;
let the peoples tremble!
He sits enthroned upon the cherubim;
let the earth quake!

In a Bible study class this morning we were talking about a story in Joshua where God "fought for Israel," killing the enemy with hailstones and causing the sun to stop in midheaven. The story unashamedly insists that God intervened in history for Israel. But class members struggled to speak literally of God intervening in history. The story in Joshua seemed an ancient perception of natural events.

Today's lectionary passages speak of a God whose power at work in the world is amazing, even terrifying; the Passover and Israel's escape from Egypt; and perhaps the most incredible exercise of divine power, the Resurrection. Psalm 99 also opens by acknowledging the power of God that cause the people to tremble and the earth to quake.

But many modern Christians worship a God who is distant, withdrawn, and little interested in intervening in history. If this God is concerned with us, it is only on a very personal level. Indeed the only examples this morning's Bible study could come up with for God intervening in history were little personal nudges that had perhaps altered their lives' trajectory a bit.

It sometimes seems that we have traded the awesome God of all creation for a divine buddy who can make us feel better, but little else. No wonder a recent, mammoth study of the faith of American youth and young adults characterized that faith as "Moralistic, Therapeutic, Deism."

In her book, When God Is Silent, Barbara Brown Taylor wonders about our current situation where God seems downright quiet compared to biblical times. And she draws on the prophet Amos and his warning about a coming famine, "not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD." And I wonder if our loss of awe, our loss of any sense that God can act powerfully in history, is not of a piece with this. Indeed, why should God speak to a people who cannot imagine that God might intervene with power and might for the poor and oppressed, for the weak and the vulnerable, and against those who exploit them?

Click here to learn more about the Daily Lectionary.