The Divine Resume--December 16, 2019

The Divine Resume--December 16, 2019

"Happy are those whose help is in the God of Jacob,
     whose hope is in the LORD their God,
 who made heaven and earth,
     the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever;
     who executes justice for the oppressed;
     who gives food to the hungry.
The LORD sets the prisoners free;
     the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
 The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
     the LORD loves the righteous.
 The LORD watches over the foreigners;
     he upholds the orphan and the widow,
     but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin." [Psalm 146:5-9]

So, there's a famous scene from early on the Bible (it's been recreated on celluloid famously by Cecil B. DeMille, for example) where a guy named Moses meets God up on a mountain.  And God--who first appears speaking out of a bush that is on fire and yet is not consumed--tells Moses to go tell Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to let the enslaved Hebrews go free.  Moses asks what, to him, is the obvious question:  "Who exactly are you?"  Or in other words, "Which God, exactly, are you?"

The Egyptians, along with many ancient cultures, had gods for all sorts of things, each with a different realm of power and expertise, and each with their own sort of "theme."  There's the sun god Ra, who is in charge of, you know... the sun.  There was a god for the Nile River, a god for harvests, a god for rains and fertility and death and the afterlife and anything else you could imagine.  They each had their "turf," and they were each known for particular interests.  The Greeks and the Romans did the same, as did the Babylonians and the Assyrians as well.  So there were a lot of gods and goddesses floating around in the ether when Moses asks the question, "Which god has sent me?"

And, of course, part of the beauty of God's answer back in that story from Exodus is that God answers, "I AM WHO I AM," which is something like saying, "I'm not some kind of mascot for one thing or another--I am the very Ground of Being in my own Self!"  The name God gives in that scene, "YHWH," (or, in our English Bibles, rendered as "the LORD") is simply the word for "I AM," as though God's identity is Being Itself--not some being powered by the sun or the moon or by sacrifices or whatever.

So, at one level, the God whom Israel came to worship and relate to--this YHWH, the LORD--didn't have a "theme" or a "logo" or an "area of expertise," but rather insisted on being beyond all representation, beyond all categorizing, and beyond all attempt to pin down.  But at the same time, this God--who was still understood to be the God of everything, the God of past, present, and future, the God of all creation--came to be known for certain character traits.  The people of Israel didn't just worship God because God was powerful, or ancient, or mysterious.  They were convinced that the Ground of All Being was also good.  And just.  And compassionate.  They believed that the God named "I AM WHO I AM" is also the sort of Person who cares about freeing enslaved people, giving justice to the oppressed, feeding the hungry, lifting up the folks who have been stepped on, and looking out for those who have no other protection, like foreigners and widows and orphans.

And that's what Israel came to celebrate about its God, YHWH, the LORD.  It's not just that God is the biggest game in town, but rather that God is just and merciful. The God who isn't pinned down to only one kind of "turf" or "territory" like the moon or the sun or the harvest turns out to care about bringing people to life, from whatever ways they are in need of being brought to life in the fullest.

The God who is the Source of All Being turns out still to care about everybody getting to eat... and about the needs of foreigners and widows and orphans.  The God who is infinitely beyond any of our conceptions still cares about doing justice for the people who are stepped on, releasing captives, and healing our maladies.  

And as generations passed, this came to be the divine "resume" so to speak--God's record of work experience.  The God of Israel wasn't just remembered as the Creator of all things, although that was also true; but rather, the God of Israel was understood to be the One who worked to thwart the arrogant and greedy, to deflate the proud and puffed up, to lift up the nobodies, and to provide for those with empty hands.  In essence, the God who doesn't need a "theme" or a particular "thing" to care about still chooses to be the God who brings life, the God who puts things right, and the God who provides generously to all.

This, in other words, is what God is about in the world.  If you want to be on board with the work of the living God, well, the psalmist says we had better be about the business of bringing people to life, feeding the hungry, lifting up the lowly, and caring for the vulnerable.  All of these are what I want to suggest as "little resurrections"--those small and big acts that bring people more fully to life.  Whether it be food for an empty belly, hope for a heart in despair, strength to widows and orphans or welcome for foreigners and strangers, the God of the Bible has chosen to be committed to bringing each of those faces more fully to life.

This is the God whom we meet in Jesus.  This is the God for whom we have been waiting.  And this is who God has chosen to be, even though God could have chosen to be a distant absentee landlord for the universe.  

Moses' question is still a pressing one--just who is it that we are waiting for to come in this season? Which god is it whose birth we are celebrating?  Because the Romans and Greeks and Egyptians all had fascinating stories about the births of their gods, too, and in fact, they also had edicts from their emperors and kings marking their own births as "good news for all people", too.  So who is it that we are celebrating, after all?  As God chooses to self-identify, God is the One who is both the Source of all Existence and also the One who cares for those most vulnerable, most at-risk, most pushed to the margins, and most stepped-on.  This is the One who is born in a backwater of the Roman Empire and laid in a borrowed food trough.  

This is the God who is worth waiting for.

O God of the universe, let us hear your particular voice caring for those most in need among us, and let us welcome your coming among us, too.