(Delivered at Berowra Uniting Church, 7 May 2000. This was repeated at morning and evening services, with some variations as marked in the text: Evening only in red, Morning only in green.)
Opening
What is God like? I mean really like: beyond what theologians or philosophers might argue about, what is God really like? Is it even possible to know what God is like?
There was a young boy whose mother had been explaining that God is everywhere. So the boy asked ‘Is he in my tummy?’ (I can imagine this well, because that’s exactly what Jason asked me a few weeks ago!) ‘Well, sort of’ the boy’s mother replied, wondering what was going to come next. ‘Mummy,’ said the boy, ‘God wants a banana.’ (Buff Spies, in 11-91 R.D., cited on www.sermonillustrations.com)
I heard of another child who was convinced that God’s name was Harold. Everyone said so in church: ‘Our father in heaven, Harold be your name’!
But it is not only children who are confused about God. In fact I would guess that there is nothing about which there is so diverse a variety of beliefs than the concept of God.
- Some people seem to imagine God as a kindly old grandfather figure: someone like Santa Claus, who says that he won’t bring you Christmas presents unless you’re good and you never are but he always does anyway.
- Others see God more like a tyrant: an unapproachable, feudal Lord enthroned in a heavenly courtroom, intent on legislating against anything we might find enjoyable.
- Still others consider God as an elusive force, the consciousness of nature, an impersonal ethereal spirit.
I know these are just stereotypes but they indicate how varied people’s concepts of God can be. Perhaps we will all be surprised in the end when we find out what God is really like.
In a science fiction short-story I read too long ago to remember accurately, a human was given the chance to meet God. There was a lot of discussion about what the person would report when he came back. So when the man returned they asked ‘Did you really see God?’ and the man said ‘Yes’. ‘So,’ they asked, ‘what is he like?’ Now there had been numerous conjectures about whether he would turn out to be warm and caring, huge and thunderous, or angry and vengeful. But no-one expected the man’s response. He said: ‘She’s black’!
More seriously, some atheists consider the concept of God so inherently confused that it is meaningless. Now atheists, of course, don’t belive that God exists. But in saying that the concept of God is meaningless, they are claiming more than that God doesn’t exist. They are claiming that the very idea of God has no meaning; that it is illogical a nonsensical; that a proper understanding of the world leaves no room for the notion of God.
Let me tell you an atheist’s parable: The Parable of the Gardener. Two women stumble on what appears to be a garden, deep in the middle of a forest. There are some beautiful flowers and neatly sculpted bushes, all laid out in an appealing pattern. But there are also many weeds threatening to overgrow the garden. One of the women says ‘What a lovely garden. There’s obviously a very gifted gardener behind all this.’ But the other says ‘It certainly is lovely. But surely if there was a gardener all these weeds would have been taken out.’
They decide to wait around to see if a gardener shows up. Although they never see one, the garden continues to flourish, making the first woman think that maybe the gardener comes at night. So they wait up all night, but still never see anyone tending the garden. The garden continues to look ordered and beautiful, but they never notice any spade marks, any wheelbarrow tracks, or any grass clippings. ‘See’, says the second woman, ‘there is no gardener.’ But the first persists: ‘Perhaps he doesn’t want to be seen. He works silently and makes sure his work is undetectable.’ Then the second woman points out the silliness of believing in an invisible gardener whose work can’t be detected. ‘There’s no difference’, she says, ‘between a gardener like that and no gardener at all!’
Now, says the atheist, isn’t this garden just like the world? There are certainly many beautiful things in it. There is an apparent order to it. But there are also many weeds. Is there really any sign of a God who tends to his ‘garden’? It’s no good to say God is invisible, silent, working unnoticed and undetectable. Such a God is no different to no God at all!
Do we as Christians have any answer to that?
I remember a television interview many years ago between Mike Willisee and Billy Graham. Mike Willisee was a member of the Australian Sceptics Society (I think a founding member) and dedicated to showing up the silliness of religious belief. When Billy Graham claimed to be sure that he would go to heaven when he died, Willisee asked how he could be so presumptuous as to think that he would be good enough to get into heaven. (Perhaps any claim to know God is just as presumptuous or arrogant.) But, of course, Willisee had misunderstood the whole basis of the Christian view of salvation, and gave Graham an ideal opportunity to explain the Gospel on national prime-time TV! And Graham, not one to pass up such a chance, explained how entry into heaven has nothing at all to do with how good you are, but on the grace of God and faith in Jesus.
I wonder what image of God you have? What pictures come to mind when you think of God?
I asked that of a young woman who lived next to us a few years ago and was surprised that she couldn’t answer. I don’t think it was because she had no image of God, although she had lived with virtually no contact with any church. But it seemed as though she was embarrassed to answer. When I described the experience to a minister, he chided me for asking such a personal question and suggested that many people would have reacted the same way as this woman. One’s understanding of God is a very personal thing and not to be lightly questioned.
Another friend of mine is just about to publish his second book on the topic of people’s intimate experiences of God. He calls these ‘soul affairs’ and agrees that many people are reluctant to discuss their understandings of God because they are too personal and sacred. The author, Paul Hawker, lives here in Berowra and has visited this church. The research he quotes in his latest book shows that many people, from 10% to 60% in different countries, have first-hand experiences of God. But most are scared to talk about these experiences for fear of misunderstanding and ridicule; for fear of not being theologically correct He says that this reluctance to talk is largely caused by the authoritarian approach of traditional churches which claim to know the truth about God and discourage any experience which may fall outside their neatly controlled orthodoxy.
Background and Summary of Acts Passage
In the context of this question about what God is like, I want to look at Peter’s sermon which was read to us from Acts. The passage follows the healing of the lame man we saw in the children’s drama earlier. The reading is the first part of a longer sermon. In fact, we can expect that Peter said more than what is written down in that passage anyway: Luke probably just recorded a summary of the main points.
The sermon wasn’t prepared beforehand or read like I am doing, but came out spontaneously when Peter saw that there was a crowd who wanted to find out how the lame man had been healed. Remember that this is very soon after the resurrection: I would guess within a year.
It is the first incident recorded in which the young church is in conflict with the Jewish authorities. The healing and Peter’s public explanation of it lead to Peter and John being imprisoned and put on trial.
Brian included an interesting set of notes on this Bible passage in last week’s notices sheet. I don’t know about you, but I often don’t read those notes. But each week the centre page tells you what the readings will be next Sunday and adds some ideas to think about in relation to those readings.
The notes from last week point out that in this reading from Acts, Peter doesn’t claim to have healed the lame man himself, but that it was Jesus’ name which brought about the healing. But if Jesus’ name could bring healing, that meant Jesus himself was still able to act in the world. Jesus was still present, even though not physically.
Brian pointed out much the same thing in his talk last Sunday. The fact of Jesus’ resurrection assures us of his continuing presence with us.
What does Peter think God is like?
OK, but so what? It’s about time to draw some of these points together. I asked earlier what image you have of God. Now I want to ask Peter the same question. When we look at this impromptu sermon, it tells us a few things about what Peter thought God was like.
Firstly, Peter thought that God was concerned about individual people. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (v. 13), and the God who took an interest in an unemployed, disabled beggar on the street.
Second, Peter thought that God is willing and capable of acting in the world. It should not be imagined that God created the world and then took his hands off and just watched. The crowd was astonished that the lame man they had known for so long was walking and leaping and praising God (v. 11). But Peter says in effect ‘Why are you surprised? (v. 12) This is just God doing what he has always done.’ God is concerned enough about his creation to be involved. He is a God who is present here and now.
Thirdly, we have noted that Peter quickly turns the crowd’s focus onto Jesus. What does he say about Jesus?
- Jesus is honoured by God (v. 13)
- Jesus is God’s servant (v. 13)
- Jesus is the holy and righteous one (v. 14)
- Jesus was killed but raised from death (v. 15)
- The lame man’s healing was by faith in Jesus (v. 16)
- More telling than anything else is the phrase in v. 15 which says ‘You killed the author of life.’ What a powerful phrase. It’s like saying ‘You tried to destroy the very essence of life!’ The implication of Jesus being the author of life is that without him there would be no life. We killed not just one who was alive, but The One who was the source of life, from whom even own life is derived!
At this early moment in Christian history, there was certainly no well-developed Christology. Peter was a fisherman with no university education and in his early speeches we see him trying to make sense of his extraordinary experience of Christ. The experience was undeniable: Peter and others were eye-witnesses of Jesus miracles and his resurrection (v15). But Peter and the rest of the early followers of Jesus were still grappling with how to understanding the meaning of that experience. It was not until 20 or so years later that we see a comprehensive interpretation of what Jesus’ death and resurrection meant, in the writings of the Paul. Paul was a trained theologian from the Jewish school of Gamaliel. He had many years to develop his theology from a variety of eye-witness accounts, detailed studies of Old Testament prophecies, the spirit-inspired life of the early Christian community and his own blinding vision of the risen Christ. But for Peter at the time of the healing at the temple, there was just an exuberant confidence that Jesus was alive and still able to heal people just as he did before he was crucified.
What develops in later New Testament thought is a recognition that Jesus is actually God in human form. The writer to the Hebrews describes Jesus as ‘the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being’ (Heb 1:3). Paul writes that Jesus is ‘the image of the invisible God’ (Col 1:15). If you asked Paul what his image of God was, he would say ‘Jesus’.
This is one of the things which distinguishes Christianity from most other religions. What an astounding idea to think that a person could be God! If we heard someone today claiming to be God we would throw them in the nut house. But Jesus’ resurrection makes the claim credible. And this is the Christian response to the Parable of the Gardener. God is not absent nor undetectable. He is still active in his garden. This is shown most dramatically in the life of Jesus, for Jesus is God incarnate, God in human form. If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. Jesus encapsulates the very essence of God. That’s why Jesus could say to his disciples ‘Anyone who has seen me, has seen the Father’ (John 14:9).
How should we respond?
Lastly, Peter presents us with a picture of a God who wants us to respond to him.
If the healing of the lame beggar really does show that Jesus is the Christ, the author of life, whom prophets foretold would die and be raised again; if God really is still present and active in the world, what should our response be?
In verse 19 we read ‘Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord’. Through Christ, God offers us forgiveness and refreshment. This offer, however, depends on us allowing God to be active in our lives. We must turn to face God before we can receive anything from him. It’s no good to continue to treat God as irrelevant, as though he doesn’t exist or is unconcerned for his creation.
The real issue here is how active we will allow God to be in our lives. Sometimes, we hold God at arm’s length, or say to God ‘you can come this close, but no further. You can be involved in my life to this extent, but no more.’
As the reading from 1 John reminds us, we are God’s children. There need be no fear in turning to face a parent like God. He is not a remote tyrant, but nor is he a wishy-washy Santa Claus. God is not impersonal, like a force of nature, but personal, like a mother or father. God is not like the undetectable gardener, but is present in Jesus. We are dearly loved by a God who would even give up his life for our sake.
In some ways we are all lame, like the beggar at the temple. We hobble along with our own feelings of inadequacy and weakness and failure and guilt. I think God wants us to recognise our own particular lameness and our own need of healing. And in the name of Jesus Christ, God wants to make us whole so that we, like the lame man, can respond by walking and leaping to the praise of God.