We BELIEVE IN GOD, WHO’S LOVE IS THE LIFE FORCE OF THE UNIVERSE.

DOES GOD CHANGE?  

I remember the day I first heard that God is evolving.  It was in a Hebrew bible class where we were looking at a foundational story in the book of Exodus.  Our professor pointed out that the Hebrew word translated in my NIV Study Bible as “I Am” could also be translated, “I will be.”  It is when Moses is standing barefoot in front of a burning bush and asks for proof that it is God speaking to him.  God says, “I am who I am.”  I know what you’r thinking, He was quoting Popeye.  I wondered what could it mean that God will be who God will be?  Is God allowed to do that?  I guess if God is alive God must be growing too.  That really messed with my understanding of a God I thought was same yesterday today and tomorrow.  I have come to wonder what being God must be like and how boring it would be if God didn’t change along with the world.  I had heard that God was omnipotent, omnipresent  and immutable.  Was God really this way or was this the agenda of people who wanted to put God in a box.  In Brian Maclaren’s book, A New Kind of Christianity, he poses the question, “Is God perfect?”  Wow, another mind blowing thought.  He states that God is not perfect but rather God is good.  This makes sense to me as anything that is perfect is unable to change.  If God becomes perfect that means that God wasn’t before or if God always was perfect it means that God cannot change.  This would mean that God doesn’t enjoy creation or for that matter suffer with us. 

FINE FRENCH COOKING

As a parent I know that the best parts of life are watching your kids as they grow and being surprised by the amazing stuff they do.  I remember when my daughters Hannah and Grace decided to make our dining room into a french restaurant.  They sat us down and asked permission to light a candle.  Then they brought out a badly misspelled menu complete with appetizers, main course and dessert.  Then with huge smiles on their faces and towels on their arms disappeared into the kitchen to return with a plate of carrots and celery followed by Kraft macaroni and cheese with hotdogs and even instant chocolate pudding with whipped cream.  I think it was the French accents that sealed it. It was a meal like no other!  They climbed onto our laps and hugged us and I thought that being a parent must be the best job in the world.  

LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE

I wonder if God also delights in us?  I grew up believing that God was an Angry Judge who’s job was to decide who was good enough to go to Heaven when they died.  I am sure that is not the first impression I got from Sunday School but it is the one I remember best.  I was taught to fear and respect God and God’s house which as a pastor’s kid seemed more like my second home.  It caused me a lifetime of wanting to appear good enough to God, something I still struggle with.  It is a tricky road to navigate as I believed that God could see everything I did.  I remember reading a bible story where Jesus said if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out as it would be better to enter in to Heaven blind than not at all.  That will keep you up at night no matter how old you are.  Much of my life I have been consumed with trying not to sin. Then when I was in confirmation class I learned that because of Jesus’ horrific death on the cross I could escape punishment by asking God for forgiveness.  This began a lifelong rhythm of being a sinner and then being pardoned.  Later, I learned that we should feel so grateful for being forgiven that we should want to change.  This was called Grace.  I never questioned this until I began preaching it.  The problem came when I realized I was pretending to be a better person that I really am.  Maybe all pastors fall into this because our people often help this along.  Then I remembered the meal my kids made and how it made me feel and I wondered if God gets tired of being cast as the angry judge instead of the loving father.

HEARING GOD

One year during lent I was between youth ministry jobs.  The short version is that I had been lying to all of the above and couldn’t keep it all together.  I no longer had to teach confirmation, plan events or attend all of the extra stuff at church during lent.  I decided as I always had done to give something up for lent.  I decided to give up trying to please God.  No going to worship, no praying, no reading my bible and instead just trust that God would still love me.  I was pretty burned out anyway and this seemed like a good plan.  For all of lent, I simply resisted the little voice in my head that kept telling me that my value was in my ability to be good.   As the critical voice in  my head diminished I started to again hear God’s voice.  To my surprise it was telling me that I was loved just as I am.  As I started to live into this new understanding my mind was opened to many new thoughts.  What kind of God would create someone who couldn’t possibly live up to God’s standard and then would threaten punishment for not measuring up.  

VIOLENCE 

Then one night I met Eric.  He was standing in my back yard after midnight when I arrived home.  I was pretty new to living in the inner city and for some reason I just walked up to him and said, “Hey.”  I think I must have scared him half to death as it took several minutes for him to regain color.  He had an interest in buying the house that I was renting and just happened to stop by on his way home.  Against all better judgment I invited him in for a tour.  Inside, he asked me what I do for a living. I told him I am a pastor. He said he was an atheist.  When I pressed him he said he had issues with a God who would murder His own son to save the world.  He said, “The world is violent and you can’t solve a violence problem with a violent solution.”  It reminded me of a neighbor I knew when I was growing up who would hit his kids while saying, “I’ll teach you not to hit!”  I guess I believed that punishment was always for those others who deserved it. It felt a bit like being told that Santa Clause was my parents.  I wondered if I would loose my faith… or my job for that matter.   A few days later it was Good Friday and I knew after the service that something was really wrong.  The point of the service seemed to be to make people feel guilty for their sin’s role in putting Jesus on the cross.  On my drive home tears began to stream down my face and I vowed never to participate in anything like that agin.  I believe God is better than that.