Is THAT What God Is Like?!

 


(Another short piece I was happy to contribute to the Lenten devotional booklet for St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Williamsburg, VA)

I love the Psalms, because they teach us how to pray.  We don’t need to be polite towards God, or to hold anything back from God.  We can be as honest, and as accusing, and as insulting towards God as we please!  God can take it.  That’s what we see all through the Psalms.

But what about when a Psalm makes us ask: Is that what God is like?  That’s true in many Psalms, including Psalm 53, which is appointed for today. 

“Fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.’

They are corrupt, they commit abominable acts;

there is no one who does good….

They have all fallen away, they are all alike perverse;

there is no one who does good, no, not one.”

I can certainly understand the Psalm writer’s frustration, because I’ve felt that way, too!  Haven’t you?  "How can you be so stupid?"  (We think that, right?  You don’t actually say that.  Right?)  "How can you be such a fool?"

“There they shall be in great terror, in terror such as has not been.

For God will scatter the bones of the ungodly;

they will be put to shame, for God has rejected them.”

 Wait.  Who says?  Is this an accurate understanding of God – to think that God will scatter the bones of those who piss us off?  No, that’s not what God is like.  In fact, of course it isn’t!

 We know that because we interpret the Bible according to the words and deeds of Jesus. 

 There are many passages in the Bible witnessing to a God of violence and vengeance, prophecies spoken and passages written out of righteous anger on God’s behalf, because it does, indeed, appear that “there is no one who does good, no, not one.”  But it is the Christ who brings the full revelation of what God is like: the Christ who, even on the cross, even forgave those who were caught up in the system of evil and who crucified him.  We give the greatest weight to passages and stories in the Bible that are consistent with the words and actions of Jesus. 

 So – What is God like?  God is like Jesus’ compassion.  How do we speak and how do we act, knowing Jesus’ witness of what God is like?  Here’s where we pray for the Spirit to form us in counter-cultural Christian practices and virtues such as: Love.  Joy.  Peace.  Patience.  Kindness.  Generosity.  Gentleness.  Hospitality to strangers.  Inclusion.  Perseverance in prayer.  Self-control.  Compassion.  Humility.  Meekness (which means courageous resistance against the impulse to respond to violence with violence).  Forgiveness.  Thankfulness.  Offering blessings rather than curses.  Sharing in others’ joys and sufferings.  Associating with the lowly.  Loving and feeding your enemies.  Responding to evil with goodness.  (See Galatians 5:22-23; Romans 12:2, 9-21; Colossians 3:12-17)

 I give great thanks for the Psalm writers’ model of how to pray: with total openness and honesty.  God can take whatever we’re feeling – and, sometimes, wouldn’t you really would like to see heads to roll and bones to scatter?

 But it’s important to remember what God is like, especially during this Lenten journey of returning to the Lord our God, for God is "gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love." (Joel 2:13)

 Andy Ballentine

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