God as He is

This is adapted from a sermon I preached on Trinity Sunday this year.  Many thanks to Josh Pothen for his service as scribe.

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Trinity Sunday.  The lessons appointed for today include some of the most familiar passages of the scriptures from Isaiah, chapter 6 to John, chapter 3.  This latter includes the often quoted text that begins, “For God so loved the world…”

Some years ago while I was pastoring a church in Montreal, we used a service that provided formatted copies of the lessons of the day for insertion into bulletins.  One Trinity Sunday there was a typo in the John text for today.  It read as follows: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son to the end that all who believe in him might not parish but have eternal life.”  That’s parish, P A R I S H not perish, P E R I S H.  The typo brings into relief a thought that is worth considering.  That God send Jesus that we might not parish (or do church) but have eternal life.  I will come back to this.

Today is Trinity Sunday, and it is the Sunday of the year that we are asked to, whether we like it or not, deal with the reality of God as Trinity.

It's a day that we remember and celebrate the fullness of God revealed (and that's exactly the right word) to us by Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the day we stop and realize that we know and understand God not as we would like him to be, nor as we understand him (for a fully comprehensible God would be no God at all), but God as He is: 

Trinity. Three Persons. One God. Mysterious. Ineffable. Majestic. Loving. Powerful. And terrible, as in, causing terror.

I want to look at Isaiah's encounter with God as He is: in His majesty, in His awesomeness and in his terribleness. Awe is this sense of overwhelming otherness that we miss so often as we live in our relationship with God.

But this is what happens to Isaiah in Isaiah 6:

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.

The faith that we are called to, that Jesus brings us into through His cross and sacrifice for us, is a faith that brings us into relationship with this God. The sort of God whose train fills the temple, whose presence makes mountains smoke. Even the voice of the seraphim--who are not even God, they're just holy--their voices make the threshold shake.  Isaiah encounters the real, the true, the living God.

When we come into relationship with God as He is--the Father, through the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit--we see the Lord. And what changes us in His presence is that we actually have a vision of God. Now I don't necessarily mean vision vision, like falling into a trance and seeing a picture (although that can happen. Look it up. It happened to Peter – Acts 10:10). But we have a fresh unveiling, a fresh revelation of the fullness, the presence, the might, the glory of God. And it changes us. 

It is this vision and its attendant change that creates the prophetic spirit within the church.   When we encounter God, if on some level we are not afraid, we are not paying attention.

Following immediately upon this vision is Isaiah’s recognition of His own unfitness:

And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” 

The prophets always, always see their unfitness as soon as God reveals Himself. Moses sees this bush on fire, so he takes off his sandals. He's in the presence of God, and God calls him to the task. And what does Moses say? "Yes, sir I'll go"? No, he does not. He says things like, "I don't know what to say. What's your name anyway? On top of that, I stutter and I don't speak very clearly, and they're not going to believe what I have to say. Could you send someone else?" (Exodus 3 and 4).

When the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, he said, "I don't know how to speak. I am only a youth." (Jeremiah 1:6)

A vision of the Lord brings forward the prophetic gifts in the church. In the prophetic church’s response there is always this sense of the church being unfit for the task.

So we have a vision of the Lord as He is. Not some tamed-down, watered-down version of God that's our pal or our buddy, but the Holy One of Israel who, in an incredible contrast, actually IS our friend. Figure that one out. We understand our own unfitness: "For I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips."

Sometimes I think we feel pretty good about ourselves. And on some level that's not bad. We shouldn't feel bad about ourselves all the time. However, sometimes I think we congratulate ourselves because we're faithful Christians and here we are going to church and all those pagans out there aren't and aren't we good people. And we're really thinking, "God is lucky to have people like us." It's hyperbole, I realize, but it's true, isn't it? We don't stop and think that in the presence of the Holy God, we are all unfit.

And as unfit as Isaiah is, as we are, this is what happens:

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar.

Put yourselves in Isaiah's shoes. I've got this incredibly terrifying vision, and then this bright burning angel with six wings flies and gets a red hot coal from the altar and brings it towards me. This is not going to go well.

And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

You see, the true prophetic church encounters the living God, understands our own unfitness and then experiences the power of God to change, forgive, heal and transform.

I want to point out where Isaiah goes after this:

And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”

He encounters the atoning power of God as the terrifying hot coal touches his lips, and he goes from "Woe is me" to "Here am I." That's the action of God. That's God as He is.  That is the power of God’s healing atonement in us.

So we have this beautiful, wonderful picture of the transformation of Isaiah.  And that’s where the story stops.  Right? At least that where the lesson stops today, but rhere is more to be said and the second half of the chapter is not as happy.

What happens? Well, God preps him for the mission:

And he said, “Go, and say to this people: “‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

Here's the deal, prophetic church: You're going to go out, and it's not going to be a cakewalk. I remember a few years ago someone was prophesying over me, and they said some very encouraging, positive things, which I really appreciated.

Bit it was really upbeat in contrast to what God is preparing Isaiah for.

God says to Isaiah and us, "This is not going to be a screaming success right out of the gate. You are going to a dull and indifferent people. They don't want to hear, and they don't care. You might care deeply, but they could care less." It's like when you're having a conversation and you bring up the Bible as the ultimate authority with somebody who'd just as soon burn a Bible as read one. They don't care. We're lucky if they're indifferent, if not antagonistic.

Then I said, “How long, O Lord? 

Because I can do anything for a short period of time, as long as I know there's an end in sight. 

And God says this...Are you ready? Because I don't think you are. I do not think the church in North America is ready for this word and what, I believe, is imminently upon us.

How long?

And He said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.”

So here's the problem about the prophets: They're so gloomy and doomy. Because, as we all know, in the modern church, because we want to be attractional and make sure people feel good when they come here, we need to hear an upbeat message! Something that's encouraging! Something that'll make people feel good about things!

But Paul says to Timothy, "For the time is coming"--and friends, it's upon us--"when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions."  (2 Timothy 4:3)

That's not them, by the way. We never talk about "they" because "they" aren't the problem. I'm the problem. We too easily surround ourselves with the very things we want to hear. We hear also from the Old Testament in Jeremiah, "They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace." 

We cannot speak peace when there is no peace.

So as we think about that prophetic reality, encountering God as He is means proclaiming the truth as IT is. I want to be really clear about this: The prophetic message is not about feeling good. The prophetic message is about the stark reality that we are facing and the real hope we need to face it. We would like perky and upbeat, at least I would! The perky and upbeat message makes us feel good about God, ourselves and the world. But friends, we don't need to feel good. We need the real Christian virtue of hope.

I want to read the last line of Isaiah chapter 6 and remind you: "The holy seed is its stump."

That is the prophetic message. The prophet tells us that in spite of the fact that this is going to be hard work and nobody's going to care and it's going to get worse, that the holy seed is its stump. That God is going to act.

So where does hope come from? Hope comes from the encounter with God as He is, as I've outlined already. Being transformed by him. But hope is also formed because we practice the virtue. We choose the hope.

You know how I feel about Christians who are like, "AAAHH! The world's going to hell in a handbasket!" The world is going exactly where God intends it to go. Stop having a hissy fit.

The German theologian, Josef Pieper, says this: "Today when we speak of despair, we are usually referring to a psychological state into which an individual falls almost against his will.”[i]  As it is used in Pieper's work, however, the term describes a decision of the will. Hope is engendered because we choose it.

The mood state of hope and despair will follow consistent will decisions of hope and despair. So if we choose, "AAH! It's not going to work out," then we're going to feel it a lot. If in an encounter with the Holy One of Israel we choose to hope, the mood will also follow us as well.

We can choose to hope because God is as He is, and He has met us in Jesus Christ. Leanne Payne says this: "We as Christians, of all people, have every reason to be optimistic."[ii]

We do not need good feeling, although it is a plus when it comes. We need hope in stark and sobering circumstances.

I come back to my opening thoughts on John 3:16.

Our calling as Christians in this time and this age is not to "parish". By that I mean, create a nice place for us to come to church and feel good about. We need something deeper. Way deeper.

Now don't get me wrong and think I am suggesting that we don't really need to go to church; that we can worship God wherever we are.  Foolishness. Utter foolishness. You can't. Because that’s not about worshiping God as He is. It's about worshiping God as I'd like him to be: "I would like to worship God without the pesky trouble of all those other Christians with whom I would have to be in relationship.” And we are pesky. We are irritating. We are sinful. We say things we shouldn't say.  

A time is coming, friends, when we will even more urgently need the fellowship together to remain faithful. Because it is not going to be simple. It is not going to be easy. The cultural shift, the philosophical shift of our time has gone away from the church, and we've lost that battle. The ship actually has sailed on that one. The ferry has left the dock. 

The writer of Hebrews says this: "Do not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing", because you will not survive.

How we think about the church needs to radically change. He did not come into the world that we might PARISH, but that we might have eternal life. We are so often too hung up on things that don't amount to a hill of beans. We get our knickers in a knot about something not being right at church on Sunday, and we don't realize that it’s not a big deal. We are blessed just to be able to have a place to meet together publicly.

We need to get in touch with God as He is, because it's only God as He is who's going to give us the strength to be faithful in the season that's ahead.

Canon David Roseberry of the Anglican Church in North America said this, in and email I received this week.: "Nearly every week there is some eruption in the culture that should make us all go to God and pray for wisdom and discernment. How do we lead our church? How do we think about these things? How does the church stand and proclaim the Gospel and bear witness to its truth in a post-truth age?"

Great questions. Really, really great questions. Because I don't want a club.

One of the phrases we throw around a lot in our diocese is, "This is not your grandmother's Episcopal church." And we're usually saying that in the sense of, 'We're not stuffy.' Well it's true, we're not your grandmother's Episcopal church. Yet that is exactly what we're trying to build, isn't it? Church and church experience as we have known it in our lifetime.

And what we're trying to build, frankly, can feel like the Anglican club, or the Presbyterian club or the Pentecostal club of Burlington, Vermont, rather than what the church needs to be right now, which is this (and I choose these words very carefully): a crucible for the formation of radical disciples for Jesus Christ.

The truth is, your grandmother's Episcopal church has not prepared us for the coming time, nor has it stemmed the philosophical slide of the past 50 to 100 years. We are doing something wrong, friends. Let's try something different.

I hope that I have been prophetically gloomy and doomy enough for you. But I want to come back to the end of Isaiah, because "the holy seed is its stump."

About eight years ago in our backyard, we had a tree that was dead. We cut it down, and left the stump there because we were too cheap to grind out the stump like you're supposed to. And then, lo and behold, a tree grew. Now that tree is beautiful and healthy. It's not as big as the last one yet, and the stump is all rotted and rather disgusting. But out of the stump comes a tree, which one day will be as beautiful as the last. Probably not in my lifetime. But this isn't about my lifetime or your lifetime. This is about the life of the church.

I realize I painted rather a bleak picture on Trinity Sunday. But I don't want to lie to you. It's a bleak time. And it's going to get harder. We may be decimated: reduced to a tenth. We may be even more than decimated. But this is the work of God. And whatever happens to the church, God will raise her up.

So friends, I call you on this Trinity Sunday to encounter God as He is. To lay aside the stupid stuff and care about the things that really matter. Because we do not need to feel good. We need real Christian hope, and we need to be a crucible for the formation of radical disciples. Because that's what happens when you encounter the real God as He is.

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[i] Josef Pieper, Faith-Hope-Love,  Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1997, p. 114

[ii] From a lecture at the PCM conference in Montreal in 1994.

Uncomfortable comfort

Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing, seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished. 

Revelation 15:1

Seven plagues…with them the wrath of God is finished.  Such are the words of the vision of St. John as a comfort to Christians in the first century.  Plagues and wrath as comfort.  Perhaps I’m not tracking with him on this.  The comfort, of course, is that the wrath of God is ended.  But 20 centuries later, I can hardly get to the comfort of such words because I am, perhaps, offended by the very notion of God having wrath.  What is meant as comfort is uncomfortable because it assumes a God of wrath – and something that deserves wrath.

Let’s consider first the ramifications of a wrathless God.  I wonder what it is that makes you outraged.  What abuse, exploitation or disregard of animal, person or planet gets you exercised?  What is it that inspires in you a rant at the injustice or shortsightedness of it all?  Injustice is the key word here.  We are moved to anger by what we perceive to be unjust. 

Sometimes my sense of injustice is personal at offenses, real or imagined, against me.  But when I have the grace to see beyond myself to a broader context, there are things that leave me speechless at injustices and atrocities both against individuals and groups as a whole.  As a counselor I have heard many things that are legitimate atrocities committed against individuals.  And I feel angry because it is wicked and unjust.

Since God is personal – and by that I do not mean that he is my personal God, like my personal trainer or personal chef, I mean he embodies, quite literally in Jesus, the qualities of personhood.  Since God is personal he acts as a Person and so has a sense of justice – better said, he is the source of justice.  He is also outraged at injustice.  Anger at injustice is godly wrath.

A wrathless God is a God either without any sense of justice, or perhaps worse yet, a God who does not love enough to actually care.  Wrath, ultimately, is a product of a heart that loves and is disturbed by abuse to the objects of that love.  Wrathless is either also loveless or justice-less or both.  And that is no God at all.

And on the topic of deserving wrath, we are also uncomfortable.  Two things here.  In one sense we are too individualistic to appreciate what first-century Christians took for granted, and on another level we are not individualistic enough.

Our sense of wrath at injustice and, indeed, the very existence of atrocities committed by men and women on both a small and large scale, is the clue to us that as a race or a species, we do things deserving of wrath.  I may not have personally participated in the Holocaust or the slaughter of Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda or the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.  But I am a member of the same family who did.  These things alone tell me that there is a problem, rather a wickedness in the family that is deserving of wrath.  Obvious to me if I look and obvious to first-century Chrsitians.  When I think about wrath I am all too often thinking about myself and whether I am deserving of it – alternating between fearing it may be true and being unable to imagine it could be.  Too individualistic.

In the recent Russell Crowe film, Noah, a film I have not seen but have heard is a profound disappointment to those expecting a faithful biblical account, Noah is, again I’m told, deeply convinced of the wickedness of the human race.  He sees the cruelty and the atrocities of men and women and understands that there is a problem.  He understands the wrath of God.  Sadly, he succumbs to despair in this – or so I am told.  Russell Crowe’s Noah understands that there is a problem with the family as a whole. 

But we are also not individualistic enough.  It is my desire and my practice to put myself in a category different from the “bad guys”.  That is not to say that there are not real bad guys whose monstrous action dwarf the evil that I commit.  Theologically I understand that “there but for the grace of God…”  But in practice I am unconvinced.  I need to come back to the point that I am a member of the family with the problem.  That would be me.  And in that I need to take the wrath of God seriously.

So back to the uncomfortable comfort of Revelation 15:1.  The comfort in the end of God’s wrath and God’s plagues, indeed the comfort of the existence of hell, is that God will place an eternal limit on evil and will no longer have cause for wrath.  That with these plagues his wrath is ended means that we who ultimately long for justice despite our corporate and individual wickedness, will be satisfied.  God’s wrath is ended because the fullness of his kingdom will have come.  I am comforted.