Over the years, this rocking chair has heard a lot of stories read to children curled up between its arms, in the lap of the reader. The stories have included Bible stories and stories about Bible stories. Lots of images of God have been shared and heard in this chair.
This
morning I invite you to ponder the images you carry of God: think about the
stories you heard as a child – read to you by grandparents, told by Sunday
School teachers, acted out by staff at camp; recount the images you have
gathered and meditated on over the years.
How
do you picture God, how do you experience God, how do you describe God?
As
has been our experience over Lent, Luke’s gospel continues to be placed in
front of us with words and stories to upset our understandings and
interpretations. The text today confronts human understandings of God and draws
attention to the consequences of human understanding. There are many ways that a parable reads us. The
prodigal son parable is an excellent example.
We often read the parable and put ourselves in the story as one of the
sons. Turning the process around, letting the parable read us, the story says
much about human understanding of God and people living out their understanding
of God --- the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Luke's text paints four caricatures of God:
Caricature
#1-
God
becomes human.
God
goes to dinner.
God
welcomes sinners.
God
eats with sinners.
God
tells a story in parable form.
Caricature
#2 –
God
ignores rudeness.
God
gives what is asked for.
God
divides all God had between them.
God
waits.
…
God
has compassion.
God
expresses unconditional love.
God
runs.
God
embraces.
God
celebrates.
Caricature
#3 -
God
exuberantly revels in joy.
God
indiscriminately and lavishly spends resources.
God
works.
God
is hungry.
God
suffers in the mud.
God
has an idea.
God
comes back, returns.
Caricature
#4 -
God
farms – grows stuff.
God
works hard and ceaselessly.
God
receives no recognition.
God’s
demeanour is stern.
God
is annoyed, even angry.
God
shows disgust for wastefulness and debauchery.
God
adheres to law and rigid righteousness.
God
passes judgement.
God
refuses to go to the wayward.
A
caricature is a description of someone or something presented through an
exaggeration of characteristics in order to create a comic or grotesque effect.
Were any of the caricature descriptions
of God jarring? The caricatures look at
God as depicted by the characters in the text: the first was Jesus (God eating
with sinners), the second was the father in the parable, the third the youngest
son, and finally the oldest son.
The
Bible represents a collection of thousands of years of history, story, interpretation,
experience, and relationship with God. And since the scripture canon closed,
there has been another 2000 years of theology, interpretation, story, and
experience. God has been described in many and various ways. It is important to acknowledge this history
because how we caricaturize God affects how we go about living as people of
faith and promise. The prodigal son
parable illustrates this so well. Our understanding of God determines which
character in the story becomes God, and which characters are human (and how
their behaviour is God-like or not).
Today we are given an opportunity: we can stick with our own understanding of God, perhaps the one taught to us by our
religious affiliations, or we can let the parable read us. We can seek a deeper relationship and encounter with the holy by reflecting on God
on the boundary (our growing edge) -that would be pondering God in a form we do not
want to consider, the God that makes us uncomfortable, the God we are afraid to
face, the God that would lead to too many questions.
This
parable allows for the fullness of reflection - to contemplate the omniscience of
God – almighty, all powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing… and what does that
really mean in a world full of the good, with a double dose of the bad, and the
ugly.
If
I err in my search for God, it is a turning away from caricature #4, a God who
could be angry, annoyed, disgusted, enforcing the law, rigid in righteousness,
passing judgement, refusing to go out and find the lost.
Within
Christian history and tradition this plays out in a God who would require
purgatory, works righteousness, rituals proving one’s faith, re-baptism, a
narrow gate to get to heaven and vast pools of fire to burn sinners, and the
God and devil at constant war over every soul.
Perhaps
just as uncomfortable is caricature #3 of a God who enjoys life -including
activities humans have put on the sin list- giving lavishly and extravagantly
without judgement, reserve, or reason, with no regard to an idea of ‘deserving’
or ‘undeserving.’
And
there is the image of God sitting in the mud – suffering, vulnerable, in the
midst of the places and with people humans and human societies shun. God in the faces of the poor, the prisoner.
And who would have thought of God
in the pig pen – a situation-where God sits on purpose to give humans the
possibility and opportunity to participate in the kindom by feeding and serving
the least. A God willing to take the situation to extremes, to risk death (as
we know comes on Good Friday), to die to warm the human heart to the expanse
and cost of God’s kindom.
The
prodigal son parable asks us to examine what is going on in our heads and
hearts when it comes to understanding God. It is important because our
understanding of God affects how we go about living life. If we see God in only
one way, or a narrow caricature, there is an imbalance within us and then in the
work we undertake in the world. Full picture, a full meal deal - a fuller living only happens in an expansion
of understanding. If we get stuck on God
as angry and vengeful, we too become angry and vengeful. If we are scared of
God and God’s judgement: we act scared, withdrawing to hide, and focusing on self
preservation we fail to suffer with others or to indiscriminately and lavishly
share. If we fail to reflect on God who gets annoyed, we run the risk of doing
whatever we please, accumulating wealth for ourselves, and in high living forget
the intricacies of relationship. When we understand God only as soft, then that greater than ourselves is no longer great and is bereft of power.
Humans
in their everyday life, live out their understanding of God… and God help us…
Without
purposeful reflection to balance our understandings, and continuing to face and
grow a deeper understanding of God, we find ourselves in “the good, the bad, and the ugly.”
God
help us to deeper understanding to find ourselves and live – not the good, the
bad, the ugly- but rather the abundance in; life and death and life.
During
this fourth week of Lent, you are encouraged to find a sensible chair – to
settle in for reflection. Reflect on the prodigal son parable and the expansive
God found therein, take extra time with the caricature lines with which you
disagree, wrestle with your understanding and experience of God. Seek a deeper
relationship so that you can live a balanced and holy understanding of God in
the world; a wholeness of life and death and life.
No comments:
Post a Comment