What Is God Like - June 6 sermon.mp3
Luke 7:11-17
What Is God Like?
What is God like? That may be the most fundamental religious question anyone can ask. What does it mean to be human is a close second, but as a religious person, I assume human life has something to do with God. And so I can’t really talk about what it means to be human without first knowing something about the God who created us, who has a purpose for us. I can’t really figure out how my life is related to God without knowing what God is like.
It’s an ancient question, one that all religious seek to address. But God being so much bigger than us and beyond our comprehension, we tend to picture God as like us in some way. When you look at the images we have for God, often they take the human traits that we admire or that impress us, then magnify and multiply them many times over.
We humans tend to be impressed by power and might, by people who can get what they want, who can shape their own destiny, who can bend others to their will. By comparison, we make fun of people who are weak. Politicians love to label their opponensts as weak; weak on crime, weak on terror, weak on defense, and so on. No worse label could be stuck on a president or on someone seeking that office. No one wants the leader of our strong and powerful nation to be weak.
And so it is hardly surprising that a lot of images of God stress power and might on a grand scale. God as a mighty warrior hurling lighting bolts at enemies is a popular picture, and not only with Christians. Greek mythology had Zeus, the head god with an arsenal of lighting bolts. The Norse god Thor was similarly armed. And we have borrowed other human images of power and prestige, God as king for example.
Such images are found in the Bible. God is an awesome, powerful beyond measure, more than able to whup anyone who thinks otherwise, mighty, warrior king. Except that this is only one of many images of God found in the Bible. We’ve also got God as a potter, God as shepherd, God as Father, God as husband, God as broken-hearted lover, God as the champion of the poor and oppressed, and even “God is love.” So which image do we use when we try to answer the question, what is God like?
If I were going to start a religion from scratch, this would be one of the first things I’d deal with. I would clearly spell out just what my God was like so there would be no confusion. That’s what I would do, but the God we meet in the Bible does nothing of the sort. Instead of a nice, neat list of God’s characteristics and traits, we get hundreds and hundreds of pages of stories and songs and letters where people of faith encounter God in their daily lives and in the events of history. And when Jesus shows up, not only do we get lots of stories about him, but he tells more stories. When people ask Jesus what God is like or what God is doing, he is more than likely to tell them a story.
Now this does not lend itself to a simple picture of God that will fit in a wallet or purse, and so a lot of people pick an image that suits them. You’ve heard it said that people can justify most anything using the Bible, which is true as long as you carefully select only certain passages. And people can find all sorts of images of God using the same process. And so not only do a lot of people have a powerful, warrior God, but some folks even have a powerful, sword-wielding, warrior Jesus. I recently ran across a quote from a pastor named Mark Driscoll. He said, “In Revelation, Jesus is a prize-fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in his hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is the guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up.”
I looked in Revelation, and Jesus does have a sword, but it is not in his hand. It is in his mouth. His only weapon is his word. And the primary picture of Jesus in Revelation is a lamb that has been slain. So if I ever meet pastor Driscoll, I’d like to ask him if his picture of Jesus is an accurate one, or simply what he wants Jesus to be like.
We’ve got a picture of Jesus painted for us by Luke this morning. As Jesus travels, he journeys to a town called Nain. When he arrives, he encounters a funeral procession, and it is the funeral of a widow’s only son. This is not a bit of stray information. It is critical for understanding what happens. In Jesus’ day, women had little legal standing, and they were extremely vulnerable without a male to provide for them and protect them. A widow without male children was at grave risk of quickly becoming destitute.
A lot of people hear this story about Jesus and hear a story about his power, a power so great he raises a man from the dead. But Luke tells the story so that it focuses on something else. After telling us that the dead man’s mother is a widow with no other male children, Luke writes, When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” And after Jesus raises the man Luke tells us …and Jesus gave him to his mother.
Based on this story, what is Jesus like? And if Jesus is indeed God in the flesh, based on this story, what is God like? Does God see someone who is suffering, whose life is in jeopardy, and simply respond out of warmth and compassion? Wouldn’t God first ask for her religious credentials? Wouldn’t God want to know if her theology was straight?
And if we decide that this is a true picture of what God is like, what does that say about what God’s people should be like? Should we act in ways that demonstrate God’s compassion? Or should we be more concerned that they get their theology straight, get the right beliefs in the right order?
Answering such questions requires deciding if this picture of Jesus and God is a truer one than prize-fighter Jesus looking to make someone bleed, or than divine-judge God whose primary concern is whether or not someone gets into heaven, or than any number of other images of God that are floating around.
What is God like? And once you answer that question, what does a church gathered around this God look like? I know that some people find such questions a bit unsettling. They imply that we’re not sure about the answers, or worse, that our answers could be wrong. But I think it is critically important we ask ourselves such questions. Is Christianity primarily about what happens to you after you die? Or is it supposed to be just as concerned about what is going on in the world, in our lives, right now?
In the story Luke tells today, Jesus seems mostly focused on insuring that a widow’s earthly life is secure and safe. He seems deeply moved by concrete concerns for her day to day life. And this is hardly an exceptional case. The Bible, both Old and New Testament is filled with God’s care and concern for earthly life, for creation and people and communities. And while God’s care and concern and love extends beyond death, I think it a terrible misreading of the Bible to view faith is primarily concerned with what happens to souls after death. When I read the Bible I find a God who wants to transform our lives now, to meet us in our everyday lives so that we might help show the world God’s compassion, God’s hope and desire that we might live in peace and security, in love and community, in a world where swords are beaten into plowshares, where tanks and bombers are melted down for tractors and combines.
What is God like? What sort of church would do justice to the God we meet in Jesus? And where is Jesus calling you to help show the world this God?
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