Lent II 12
March 2006
Christ Church
Morningside
What kind of God is God?
Jesus
said, “If anyone would come after me, they must deny themselves,
take up
their cross and follow me.”
(Mark 8:34)
I don’t know about you but over the years I have heard some, profound, wonderful and hopeful as well as some appalling, terrifying not-to-say downright bizarre answers to this question. What kind of God is God?
Well, I might as well plunge in at the deep end and say that it is Jesus, I believe, who gives us a pretty authoritative picture of what God is like. Jesus tells us and shows us what God is like.
The story of God, the world and everything that I was brought up with – taught from a tender age - goes something like this:
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In the beginning God created a perfect universe. Then out of love – or perhaps still glowing from the first flush of the creative impulse – God made human beings.
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And that’s when things started to go wrong. We began to mess things up. It’s called sin.
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Over the centuries God tried lots of ways to get us back on the straight and narrow – Noah and the flood, Moses and the Law, the prophets of old but nothing seemed to work.
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Finally – and in some desperation, perhaps – God sent Jesus, His only begotten Son, to die on the cross, to pay the price and to save us from our sins.
Does this story sound familiar? (Or do they only teach this sort of stuff south of the border?)
Now comes the confession, and possible heresy.
I have to tell you that I have always struggled with this view of things. I have always had a hard time accepting this as the ‘truth’.
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I am disturbed by what this story says about humanity and Creation.
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I am even more disturbed by what this picture says about God.
If this story is true, then what kind of God do we have?
Perhaps you might want to fill in the blanks here… I have my own opinions!
But what kind of God wills that His Son be tortured and killed?
What kind of God asks the same of those who try to follow His Son?
What kind of God demands that we “deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him.”?
What kind of God says, “whoever wants to save their life will lose it but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.”?
A cruel God? An angry God? A heartless God? A sadistic God?
What kind of God is God?
As I said, it is Jesus who gives us a pretty authoritative picture of what God is like. It is Jesus who tells us what God is like. It is Jesus who shows us what God is like. And so what did Jesus say, what did Jesus show?
“The one thing that Jesus was determined to destroy was suffering: the sufferings of the poor and the oppressed, the sufferings of the sick… But the only way to destroy suffering is to give up all worldly values and suffer the consequences. Only the willingness to suffer can conquer suffering in the world. Compassion destroys suffering by suffering with and on behalf of those who suffer.” (Albert Nolan, Jesus before Christianity, p.138)
Jesus was inspired to bring about an end to suffering. This is what the Kingdom of God was and is all about:
Curing the sick
Raising the dead
Feeding the hungry
Valuing the outcast
Loving our enemies
Seeing and experiencing God in and through all things and all people…
This is what the Kingdom of God was and is all about.
This is the Kingdom that Jesus wanted to inspire faith in people about.
This was and is the Kingdom that Jesus wanted to make a reality in people’s lives then, and now and forever.
But it’s a paradox. It’s a paradox in two parts:
· First, “If anyone would come after me, they must deny themselves take up their cross and follow me.”
To bring about the end to suffering that Jesus worked so hard to achieve; to bring about the coming of the Kingdom – the very thing that Jesus gave his to all to make a reality – then we have let go – renounce – give up – all of the things that cause suffering. Suffering for us and suffering for others:
Violence
Prejudice
A critical, nit-picky spirit
Greed
The desire to control
Indifference
Cynicism
Craving after financial security
Lust – for things, other people, power
Desire for status, honours and titles…
All of these things – and more – separate us from God, other people and from our true selves and so cause suffering. And it’s only when we begin the process of letting these things go that we find and end to suffering - suffering for others and an end to our own private suffering.
· Second, “whoever wants to save their life will lose it but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.”
If we try to hang on to what we have – our lives – if we live in fear and dread, then, Jesus says, we are already dead.
And this is a hard one because we are surrounded, bombarded and fed constant images, stories, reports and pictures of fear:
Climate change
The War in Iraq
Bird flu
The economy
Terrorism
The price of petrol/gas
The housing market
Corruption in high places
Pollution of the environment
Not enough children being born in Scotland
Even the weather forecast is reported in histrionic terms…
No wonder people/we are fearful and afraid.
But this is not the voice of Jesus.
This is not the voice of God.
“To save one’s life means to hold onto it, to love it and be attached to it and therefore to fear death. To lose one’s life is to let go of it, to be detached from it and therefore be willing to die. The paradox is that the person who fears dearth is already dead, whereas the person who has ceased to fear death has at that moment begun to live. A life that is genuine and worthwhile is only possible once one is willing to die.” (Nolan, ibid, p. 139)
To give an example – for so many years, and even now this is something I continue to struggle with – for many years I was so anxious about the future; how will we manage finically, are we saving enough, what about pensions, what about schooling for the children etc., etc. But by living this way; by living in this anxious little bundle of nerves, by living in worry and fear for the future I never really lived in the moment, I never really lived at all… Life, real life was always just beyond my reach, just beyond the horizon, just beyond the next problem, the next source of fear.
Let me end with this…
What kind of God is God?
Our God is the God who made us and who loves us.
Our God is the God who wants us to have life and have it in all its fullness.
Our God is the God who wants to see and end to suffering, suffering of all and every kind – our suffering.
Our God is the God who teaches us wisdom, true wisdom the kind of wisdom that says:
“If anyone would come after me, they must deny themselves take up their cross and follow me… [Because] whoever wants to save their life will lose it but whoever loses their life… will save it.”
Think of it like a hand.
A fearful, anxious hand becomes tense, clenched; and a clenched hand is actually a fist; and a fist is likely to cause suffering; it is very difficult, if not impossible, to place a blessing into a clenched fist.
But once we let go, once we begin to let go of our fears, let go of our anxious energies [and we do this by letting go of ourselves, our own little agendas and desires] then our hand begins to open up, the fist becomes lose, and eventually becomes an open hand. And an open hand is ready to receive a blessing; an open hand can become a source of blessing.
Amen.
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Lent II 12 March 2006