Rev. Betsy Aldrich Garland
June 21, 2009
Mark 4:35-41

Who Is God for You?

Who or what is God for you? There are probably as many answers as there are people sitting in these pews. We are a “broad tent” theologically.” You have heard me say, to the baptismal parents, and to people who are joining Edgewood Congregational Church, when I ask them if they believe in God, say, “. . . however you understand the idea of God.” There is no right or wrong way to believe – although some images of God may be more helpful than others.

I’m not suggesting that beliefs are not important: What we believe shapes how we act – and vice versa. The question is, does your understanding of God help or hinder your life? Does your view of God nourish you or cripple you?

What we believe about God can affect us. A few years ago I served for a brief time as volunteer chaplain of the Women’s Center of Rhode Island. One evening a woman asked to speak to me and told me her story of having been abused as a child by her father and now as an adult, by her husband. The minister at her church had told her she must be obedient to the husband, that scripture said that “two shall be one.” She had fled to the shelter to save her life.

While she desperately wanted to pray, the notion of a male God – when all the males in her life had hurt her – made it impossible. She was too angry. I found a room where we could talk, and I shared with her some feminine images of God. There, in the quiet, we prayed to Mother Eagle God. We felt the rustle between us as she settled her feathers and imagined her lifting us up on her wings when we were falling and growing tired.

In the matter of “Who Is God,” there are at least three big theological camps:

God is a male supreme being with these characteristics:

Lives somewhere else, heaven
Law giver, makes judgments
Without Jesus to “save” us from original sin, we have no hope.
Listens to us, intervenes at whim or when asked “properly”
A cause and effect God: “Why did God do this to me?” I am reminded of a friend who said recently, “I’m living a good life, why is this happening to me?” And I know someone who drives for Meals on Wheels as a “hedge” in case there really is a God.

If we take out one piece, this narrow view can be unraveled; we pull out the cornerstone and the building falls down. People often “compartmentalize,” holding this view of God without analyzing it, without trying to integrate it into their modern world view.

God is a personal God, but a softer version:

People have moved beyond scriptural literacy, but they not quite sure where they stand.
Not sure who or what Jesus is – God or human.
Isolated from traditional Christian worship because we still use the language and imagery of the first camp.

Christians who ask, “What do we mean by God?” “The God is still speaking” God.
We are scientific age folks
Satellites ~ Evolution ~ Physics ~ Atoms ~ Black Holes ~ Solar systems
Psalm 8: When I look at the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?
We know about the “somewhere else” and don’t see God there.

Who or what is God in this modern age? What we learned in Sunday school as children may not be enough for us as adults.

That does not mean that God changes, only how we understand God.

Language from the ancient world framed by the experience of our ancestors – how they understood the world (about where God lived, what God was like, how human life began) – may not be enough for us today.

Seasons of the Spirit: “Revelation will not be about a Divine Being intervening from outside our world, but a ‘God’ who works in and through what is there to be worked with. So scriptures will be understood to emerge from the Spirit of God at work in people and communities in particular places, at a particular time in history with their cultural beliefs and practices and with their images and beliefs about how human beings are in relationship with God.”

Mirror-in-the-box God that was my children’s “Sermon in a Sack” on Easter Sunday.

Note, however, that people may have their “foot” in more than one camp.

One of the ways to learn about God is to tap the scriptures to see how God was working in the ancient community and in the early Jesus movement and see what we can learn from their stories:

God as mother eagle (Exodus 19:4; Deuteronomy 32:11)
Ancient peoples watched the sky, not TV
Read the texts
Hymn #468:

The care the eagle gives her young, safe in her lofty nest, is like the tender love of God for us made manifest.
As when the time to venture comes, she stirs them out to flight, so we are pressed to boldly try, to strive for daring heights.
And if we flutter helplessly, as fledgling eagles fall, beneath us lift God’s mighty wings to bear us, one and all.
Lessons:
God pushes us out of our comfort zone
God stays nearby to encourage us
God catches us when we grow tired and fall. Remember our response, “And God will raise you up on eagles wings …”

Lost and Found Stories (God is like this:)

A. Read the Parable of the Lost Sheep (Luke 15:3-7)
Lessons
God risks everything
Goes after until he finds it
God rejoices when we are found

B. Read the Parable of the Lost Coin (Luke 15:8-10)
Lessons
We are of great worth
God never gives up on us
God rejoices when we are found

The Story of the Prodigal Son and His Brother (Luke 15:11-24)
We tend to dwell on the brothers. What of the father? What’s going on with him?
What qualities do we find in the father, watching and waiting at the door of the tent, that help us to understand God?
I hear patience and longing.
Forgiving.
Rejoicing when we return home; God had feared us dead.

Lament Over Jerusalem (Matthew 23:37)
Jesus (who represents God) is like a mother hen.
Hear the sorrow, fear, lament in Jesus’ voice.
God would provide a safe place, a shelter from life’s troubles.
Feel the pain of being rebuffed.

Stilling a Storm (Mark 4:35-41)
To follow Jesus is to be on the move.
Do you not care? YES!
Peace. Be still.
Fortune cookie: “A calm sea does not make a skilled sailor.”

So, who is God? What do we learn about God from these scriptures? God is the one who . . .

Counts us as great worth, each and every one.
Pushes us to grow
When we stray, goes in search of us
Never gives up on us, never stops looking for us
Waits for us with longing as a parent for a child
When we are finally found, welcomes us home.
Brings us peace.

Amen.

References

1. Seasons of the Spirit for March 8, 2009.
2. Ibid., p. 45.