Genesis 1:1-2:3; Matthew 28:16-20
Unmanageable God
James Sledge June
7, 2020, Trinity Sunday
In the beginning when God created the heavens and
the earth, 2the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the
face of the deep, while a wind(or perhaps Spirit) from God swept over the face
of the waters. 3Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was
light. So
opens Genesis and the Bible. So opens a lot of religious silliness as well.
For
some people, the literal account found here becomes a critical item of faith,
one that prohibits them for believing in things such as evolution. Other
Christians, some in reaction to the first group, insist the story is merely
symbolic, describing a well ordered cosmos. Or they dismiss it entirely, a
primitive tale with no real bearing on the modern world.
I
think all these views miss the mark, in part because religion, both
conservative and progressive, has a tendency to become utilitarian. Religion
becomes about getting something that I want. Perhaps its a certainty that I’ll
go to heaven when I die. Perhaps it’s a sense of spiritual well-being that has
eluded me despite buying into the competitive, success oriented, consumerist
version of life that our culture peddles.
When
religion is utilitarian, it’s a resource to be used, a way to get those things
I want. That’s true if I’m a conservative who needs a list of things I must
believe in and affirm so I get to heaven. And it’s true if I’m a progressive
looking for spiritual purpose and meaning. In either case I decide what I need
from religion, from the Bible, from God. In essence, I determine what God’s
purpose is.
We
all witnessed one of the most crass examples of utilitarian religion this past
week when President Trump stood in front of St. John’s Church and waved a
borrowed bible. It was brazen and shameless in enlisting religion, enlisting
God to the president’s cause. But most all of us engage in more subtle, nuanced
forms of enlisting God to our causes.
But
back to our story from Genesis. When this story was written, it was, in part,
meant to undermine utilitarian notions of God. The ancient Middle East was filled
with gods; every kingdom had at least one of their own. These deities ensured
that the crops produced and the herds grew. And when conflicts between kingdom
erupted, they were viewed as power contests between gods, holy war in the
truest sense of the term.
And
Israel’s God had lost. The Babylonians had conquered them and carried all the
important citizens into exile. Never mind prophecies promising an endless
throne of David. Never mind assurances that Jerusalem would stand forever. Now
there was nothing; the great city, the palace, Solomon’s magnificent Temple,
all lay in ruins. Their God had failed them.
In
the midst of this crisis, the Israelites cared nothing about how long it took
for the world to be created, how old it is, or how it is ordered or structured.
What they needed was a new and expanded understanding of God, of God’s
relationship to Creation and to them.
The
epic poem of Genesis 1 seeks to provide that. It borrows elements from the
creation myths of Babylon, but it dramatically recasts them to give a
remarkable, new picture of God, vastly different from typical, Near Eastern
gods resembling human rulers. This God does not need Creation or feed on its
produce given in burnt offerings. This God is no local deity, but a God who
speaks into being the vast cosmos that is the object of God’s care and delight.
Over and over the poem repeats the refrain, And
God saw that it was good. This
“good” is not a utilitarian good. It is an aesthetic good. God saw that it was
grand, glorious, wonderful, beautiful.
The
human creature is a part of this Creation but is somehow distinct as well. It
in some way shares in God’s image, though the story does not say what that
means. It does say that it has nothing to do with gender because the human
creature is created both male and female. Perhaps it is connected to the dominion
the human creatures are given over God’s creation.
They
are created to rule it, the story says. To a lot of people, this sounds like we
humans can do with creation pretty much as we please. And very often, that’s
exactly what we’ve done. Yet I am reasonably certain that the people of God are
required to define dominion, to define rule, the same way that God does.
God’s rule is that of a Good Shepherd
who guards and keeps the flock a loving parent who cares for children. And
God’s dominion is most fully seen in Jesus, who gives himself for the sheep, the
one to whom all authority in heaven and on earth has been given.
___________________________________________________________________
Today
is Trinity Sunday, and besides being an excuse to sing “Holy, Holy, Holy!” many
Christians couldn’t care much less. Discussing the doctrine of the Trinity is
one of the best ways I know to glaze over the eyes of an audience. But I wonder
if the Trinity doesn’t function a bit like the Creation story did for those
ancient Israelites, undermining our utilitarian notions of God, notions of God
as something we can employ for our purposes, notions of a God who exists to
make our lives better, easier, more fulfilling.
The Trinity insists that the Almighty
God of history is also the one whose greatest power is a cross, that the Spirit
we may describe as a warm feeling inside us is also the Creator who speaks
creation into existence. Trinity speaks of a God who exists as relationship, a
mystery beyond our comprehending, an unpictureable, unmanageable God who will
not be enlisted into our plans or schemes, but who invites us to become part of
hers, to redefine ourselves by the strange ways of this strange and mysterious
God.
___________________________________________________________________
Right
now, we seem to be living in a liminal moment, a moment that could be the
threshold of something different, something new. Old racial and economic
systems, ones that have very often been blessed, sanctioned, and buttressed by
utilitarian religion, are teetering. Different groups will argue for this
change or that; some want a return to “the good ‘ole days,” and many will
invoke God. But will it be the mysterious, unpictureable, unmanageable God
known best through Jesus, or will it be a utilitarian god of our own making.
I
wonder what sort of world we might build if we actually lived as though all
authority on heaven and earth belonged to Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment