Join in the song - Rev Allister Lane
READINGS: 1 JOHN 4:7-16 AND MATTHEW 21:28-32
Sermon on 2 May 2021
Jesus says to the good religious people of his day:
Truly I tell you, the tax-collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.
Heavy. Consider that for a second. Jesus came proclaiming the Kingdom of God and all it is, and then makes this observations about who really ‘gets it’.
And today I want us to think about whether we really ‘get it’. What is our conception of God? How do we KNOW God?
To navigate these questions, I’m drawing a lot on the Nooma resource titled ‘Rhythm’, which explores our conception of God.
Let’s be honest: our conception of God, like just about anything, is usually based on what we consider to be most ‘real’. And a lot of the time we assume ‘real life’ is THIS – what we see around us every day. What we see. Touch, smell (no offence to anyone!)
If we perceive what is most ‘real’ this way, the appearance of things around us will dominate our understanding. And then we end up having to imagine how God ‘fits’ within this immediate reality.
This results in a conception of God that is very limited, and our questions become:
Will God provide me with a parking space?
Will God bless what I do (or not)?
Does God want to heal my illness?
Or even… ‘Does God love me?’
How can I be sure looking at the environment around me?
It is essential for us to recognise our conception of God is a result of our perspective.
John Webster gave a famous Hayward Lecture several years ago, in which he highlights the limitations of our perspective as created beings. With our creaturely perspective, we can try and think of God as similar to us – just infinitely magnified.
But the more we try to understand God that way, the more speculative (more mythical) our endeavour becomes. We reduce God to one of the ‘gods’. We confuse the categories of created and uncreated being.
The other problem we face with our perspective, is not just our finiteness, but also our fallenness. Our knowledge is distorted by sinfulness and our dislocated relationship with God. This distortion warps our view of God – like looking at something through the thick glass bottoms of bottles. Or trying to read the screen accurately when the projector is out of focus.
What does this limitation of perspective mean for how we can know God…? Humility. We need to be humble.
And the more humility we have about what we claim to know about God, the more open we will be to the fullness of God and the mystery of His grace at work in us.
Let me be clear – this isn’t agnosticism. It’s about avoiding the mistake made by the religious people in Jesus’ day. They were blind to what God was doing in Jesus, because of their conception of who Yahweh was and how Yahweh acts. They remained blind to what the tax-collectors and the prostitutes could see.
So understanding God with humility, and also with a sense of wonder and joy, I want to share an idea with you…
Rob Bell says:
When I think of God, I hear a song.
Let’s unpack this a little…We started our worship today singing: “All creation is a song waiting to be sung.”
A song is something we hear, and recognise as a song because it has shape; it has movement; it has beauty. A song can move us at a deep level. You and I have experienced this. A song can span language, age, time and cultures. We can participate in a song. (We can also reject a song.)
If Knowing God is like a song, we can recognise Jesus comes to introduce us more to the song – to see it for what it is, and to join in the song. God isn’t somewhere aloof sometimes pulling levers (and sometimes NOT).
Easter reminds us this is not what God is like – God does something very different; God is somewhere different. God is with us. God has come to us and draws us closer.
The Bible doesn’t talk about mechanics (what God does), as much as it describes characteristics (what God is like).
Jesus reveals what God is like. And so
in his generosity, in his compassion, that’s what God’s like.
In his telling of the truth, that’s what God’s like.
In his love, and forgiveness, and sacrifice, that’s what God’s like.
That’s who God is.
That’s how the song goes.
Here is a question that, when I heard it, really grabbed my attention. See if it does the same for you…
Is God compassionate, truthful, loving, and forgiving …or is God compassion, truth, love, and forgiveness?
God isn’t so much loving... as Love. God isn’t so much forgiving... as forgiveness. This is precisely what the first scripture reading today expresses:
God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. (v16)
Using this idea of a song for knowing God, means to ‘abide in God’ is joining in the song. The song is playing all around us all the time, the song is playing everywhere, it’s written on our hearts.
So, the question isn’t whether or not you’re playing a song, the question is, ‘Are you in tune?’
Can you believe in God and be out of tune with the song? Does it work the other way around? What is more important to Jesus: what we believe or how we live?
And to answer that question, Jesus told a parable about a son who was all talk, and a son who did the right thing (even though it took him a change of mind; humbling himself).
Do you believe that if you live the way Jesus taught us to live, being in tune with the song, that you will experience a full and satisfying life?
Jesus said:
I came that you may have life, and have it abundantly. (John 10:10)
So, how do you know God?
An infinite, massive, kind of invisible God – that can be hard to get our minds around.
But truth, love, grace, mercy, justice, compassion – the way that Jesus lived, I can see that. I can understand that. I can relate to that. I can play that song.
May you come to recognise that the tune of the song is written on your heart. And as you live in tune with the song, in tune with the Creator of the universe – may you realise you DO know the Living God.
I want to play a song now, as a parable for us to imagine ourselves within. Listen to the words, the melody, the rhythm – sense the shape and movement. You may even find yourself hummin’ along in tune…
‘Just a Closer Walk with Thee’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUcVei9AI3I