God's Grief!

So the God of Jeremiah is still grieving in today’s reading. And this grieving has all the hallmarks of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ stages of grief: there’s denial—this God looks everywhere to see if there are any signs that the people have not simply abandoned their faith; there’s anger—this God threatens devastation and desolation in the face of intense grief over the betrayal of the people; there’s bargaining—this God threatens to lay waste, but not completely to make a “full end”; and there’s depression—this God is desolate in the face of the people’s foolishness. This God is heart-broken before a people who do not know God, who do not understand, who do not know how to do good. This God is in a very sorry way. This God is grieving. And this God is looking for some recognition that the people of God have not forgotten what is means to be the wonderful creation of God, the beloved children of God, the chosen people of God. This God is aching in and for relationship with God’s own people.

“I think it really pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” I think it really annoys God when we don’t see the wonder that is in front of our faces. It think it grieves God when the people of God fail to understand who God is and what God does. That’s the sentiment that Shug Avery shares with Celie in the novel The Color Purple by Alice Walker. “I think it really pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” (p. 167)

Shug is an African American jazz singer alienated from her family and the community of faith, largely because of her exuberance for life. But Shug still knows who God is. Celie is a woman beaten down by her stepfather’s incest, her husband’s harsh treatment and the loss of the 2 children she has borne. She is still part of the community of faith, but she is struggling to know who God is. We listen in on the way in which Celie relates conversation (pp. 167-168). Shug says:

Listen, God love everything you love—and a mess of stuff you don’t. But more than anything else, God love admiration.
You saying God vain? I ast.
Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.
What it do when it pissed off? I ast.
Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about, But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.
Yeah? I say.
Yeah, she say. It always making little surprises and springing them on us when us least expect.
You mean it want to be loved, just like the bible say.
Yes, Celie, she say. Everything want to be loved.

Everything wants to be loved; and God wants to be loved most of all; because God wants to be in relationship with us; to be loved as God loves us. God is aching in and for relationship with God’s own people.

That’s why God is so intent to go to such lengths to pursue us, to seek us, to find us—even when we try so hard not to be found. We are worth everything to God: “I think it really pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” (The Color Purple, p. 167)

And that pursuit, that search for even, or more significantly, especially, the littlest, the lowest and the least is not a habit, or a formality, or even just something to do. It is God’s very nature—God’s very nature is to seek us and to want so badly for us to seek God—just as it is the shepherd’s very nature to care for the sheep with the corresponding result that losing a sheep is a loss of something of the shepherd’s being, a loss which must be avoided at all costs, and remedied if at all possible. It is God’s very nature to seek us and to want so much for us to seek God—just as the marriage dowry which a woman wore in the form of coins was part of that woman’s very personhood; and the loss of even just one coin, a loss to be avoided at all costs and remedied if at all possible. It is God’s very nature to seek us and to want so intensively for us to seek God—that when we turn our back on God, God grieves. “I think it really pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” (The Color Purple, p. 167)
 

Many years ago, three students were walking in the French countryside. As they walked they spoke boldly to each other of their passionate atheism. How foolish the idea of God was! How much harm was caused in the name of religion!
When they came upon a small country church, two of the students turned upon their friend, daring him to test his courage of conviction by entering the church and telling the priest about their conversation. And the third student did.
“Well,” said the priest, “you have been bold enough to accept the dare of your friends? Would you accept another challenge from an old priest?” And the student did.
“What I want you to do,” said the priest, “is to go to the sanctuary of the church, look at the crucifix, and say 3 times ‘Jesus Christ died for me and I don’t give a damn’.”
Reluctantly now, the student did as the priest challenged. Looking upon the crucifix, twice, the brash, young atheist repeated the words: “Jesus Christ died for me and I don’t give a damn. Jesus Christ died for me and I don’t give a damn.” But he was unable to continue, unable to make the bold proclamation a third time as he faced the effigy of God’s search for him. He returned to the priest, asking him to hear his confession. [An adapted story]

That young, brash atheist student was the soon-to-become famous Sri Lankan evangelist, D.T. Niles, the author of the hymn “The great love of God”:

The great love of God is revealed in the Son,
who came to this earth to redeem every one.
It’s yours, it is ours, O how lavishly giv’n!
the pearl of great price, and the treasure of heav’n.
Daniel Thambyrajah Niles 1908–70

Listen, God loves everything you love—and a mess of stuff you don’t. But more than anything else, God loves admiration. Is God vain? Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

I think God grieves for us to pursue God as much as God pursues us; and that when God finds us and we find God, when even just one of us is found by God and finds God, “there is joy in the presence of the angels” for God aches in and for relationship with God’s own people, us.

Jeremiah's God

So Jeremiah goes down to the house of a potter to listen to God; and snatches of the chorus “Have thine own way” fill our imaginations.

Have thine own way Lord, have thine own way.
Thou art the potter; I am the clay.
Mould me and make me, till all shall see
Christ only always living in me.

It’s such a beautiful little melody that lulls you into a sense of safety and security about being in the hands of God. But safety and security are not what Jeremiah finds at the potter’s house!

Jeremiah hears the words of a God prepared to wreak destruction upon a disobedient people; as well as to build and encourage a people who orient themselves towards God. This is a God whose rule is absolute; and to whom absolute obedience is required. It’s the sort of God that we’re not very comfortable with in the twenty-first century with our emphasis on God’s love and maybe even our bland sense of who God is. But the God that Jeremiah confronts is a jealous God; a demanding God; a God who will brook no turning back.

I have decided to follow Jesus (3 times).
No turning back (2 times).

All of the commitments we make to love and serve God, and the people of God, and God’s good creation; all the promises we make about doing what God wills and ignoring our own; all the covenants we make about being put to God’s use without any thought for ourselves—all these words sound hollow in the face of the words of a God who promises retribution if we do not fulfil the oaths we make.

Thus says the LORD: Look I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings. (Jeremiah 18:11)

Have thine own way, Lord (not if we can help it). This God sounds far too terrifying and for our modern and postmodern sensibilities. We want a God who is meek and mild—a gentle Jesus who wouldn’t hurt a lamb. But the God that Jeremiah confronts is a tough-minded and tough-acting God. Have thine own way, Lord? O God, what have we let ourselves in for? Did we really sign up to this?

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come, your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.

The familiar words roll off our tongues; but it’s not Jeremiah’s God that we’re usually envisaging as we pray them. We want a cuddly God, a SNAG God, a sensitive new age God, a God who knows the way around the kitchen, and is emotionally attentive. We don’t want Jeremiah’s God. We’re afraid of Jeremiah’s God. We’re maybe even angry at Jeremiah’s God. And with good reason!

Jeremiah’s God is a patriarchal God. There is only one authority—God; and all else quakes in God’s wake. There is only one rule, one regime with this God; and that is God’s rule, God’s regime. There’s little opportunity for complaint, or is there…? Or is there?

Because Jeremiah’s God is also the God who hears the people’s lament and who acts. Jeremiah’s God is a God who is determined to protect God’s people in the face of a hostile environment. Jeremiah’s God is a God prepared to make some tough decisions in order to shepherd the people of God in the right way.

There are some things that we are no longer comfortable with about this patriarchal God. We are suspicious of the type of authority that apparently brooks no dialogue. We are rightly concerned about the type of human authorities that will claim power for themselves on the basis of such a God.

But there are also some things about this patriarchal God that we need to bear in mind. The world which depicted God in this way was a very different world from our own. Family and community were everything; and family and community leaders carried great responsibilities for the welfare of those groups. There was no choice involved in that. If the patriarch did not protect the people, who would? If the patriarch would not make the difficult decisions to lead the people to safety, who would? And sometimes getting to safety meant crossing deserts, and meeting hostile peoples and fighting for survival in a harsh environment.

The family, the community, relied on staying together in order to survive. There was only one rule, the rule of the patriarch, the regime of the family, the cohesiveness of the community. Without the family or the community, you were literally on your own—on your own for food, on your own for shelter, on your own for comfort, on your own for protection.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come, your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.

O God, we acknowledge your rule, your oversight, your guidance. We want your way to be the way that we do things here. We want to align ourselves with you. We want to give your allegiance to your rule, your regime, your pattern of family organisation, for we know that you are the one who can protect us.

It is “patriarchal” in the sense that it is modelled on the traditional Jewish family structure where the patriarch provided the guidance and oversight for an extended family group. But for us, it cannot be patriarchal in the sense that it sets up hierarchies where men have authority over everyone else; or where power is concentrated in the hands of unquestioned authority figures.

God’s rule is one of justice, peace and the integrity of creation. God’s nature is love. And God’s hope and call is for the whole creation to be in relationship with their Creator, and thereby with each other. We are uncomfortable with a God who will apparently destroy for nothing; or is it for nothing…? Or is it for nothing?

Because Jeremiah’s God promises destruction upon those who will not live within God’s rule, will not live within God’s regime, will not acknowledge God’s way of being and doing.

This a God who will lead the people through difficult terrain in order for them to reach the promised land. This is a God who will prod and push a wilful people in the right paths. This is a God who will not let us turn back for our own sakes.

The commitment has been made and the allegiance has been given. This is a God who knows what it is to carry a commitment through. This is a God who knows what it is to carry the cross; who will see the project through to the end. This is a God who will not let us go—from before we were born until after we die. This is a God who knows us utterly as a potter knows the clay that is worked and the pot that is made from it.

Have thine own way Lord, have thine own way.
Thou art the potter; I am the clay.
Mould me and make me, till all shall see
Christ only always living in me.

This is the God who provides guidance and oversight, love and care. This is the God who longs for relationship with the whole creation; and this is the God from whom, through Jesus, we receive our inheritance as children of God.

Facing God's Judgement

These days we don’t like the image of a wrathful God—and with some reason. The wrath of God has been called down by the people of God on all sorts of people who very likely didn’t deserve it. It’s been used to make us quake in our boots; and to scare us into believing. It’s been used to justify military action against peoples who are seen to be other than ourselves.

But if we ignore the God who is angry in the scriptures, we miss a lot of the story. In particular, we miss the God of justice, the God who demands justice, the God who will not let humanity rest in apathy, but who propels us into just action, if not for the sake of God’s love, then in the face of God’s righteous indignation.

Yet, we must be very careful when we interpret this imagery. The stories which we have handed down to us are complex and situated. They come from particular times and particular places; and they come from very human hands—human hands attached to human hearts and human minds with their own particular perspectives, and biases, and prejudices, and outright hatreds.

It’s been easy for the people of God to take hold of God’s wrath when we believe it to be directed at others. We have often missed the point of God’s righteous laments when they have been proclaimed over us and our unjust behaviours.

Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the LORD, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:12-13)

“O people, you have turned your back on the water of life which I offer and looked for alternate sources in places that are barren,” proclaims Jeremiah in the name of God. “You have deceived yourselves and neglected your calling.”

“Who us? Surely, not us? We’re good people. We’re righteous people. We’re the people of God.”

And yet certainly, it is us! It is us who looks upon the devastation of our world, apparently powerless in the face of natural disaster, and economic folly, and global warming. It is us who try as we might still manage to identify enemies and threats, and chase after shadows. It is us who pick the best places; and leave the worst to the littlest and the least. It is us!

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us… If we say that we have not sinned, we make [God] a liar, and [God’s] word is not in us. (1 John 1: 8, 10 NRSV)

O God, we are not the people we pretend to be. We say, “I do not lie, I do not cheat, I do not steal.” Yet, this cannot be true, for we hide our real selves from others, we compete with our friends for position and prestige, we take praise and honour that is not ours. In human frailty, we confess to you that our sin is so deep that we cannot even recognise it.

O God, we are not the people we want to be. We say, “I am not racist, I am not sexist, I do not offend anyone.” Yet, this cannot be true, for all around us people are in pain. Unintended, unrecognised injustices stem from our sin as individuals, as a community and as a nation. As the letter to the Romans reminds us:

I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. (Romans 7:18b – 19)

If God is angry, and God’s anger is righteous, then we must face the very real possibility that it is direct at us. It is directed at us who say we know God. It is directed at us who claim to follow God’s will. It is directed at us who dare to think that we might know or understand or recognise that which is of God and that which is not.

God’s anger is not directed against the stranger. It is not directed at those who have no inkling that there is a greater call on our lives. God’s anger is directed at those whom God has called—at us!

And perhaps that doesn’t sound much like good news to us! But it is to those who know they have nothing, who have no idea where the next meal or the next coat will be coming from. It is good news for those who are the poor and the humble, the littlest and the least. It is good news for the homeless, and the landless, for the destitute and the weak.

In the scriptures, God is depicted as being angry when the people of God turn away from God; and when the justice of God is transgressed by ill-treatment of those in need—those without the necessary social support required for survival and for thriving. In the scriptures, the classic picture of those most in need is “the widow, the orphan, and the stranger”—the ones who do not have any family or community to support them; the ones who rely on the kindness and goodwill of others; the ones who know their need and must throw themselves of the mercy of others.

God’s call to the people of God is to provide hospitality to the stranger, having received hospitality from the God who is strange to us. God’s anger is not directed towards the people with whom we feel uncomfortable, or whom we find different. God’s anger is not directed at those who do not know any better or who are at their wits’ end. God’s anger is directed at the people who should know better—the very people of God; and it is directed at the people of God when we turn away from God’s call to hospitality, and God’s offer of hospitality in our own wretched states.

In our readings for today, we have 2 pictures of God’s judgement. In Jeremiah, God is lamenting a people who left the God who loves them behind. And in the Gospel reading, Jesus warns about thinking too highly of ourselves and too little of others:

For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. (Luke 14: 11)

To be sure, God is always merciful, but merciful has never meant wishy-washy. God is concerned about what happens in God’s creation. God is concerned with our world. And God has every reason to be angry.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8b)

But we do know the state of our predicament. We do know that we don’t always see what is wrong and what is right. We do know that even when we try to get it right, we can get it wrong because we don’t see the big picture. And we can choose for ourselves the place of humility rather than exaltation. We can recognise who we are and humbly offer ourselves to God, for…

If we confess our sins, [God] who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1: 9)

O God, in the depth of our sin, we ask you to grant us forgiveness for the wrongs we have done and the good we have failed to do. Help us to recognise and receive your mercy that we might help others to do the same. And hold us as a loving parent holds a wayward children until we have found again the love and security we have within your will.

The God of Jesus is an exceptional parent. Love and mercy do not overlook the need for justice and reconciliation. Acceptance is not given without direction and boundaries. God loves us; and we know it. Therefore we have a responsibility to the people who need God most. So…

When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you… (Luke 14:12-13)

But God will see and God will know, because this is exactly what God has done for us!

Our Father

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.

The familiar words roll off our tongues; but they are words of great significance. When we pray “Our Father” we are indicating our allegiance to living within God’s rule, God’s regime, God’s pattern of family organisation.

It is “patriarchal” in the sense that it is modelled on the traditional Jewish family structure where the patriarch provided the guidance and oversight for an extended family group.

But for us, it cannot be patriarchal in the sense that it sets up hierarchies where men have authority over everyone else; or where power is concentrated in the hands of unquestioned authority figures.

God’s rule is one of justice, peace and the integrity of creation. God’s nature is love. And God’s hope and call is for the whole creation to be in relationship with their Creator, and thereby with each other.

The imagery of God as Father places heavy responsibility on human fathers. The ultimate picture of God sets an impossible standard for ordinary, human beings. And that sometimes is not very helpful either. But God’s call to live and work within God’s rule is a call to everyone, not just fathers.

On this Father’s Day, we remember that human fathers are just that--human: that they love and care; worry and get angry and frustrated; get it right and get it wrong. And that together, as the people of God, we are travelling with each other, learning and encouraging one another to live and work within God’s family where everyone is important and all are called to authentic relationship with one another.

We also remember that we are called to acknowledge the God who provides guidance and oversight, love and care, longing for relationship with the whole creation; and who, through Jesus, we receive our inheritance as children of God.