As we gather with people all around the world today to worship together on World Communion Sunday, I want to ask who it is that we are worshiping? Doesn’t it seem that Christians don’t agree on who God is? I used to think that Christians were the ones who did not believe in God or believed in another one and Christians did and you could just divide the world into a few simple groups. But in our current world dilemmas and political season Christians are well represented on both sides of the issues. And we all really feel that if the other people win, it will be a real disaster for the gospel.
Christians in other times have disagreed as vigorously or worse than we do now. It is sad to reflect that the Civil War in this nation was essentially fought by two Christian groups, that World War 1 and 2 were fought by nations that were essentially Christian. And Presbyterians and Methodists once were sworn enemies. So we are not in some new paradox, we are revisiting the Bible and our faith once again to try to discover who God is.
And people find different things about God in the Bible. As the Pew Charitable Trust poll recently discovered, most Christians either believe that God tends to be angry and destructive or compassionate and redemptive.
And those two views are the glasses that we put on to look at all of Scripture. If you think God is fairly disgusted and itching to let loose thunderbolts, then you get reinforcement from the Egyptian army destroyed in the Red Sea, the walls falling in Jericho and the threats of Revelation. If you think that God is fundamentally compassionate, then the stories of the Jesus coming to earth as a baby, Moses rescued in the bulrushes by the princess of Egypt, and Jesus calling the children to be with him are stories that reinforce the view you already hold.
How do we develop views of God before we even read the Bible? Does the Bible really have different opinions about who God is? Some people think that the way we are treated by our earthly parents gives us a belief about what they heavenly Father must be like. Today, we’re going to look in Matthew as the Pharisees are asked by Jesus, ‘What do you think of the Messiah?’ And my prayer is that our understanding from the word of God will bring comfort to you and your own walk of discipleship and more discernment about what people claim as guidance from God.
Who is Jesus? I have already mentioned that most people know what they believe about God before they read the Bible. And why does the Bible present God in different moods as though God were a dangerous God, almost like a drunken parent who gives you too many good things in one moment and then hits you aside the head in the next moment of irritation?
This is one of those messages of exploration because I’m working on the question myself. But let me offer two parts to the answer – we know clearly God’s character, and Matthew tells us God’s avenue to our heart.
God’s character is always described in word pairs. God is light and life in John’s writing. The psalm says that in God, justice and peace kiss. Jesus came to us full of truth and grace in John chapter 1. God’s character can never be summarized by one English word because God’s character is a balancing of law and grace. That is why so many people can claim God’s character as the base of their teaching because they have stolen one leg and ignored the other.
One of the key rules of reading the Bible is that the whole interprets the verse. We do not practice footwashing as is the custom of some because the teaching on footwashing does not seem to United Methodists as understanding the whole. It is reading one verse too closely at the cost of the whole text.
Within that thought, we do see times in the scripture where God’s love radiates and there are other passages where injustice is broken violently. But sometimes you make take one of those passages of judgment and fear that God will soon curse you in a similar way. For most people, this is an unwise reading of Scripture. God seems particularly harsh on injustice that claims that there is an alternate God which God says draws poor people away from true liberation. If someone is being oppressed, God’s preferential option for the poor as the pope steps in – that is the option.
How do we settle the dispute between people who say that prayer in schools and outlawing gay marriage are the two biggest challenges that America has and other people who lift up the war, and senior citizens going without medication this fall as they hit the exclusion area of Medicare Part D?
I think that at that point, you have to look at the speakers making the claims and try to figure out who seems more ethical and responsible to you. We have an unusually large group of leaders who are being questioned now on whether they are trustworthy. Ralph Reed has been fully mixed up in the bribery cases, especially where he takes money to get Christians to stop an Indian tribe from getting gambling permission. Christians are supportive, but what they don’t know is that the campaign money is from another Indian tribe who wants the license for themselves.
In the end, for those of us who believe that the Scripture is the authoritative word of God, there is still a huge challenge of correctly dividing the word of truth. You have to place your trust for understanding somewhat in human hands.
That leads us to the second point, God’s avenue to our heart is love. In Matthew 22:36 and 39, Jesus specifically says that love is his approach to God and to others and it must be ours. The greatest law is to love God and the next is to love neighbor. How can we possibly think of an angry God at this moment since the verses are recording that God has reached out more recently with the birth, death and resurrection of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit. God is attempting to redeem and reclaim hurting humanity.
If you are hurting today, perhaps wondering what God’s true word to you may be, I can only say to come to God in the quietness of your heart and pray, God reveal yourself to me. What do you want me to do, And may God bless you in that search.
