And when we reach that moment of realising that it ain t necessarily so, many of us chose to reject our God wholesale. Some of us continue blindly to

Transcription

1 Christ the King - Images of God What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us Those are the opening words of a famous book by A W Tozer called, The Knowledge of the Holy The most important thing about us is the picture, the image we have of God; it will shape who we are and how we live and what we are living for. This applies equally to the believer and to the unbeliever. So when someone says that they don t believe in God, the first question is always to ask what sort of God don t you believe in?. Nine times out of ten, I can guarantee, I don t believe in that God either. It s equally important for every believer to ask themselves what sort of God do I believe in? And again if I m honest I don t always recognise some of those Gods either. Our picture of God is influenced by a whole range of things; what we are taught by our parents, our teachers, our priests; it s influenced by what we read in scripture and how we interpret that. It s influenced by what we read in the lives of those who claim to know God. It s influenced by our spiritual encounters; our experiences of the presence or the absence of God. Belief often begins life as something very simple... God made me, God loves me, God looks after me. As we walk through life however those simple beliefs are often challenged; by science, or tragedy or prayers unanswered.

2 And when we reach that moment of realising that it ain t necessarily so, many of us chose to reject our God wholesale. Some of us continue blindly to cling to our original beliefs like a comfort blanket; too afraid perhaps of the alternative. And others still set off on a journey which dares to ask hard questions and wrestle with tensions, and along the way perhaps even begin to embrace new images and new ideas about God. Every picture, every word used to describe God will always fall short because God is beyond our imagination and our language and ultimately therefore beyond our understanding. Mystery by nature cannot be captured or explained. And yet it is this mystery that calls us to itself, and every religion, every sacred text is an attempt to articulate something of that mystery. For many, one very real stumbling block is the pictures of God we find in the Old Testament. You don t have to look very hard or very far to find evidence to support the now famous sentiments of the atheist Richard Dawkins who sees within its pages a God who is... jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully Often it s tempting to gloss over or airbrush the bits we don t like, but it s there for all to see in black and white. And if we reject or sanction certain things from scripture then I suppose the question is what in the end are we left with; what can we trust?

3 It is tempting to make God in our own image. And really it s inevitable. Historically every tribe, nation, and individual has projected their own ideas of God onto the divine. So it s hardly surprising for instance that a warlike culture will speak of a warlike God or that a prescientific culture will attribute famine or natural disaster to the hand of God. What Dawkins and others fail to recognise however is that within the Old Testament, there are profound counter-cultural ideas and images of God which slowly evolve. If he were to dissect these writings and arrange them chronologically he would find a slowly unfolding picture of, dare I say it, a more humane God; a God in fact of grace. So what happened; did God perhaps change over time?, or did he instead chose to work within the limits and beliefs of a given culture?, Or was it and I think this is more likely, human perception of God that changed - a waking up to more of God s true nature. When celebrities have their private lives exposed in the tabloids, often they will grant an interview in their words to put the record straight. In time, God chose to put the record straight. He sent Jesus; the image of the invisible God, to show us in the language of flesh and blood, what God is really like. As the apostle John reminds us in the opening words of his gospel, Jesus is the Word of God made flesh. Jesus, not scripture... is the Word. For that reason many churches, and I have to say I think I agree, at the end of a reading don t use the words this is the word of the Lord which in some cases I really don t think do speak for God,

4 but instead for the Word of the Lord, that is, for Christ and whatever truth may be contained within this reading;... thanks be to God... All pictures of God therefore within both Old and New testaments must always be judged and interpreted through the picture of God we see in Jesus. Jesus presented a revolutionary picture of God, one that many of the religious people at the time couldn t accept. And centuries later, there are still things we find hard to accept, not least perhaps the image we find in our parable today, of God as judge. In looking at any of Jesus stories, it s important to first ask the question - who is Jesus speaking to?. Now often it s the religious classes of his day, the custodians of the right picture of God. And usually Jesus is turning the tables, turning their pointed fingers back at them, and challenging the heart and soul of a religion that often failed to express the grace at the heart of the God of Jesus. So what does this parable tell us about the God of Jesus? We find within this story a God who cares passionately for the victim, and the underdog and the poor; who takes their plight personally; who is so intimately caught up in the lives of his people that he feels their hunger and thirst and loneliness and injustice. If God feels what they feel, then he also must feel the hardness and the greed and the selfishness of those who sustain such inequality. His judgment reveals the heart and its motivation. And there are consequences spelt out. God does not ignore injustice, and if we re honest that s actually what we want.

5 Some of you will know that 30 yrs ago my brother was killed by the IRA. In recent months his case has been revisited and someone has been charged. As you can imagine it s been a traumatic time for my family, and one of the things they ve wrestled with is the fact that if this man is found guilty under the conditions of the Peace Process, he will only serve a few months in jail.. In a conversation with my sister I found myself saying that whatever happens in this life, this man will one day have to face his God. There has to be some kind of judgment in the end; some kind of taking wrong seriously. Judgement is facing the reality of what we have done; feeling something of the hurt we ve caused. Jesus also taught us of the God of second chances; the God who asks us to forgive seventy times seven; the God who goes to every length to bring the lost home and make a welcome for the prodigal. And this surely is at odds with a God who would condemn for eternity, or banish these goats from his presence. Anyway, can there really be somewhere, hell, whatever we chose to call it, where God is not? In the final analysis we have to face the truth that we just don t know. I find myself always falling back on what I do know. That God has defined him/herself as Love. And I believe in love, I believe in love that doesn t condone but instead vindicates and triumphs by bringing about justice and reconciliation; in the end I believe that love wins, that the God who is love will always do the most loving thing and I trust that Love. And based on the picture I have of the God of second and third and seventieth chances, then I believe that my brother and the man who took his life will one day embrace in the presence of love.

6 Previously I ve said that I think that the main focus of Jesus talk of end times and judgment is a call to wake up to the present; to live while we are alive; to live lives full of grace; lives that leave a legacy in the lives of others, because when we invest in even the least, perhaps especially the least, then we are investing in none other than God himself. In other words, this is our worship; when we show others that they are worth something, we are showing God his worth... So the question I think that Jesus parable asks is - what does love require of me? That I bless the hungry and the thirsty and the cold and the prisoner and the lonely and the least... and.. And perhaps that asks yet another question... what picture of God do others see in me?