Who Is God?
Sermon
Children at the top end of Primary School aged ten or eleven, are poised between finishing with childhood and cautiously entering adolescence. When they were younger they thought only in concrete terms and were unable to get their minds around the abstract, but now they are just beginning to move beyond the concrete.
This can make it a very interesting age as far as religion is concerned, as long as they haven't already rejected religion because their questions remain unanswered. Some questions like "Who made God?" are unanswerable, but there is often a genuine desire to understand the relationship between religion and science and a real fascination with all aspects of death and eternal life.
One of the questions which crops up at any age but which may begin in childhood is the question of suffering. If God is a God of love and of justice, how come he allows innocent people to suffer? This is a particularly poignant question if there has been a world tragedy caused by natural events, such as an earthquake or tsunami, volcano or hurricane. The question of suffering can sometimes be answered by laying all the blame at humanity's door, such as in cases of war or other human violence, but this answer won't do as an answer to natural suffering.
The Ancient Israelites had an answer which could be described as concrete and which would thus be entirely understandable by small children. They maintained that wealth and health were signs of God's approval but that poverty and ill health were God's punishment for sin. It was a simple equation. Those who followed the rules were blessed, but those who strayed from the path were punished.
This remained the main-stream view for thousands of years and was the prevailing view of all ancient religions. If the crops failed, it was obvious that someone had upset the gods and reparation needed to be made in order to appease the gods. The ancient Greek myths and legends are full of the relationship between the gods and humanity and are replete with punishments and appeasements, or even capricious acts by gods who were greatly feared.
This view, that God punishes sin by sending misfortune or illness, still survives at a very deep level in the human psyche. When AIDS came to the fore, there were many voices which suggested that AIDS was a punishment for homosexual acts. There are still voices who hold to that opinion, even though AIDS is rampant in some African heterosexual communities.
There were voices raised over the Asian tsunami which claimed that the massive and terrible loss of life was God's message to humanity, to say that we -- especially those of us in the West - are on the wrong track and must repent. But there seemed to be no acknowledgement by those same voices that it would seem strange for God to punish the Asian community for sins of the West.
But even back in the days of the Old Testament, although it was the main-stream view that God punished sin by misfortune and rewarded goodness by good fortune, there were those who objected to such a naïve and simplistic point of view. The book of Job was written to open up the whole question of suffering and to try to find an answer as to why God allows good people to suffer.
Job challenged God to answer him directly. "Why am I suffering like this?" Job demands to know. "I am not a sinner. I am a good man. What have you to say for yourself, God?"
God never directly answers the question in the book. But he does after a long time of silence, eventually speak to Job. He points Job in the direction of Creation. "Look around you," says God. "Open your eyes.
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements--surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?-- when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped'? (Job 38:4-11 NRSV)
God continues in similar vein for some considerable time and at the end of this discourse, Job falls on his knees before God and worships him, humbly realising that only God can see the big picture.
Today's passage from Isaiah is in similar vein to God's words in Job, but this time God is talking about his Spirit. "Who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or as his counselor has instructed him? Whom did he consult for his enlightenment, and who taught him the path of justice? Who taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?"
On Trinity Sunday, when we try to fit the concept of God as three yet just one into our human linear understanding, it is perhaps appropriate to be reminded of the vast, unknowable depths of God. God is beyond our understanding, yet permits us to have an intimate relationship with him. When we abuse that intimate relationship by assuming that we know God and can second-guess him, we do ourselves and God a disservice.
We've had a glimpse of God in Jesus. Through Jesus, we know how each of us could be if we allowed the God within us to fully develop. The God within us is God's Spirit, just as the God within Jesus was God's Spirit. God, Jesus and God's Spirit are all one and the same, yet totally separate.
This is a difficult concept for mere humans, but the Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. If we believe and trust in him, he gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. No matter how old, how frail or how weak they are, those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
And we like Job, should fall to our knees in worship, humbly realising that only God knows the truth of all things.
This can make it a very interesting age as far as religion is concerned, as long as they haven't already rejected religion because their questions remain unanswered. Some questions like "Who made God?" are unanswerable, but there is often a genuine desire to understand the relationship between religion and science and a real fascination with all aspects of death and eternal life.
One of the questions which crops up at any age but which may begin in childhood is the question of suffering. If God is a God of love and of justice, how come he allows innocent people to suffer? This is a particularly poignant question if there has been a world tragedy caused by natural events, such as an earthquake or tsunami, volcano or hurricane. The question of suffering can sometimes be answered by laying all the blame at humanity's door, such as in cases of war or other human violence, but this answer won't do as an answer to natural suffering.
The Ancient Israelites had an answer which could be described as concrete and which would thus be entirely understandable by small children. They maintained that wealth and health were signs of God's approval but that poverty and ill health were God's punishment for sin. It was a simple equation. Those who followed the rules were blessed, but those who strayed from the path were punished.
This remained the main-stream view for thousands of years and was the prevailing view of all ancient religions. If the crops failed, it was obvious that someone had upset the gods and reparation needed to be made in order to appease the gods. The ancient Greek myths and legends are full of the relationship between the gods and humanity and are replete with punishments and appeasements, or even capricious acts by gods who were greatly feared.
This view, that God punishes sin by sending misfortune or illness, still survives at a very deep level in the human psyche. When AIDS came to the fore, there were many voices which suggested that AIDS was a punishment for homosexual acts. There are still voices who hold to that opinion, even though AIDS is rampant in some African heterosexual communities.
There were voices raised over the Asian tsunami which claimed that the massive and terrible loss of life was God's message to humanity, to say that we -- especially those of us in the West - are on the wrong track and must repent. But there seemed to be no acknowledgement by those same voices that it would seem strange for God to punish the Asian community for sins of the West.
But even back in the days of the Old Testament, although it was the main-stream view that God punished sin by misfortune and rewarded goodness by good fortune, there were those who objected to such a naïve and simplistic point of view. The book of Job was written to open up the whole question of suffering and to try to find an answer as to why God allows good people to suffer.
Job challenged God to answer him directly. "Why am I suffering like this?" Job demands to know. "I am not a sinner. I am a good man. What have you to say for yourself, God?"
God never directly answers the question in the book. But he does after a long time of silence, eventually speak to Job. He points Job in the direction of Creation. "Look around you," says God. "Open your eyes.
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements--surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?-- when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors, and said, 'Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped'? (Job 38:4-11 NRSV)
God continues in similar vein for some considerable time and at the end of this discourse, Job falls on his knees before God and worships him, humbly realising that only God can see the big picture.
Today's passage from Isaiah is in similar vein to God's words in Job, but this time God is talking about his Spirit. "Who has directed the spirit of the Lord, or as his counselor has instructed him? Whom did he consult for his enlightenment, and who taught him the path of justice? Who taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?"
On Trinity Sunday, when we try to fit the concept of God as three yet just one into our human linear understanding, it is perhaps appropriate to be reminded of the vast, unknowable depths of God. God is beyond our understanding, yet permits us to have an intimate relationship with him. When we abuse that intimate relationship by assuming that we know God and can second-guess him, we do ourselves and God a disservice.
We've had a glimpse of God in Jesus. Through Jesus, we know how each of us could be if we allowed the God within us to fully develop. The God within us is God's Spirit, just as the God within Jesus was God's Spirit. God, Jesus and God's Spirit are all one and the same, yet totally separate.
This is a difficult concept for mere humans, but the Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. If we believe and trust in him, he gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. No matter how old, how frail or how weak they are, those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
And we like Job, should fall to our knees in worship, humbly realising that only God knows the truth of all things.
