8/12/19 As numerous as the stars of the sky.
8/12/2019
1 Deuteronomy 10:12-22
Moses said to the people:
“And now, Israel, what does the LORD, your God, ask of you
but to fear the LORD, your God, and follow his ways exactly,
to love and serve the LORD, your God,
with all your heart and all your soul,
to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD
which I enjoin on you today for your own good?
Think! The heavens, even the highest heavens,
belong to the LORD, your God,
as well as the earth and everything on it.
Yet in his love for your fathers the LORD was so attached to them
as to choose you, their descendants,
in preference to all other peoples, as indeed he has now done.
Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and be no longer stiff-necked.
For the LORD, your God, is the God of gods,
the LORD of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome,
who has no favorites, accepts no bribes;
who executes justice for the orphan and the widow,
and befriends the alien, feeding and clothing him.
So you too must befriend the alien,
for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.
The LORD, your God, shall you fear, and him shall you serve;
hold fast to him and swear by his name.
He is your glory, he, your God,
who has done for you those great and terrible things
which your own eyes have seen.
Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy strong,
and now the LORD, your God,
has made you as numerous as the stars of the sky.”
My daughter loves non-fiction, which baffles me a bit. I spent most of my childhood lost in the fantasy of fiction, absorbing history and culture and a general understanding of social change from a parade of youth lit. Last night, she snuggled up to me with the Encyclopedia of Knowledge, opened the book to a double page layout of the solar system and pronounced “Now, this is what I call fun!” while book one of Percy Jackson lay sadly waiting to be read aloud on the bedside table.
Eventually her questions about our planet led to discussion of the black hole in the center of the Milky Way, slowly crushing everything--even light--into oblivion. She displayed the same perplexity and discomfort over the concept of black holes that she displays over the eternal, beginning-less existence of God. Where did God come from? And where do the suns and planets that are pulled into a black hole go?
The best way I know to comfort her is to remind her that all of this is God’s creation. Think! The heavens, even the highest heavens, belong to the LORD, your God, as well as the earth and everything on it.
If I’m being honest, is that entirely comforting? The God of Advent and Christmas is easy to teach to children. The God of Easter, less so. The God of black holes? The creator of gravity so intense that it crushes suns into nothing?
Don’t worry, sweetheart. The same God who so loved the world He gave us His only Son also gave us a black hole that is slowly but surely dragging our solar system into oblivion. Sleep tight!
The conundrum here is not of God’s making. I can look out my window any given moment and see the nature of nature. My own refusal to connect the God of love to the God of a mysterious and sometimes terrifying creation is an exhibition of this generation’s relationship to the uncomfortable.
The exhilarating conquering of nature that humans experienced even 100 years ago has given way to an expectation of uninterrupted comfort and safety, and that shift has important spiritual implications. The idea of sacrifice and suffering has become anathema, so what does this world have to do with the Beatitudes? With a suffering servant God? With hell?
Christians have kind of sort of a little bit shelved the idea of an actual hell, an actual place of eternal suffering--because how could a God of love do such a thing? God who suffers the little children send one of us to hell? It’s unthinkable--not to mention terrible PR.
Is it unthinkable, though? Hasn’t God given us all of creation in which to discern Him? The beauty of the stars is also violent. The incomprehensible tininess of the atom is matched by the vast swath of giant heavenly bodies. Is it so outside the realm of the possible that God’s eternal, loving mercy is also matched with eternal, final justice?
I challenge this: the next time you reckon that God is too good to send anyone to hell, consider the coldness and distance of the stars and remember that God is master of that, as well.
1 Deuteronomy 10:12-22
Moses said to the people:
“And now, Israel, what does the LORD, your God, ask of you
but to fear the LORD, your God, and follow his ways exactly,
to love and serve the LORD, your God,
with all your heart and all your soul,
to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD
which I enjoin on you today for your own good?
Think! The heavens, even the highest heavens,
belong to the LORD, your God,
as well as the earth and everything on it.
Yet in his love for your fathers the LORD was so attached to them
as to choose you, their descendants,
in preference to all other peoples, as indeed he has now done.
Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and be no longer stiff-necked.
For the LORD, your God, is the God of gods,
the LORD of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome,
who has no favorites, accepts no bribes;
who executes justice for the orphan and the widow,
and befriends the alien, feeding and clothing him.
So you too must befriend the alien,
for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.
The LORD, your God, shall you fear, and him shall you serve;
hold fast to him and swear by his name.
He is your glory, he, your God,
who has done for you those great and terrible things
which your own eyes have seen.
Your ancestors went down to Egypt seventy strong,
and now the LORD, your God,
has made you as numerous as the stars of the sky.”
My daughter loves non-fiction, which baffles me a bit. I spent most of my childhood lost in the fantasy of fiction, absorbing history and culture and a general understanding of social change from a parade of youth lit. Last night, she snuggled up to me with the Encyclopedia of Knowledge, opened the book to a double page layout of the solar system and pronounced “Now, this is what I call fun!” while book one of Percy Jackson lay sadly waiting to be read aloud on the bedside table.
Eventually her questions about our planet led to discussion of the black hole in the center of the Milky Way, slowly crushing everything--even light--into oblivion. She displayed the same perplexity and discomfort over the concept of black holes that she displays over the eternal, beginning-less existence of God. Where did God come from? And where do the suns and planets that are pulled into a black hole go?
The best way I know to comfort her is to remind her that all of this is God’s creation. Think! The heavens, even the highest heavens, belong to the LORD, your God, as well as the earth and everything on it.
If I’m being honest, is that entirely comforting? The God of Advent and Christmas is easy to teach to children. The God of Easter, less so. The God of black holes? The creator of gravity so intense that it crushes suns into nothing?
Don’t worry, sweetheart. The same God who so loved the world He gave us His only Son also gave us a black hole that is slowly but surely dragging our solar system into oblivion. Sleep tight!
The conundrum here is not of God’s making. I can look out my window any given moment and see the nature of nature. My own refusal to connect the God of love to the God of a mysterious and sometimes terrifying creation is an exhibition of this generation’s relationship to the uncomfortable.
The exhilarating conquering of nature that humans experienced even 100 years ago has given way to an expectation of uninterrupted comfort and safety, and that shift has important spiritual implications. The idea of sacrifice and suffering has become anathema, so what does this world have to do with the Beatitudes? With a suffering servant God? With hell?
Christians have kind of sort of a little bit shelved the idea of an actual hell, an actual place of eternal suffering--because how could a God of love do such a thing? God who suffers the little children send one of us to hell? It’s unthinkable--not to mention terrible PR.
Is it unthinkable, though? Hasn’t God given us all of creation in which to discern Him? The beauty of the stars is also violent. The incomprehensible tininess of the atom is matched by the vast swath of giant heavenly bodies. Is it so outside the realm of the possible that God’s eternal, loving mercy is also matched with eternal, final justice?
I challenge this: the next time you reckon that God is too good to send anyone to hell, consider the coldness and distance of the stars and remember that God is master of that, as well.
Comments
Post a Comment