Spirituality for Thinkers and Seekers - part one

God Is Love

First presentation for Spirituality for Thinkers and Seekers

Friday night, October 7, 2011

(See previous post for announcement about the meetings.)

On Tuesday night I got a call from my daughter, Shelley, who is away at college. She and a friend were doing their physics assignment and couldn't figure out one of the problems. Did I have time to look at it? Inwardly, I groaned. This was going to take some time. I was tired and sleepy. I'd really rather head to bed.

But I didn't let on. Instead, I logged into her physics account and looked at the problem. A piece of space junk was orbiting the earth at a distance of two earth radii from the center of the earth. The junk weighed 206 kg. It was going to collide with a satellite headed the opposite direction in the same orbit. Find the kinetic energy of the space junk relative to the satellite.

This was going to be complicated. I pulled out some paper, made a sketch and scribbled some equations. We talked back and forth. I described my approach. Shelley plugged numbers into the equations and a few minutes later, she exclaimed, “Yeah! That's it.”

My chest swelled with pride. I had helped my girl.

That's the way it's supposed to be with dads and their girls. When daughters get into difficulty they call dad. And Dad goes to work fixing the problem.

Of course, it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes dad's are tragically delinquent or abusive. Still we know how it's supposed to be, even if it wasn't like that with our dads. Even if it isn't like that with our daughters.

The most common metaphor for God in the Bible is Father. Moses challenged the ancient Jewish people:

Is he not your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed you? Deuteronomy 32:5-6

In the Psalms we read,

As a father has pity on his children, so the Lord has pity on those who fear him. Psalm 103:13.

The prophet Isaiah wrote,

O Lord, you are our Father,

We are the clay, you are the potter;

we are all the work of your hand.

Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord;

do not remember our sins forever.

Oh, look upon us, we pray,

for we are all your people. Isaiah 64:8-9

This same metaphor is prominent in the New Testament. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asked his audience,

Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 7:9-12).

Jesus assumes fathers are good people. They will not do rude and insensitive things to their kids. They will not mock or ridicule their kids. When Jesus uses father as a metaphor for God, he has in mind an ideal father. He has in mind a man who is the sum of all the good things we invest in that word.

The Bible also uses mothers as metaphors for God. In Isaiah, God is described as being more attentive and tenacious in his watchfulness than a nursing mother (Isaiah 49:15). Jesus describes his feelings for the citizens of Jerusalem as those of a mother hen watching over her baby chicks (Matthew 23:37).

If you summarize the very best attributes of the very best mothers and fathers, you're moving in the right direction of understanding God.

God is described as a shepherd that spends the night searching for a lost sheep. He is a lover pursuing our affection. He is a king who protects his people, a judge who ensures justice for the little people.

Building on all these word pictures, a writer named John describes God in this passage:

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:7-8

God is love. This is the bedrock of theology as Adventists understand it. Every other theological idea is tested against this conviction.

[One of the founders of the Adventist Church was a woman named Ellen White. She lived decades longer than all the other founders. She claimed to have received visions like prophets in the Bible. She became, by far the most influential of the founders of the church. And her most influential work was a five-volume narrative commentary on the Bible. The first book in the series begins this way:

"God is love" (1 John 4:16). His nature, His law, is love. It ever has been; it ever will be.

Ellen White then spends a couple thousand pages attempting to show that every Bible story, every Bible teaching is in line with this bedrock conviction. Even the weird stories, the occasions where God appears severe or capricious, are explained as a kind of “tough love.” God is not being peevish or vengeful. Instead, he is acting for the benefit humanity as whole. The last paragraph of the last book in the series goes like this:

The entire universe is clean. One pulse of harmony and gladness beats through the vast creation. From Him who created all, flow life and light and gladness, throughout the realms of illimitable space. From the minutest atom to the greatest world, all things, animate and inanimate, in their unshadowed beauty and perfect joy, declare that God is love.

I quote from Ellen White here, not to “prove” that God is love, but to prove that my assertion about the place of this in Adventist theology is not something I made up. This is not a new idea. It is not idiosyncratic to me, nor to Ellen White in her day. White's commentaries were put together with extensive help from assistants, some of whom were leading ministers in the church. The “God is love” theme that runs through these commentaries is something that was approved by White and was developed and supported by her cadre of literary assistants. Thus it is demonstrably a theme which belongs to the very foundations of our church, however, obscured it may have been by our apocalyptic enthusiasm.)

God is love. This is where we start. This is the filter we use when we evaluate theology and claims of spiritual truth.

The word “love” in this context is some specialized theological or philosophical term. The Bible writers use the word love precisely because it connects with realities we can understand – not perfectly, of course – but genuinely and helpfully. God loves the way a good father loves. God loves the way a “normal” mother loves. God loves like a mother hen or a mother eagle. God loves like a good friend. God loves us the way a shepherd loves his small flock of sheep.

To reiterate, in the Bible, “love” does not have some unique, hidden meaning. The word is connected with earthy, vivid metaphors that we instinctively understand. The Bible uses a multiplicity of metaphors so if one doesn't work for you perhaps another will. If your father was a jerk, then think of God as a mother. If Mom and Dad were both jerks, then think of God as a shepherd. If you don't know sheep, picture God as a dog owner. Find an earthly model of love that works for you then start building toward a life-shaping vision of God.

What does this mean for our theology?

Hell: There is no such place.

There is no such thing as eternal hell fire. We'll have more to say about this in a later chapter. We'll examine the actual Bible passages that deal with this topic. But right up front I want to be crystal clear: If God is love, if God is like a good father, a mother, a shepherd, a dog owner – if the statement “God is love” means anything – then the common idea that some people will spend billions of years being tortured by God or being tortured by the Devil on behalf of God is simply wrong. It cannot be true.

The Adventist Church denies eternal torment as part of our official doctrine.

A number of Bible scholars unrelated to our church believe the Bible offers no support for this odious notion.

There is no way a good and righteous judge could ever find a human being guilty of enough evil that it would be just and right to torture that person for billions of years. Eternal torment cannot be squared with a loving God. So we reject it.

(I'll do more on this a few sessions later, but it's important to put it out here at the beginning, so you understand how seriously we take our conviction that God is love.)

Bright Future

The Bible teaches us that God is powerful and will determine the ultimate outcome of human history. When you put that together with our conviction that God is love, it means that human history as a whole and your history as an individual has a bright future.

For now, I'm going to sidestep the classic question that believers and skeptics have asked for thousands of years: How can a good God who is genuinely powerful allow all the suffering there is in the world? It's a relevant question. One we will come back to. But for now we are going to look at the claims made in the Bible about the good future God is masterminding.

We can begin with a promise given to the Jews who were living in Babylon about 400 B.C. The king of Babylon had invaded Palestine and defeated the Jewish armies, climaxing his conquests by capturing and demolishing the city of Jerusalem. The Babylonian king then deported tens of thousands of Jews from Palestine to Babylon. It looked it the end of the nation. Then Jeremiah, a prophet who still lived in the ruins of Jerusalem wrote a letter to the Jews in Babylon. He told the exiles to settle down and establish themselves. Plant gardens. Engage in business. Marry off their kids. They were going to be there for a long time, for 70 years, he predicted. Then God would bring them back to their homeland in Palestine. Jerusalem would be rebuilt. Then comes this classic verse:

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to propser you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:10.

Life was hard. God took notice of the difficulty then promised a bright future beyond.

This idea is presented in a more universal sense in the New Testament. The apostle Paul wrote,

We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

Paul doesn't write that everything that happens is good, but that in everything that happens, God is active to bring about a good outcome. But how do you know you are one of those people “who are called according to his purpose”?

A couple of passages address the question about what God is going to do about the “outsiders.” First in Psalm 87, we read that God plans to include in his final plans, the citizens of Babylon, Egypt and Tyre. These nations are classically described as the enemies of the Jews. They are the enemies of God. But in Psalm 87, God states that he will regard the residents of these cities as though they were actually born in Jerusalem. In the end, God transcends all the normal human tribal divisions.

Finally, there is a story told by Jesus in Matthew 18. A shepherd has a hundred sheep. One day when he's out with the flock he notices that one is missing. “What's the shepherd going to do?” Jesus asks. “He'll leave the 99 hanging together and he'll take off searching. And he will not stop searching until he's found the lost sheep.” Jesus wraps up his story with these words: In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost. Matthew 18:14.

In this story, the sheep does nothing to find himself. From what I've read, this is normal behavior for a sheep. Domestic sheep are pretty helpless, it seems. But the shepherd is not. The shepherd will not quit searching until he has found the lost sheep and brought it back. Then Jesus tells us: That's how God is. He is not willing that any one be lost.

Many Bible scholars interrupt this picture with a reminder that people have choice. While the shepherd will not leave a sheep helpless out in the wilderness, the sheep, if it were a human, would have some choice in whether the shepherd brings it home.

I understand the importance of respecting human freedom to choose. But I have a lot of confidence in the shepherd. Jesus is a savior and a pretty skilled one, at that.

Given the intensity of universality of God's love, we can confidently declare that no matter how wretched life is in your neighborhood, God has plans to give you hope and future. God has good plans and the power to see them through. I may not understand how that could be true in my situation or in the life of someone I love, still we affirm it. Our most fundamental conviction is that God is so loving he will not rest until he has brought about a good future, for all. Because that's what a good mother, a good father would do.

Love Has Expectations

Parental Love Imposes Rules

There is a lot of talk these days about unconditional love. We need to be careful that we don't use that phrase to suggest that God has only warm feelings. Like a healthy parent, God has warm affection for his children. And like a healthy parent, God has expectations. The classic expression of this is found in Exodus 20.

The chapter begins with God's statement: I am the Lord your God you brought out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. I could paraphrase: I am your Father. I gave you life. I rescued you from the hell of slavery in Egypt.

Then immediately God launches into the Ten Commandments. You shall have no other gods before me. Keep the Sabbath. Don't steal, murder or commit adultery.

A good father cannot honestly say to his son, do whatever you feel like. It's all good. No. Goofing off in school is not okay. Driving the family car before you get your license is not permitted. No, your girlfriend is not invited to spend the night. No, you may not store your friends beer in my refrigerator. There are rules in a healthy, happy home.

And the Bible unabashedly declares there are rules, laws, expectations, norms for people. God as a good father could not do less. Our conviction that God is love is coupled with an equally strong conviction that a humane religion, a religion that is good for people, is a religion that strongly affirms and celebrates and advocates good living. And good living is comprised of good habits: telling the truth, being kind, showing respect, focusing our sexual desires, engaging in regular spiritual practices, encouraging and supporting education, taking care of our health.

Because we love each other, we want the best for each other. That means we want each other to adopt healthy, life-enhancing practices. That means that as a community, we actively discourage life-destroying practices like smoking and drug use. Our love for one another means that while we allow one another freedom, we don't pretend that every choice is equally good.

The Test of Love's Authenticity

God is love is a reassuring statement. It gives us confidence that God likes us, that God wishes us well, that God takes delight in our existence. The declaration that God is love also imposes obligations on us. It gives us an ideal for how we interact with other people here and now.

The Bible pictures humans as being very closely linked with God. We are made in God's image. We are children of our heavenly Father. We are subjects of the heavenly king.

Because of our connection with God we are expected to manifest in our lives the character of God. Since God is a lover, we are called to be lovers. The fullest development of humanity is in loving interactions.

Love ought to be our dominant characteristic. As a church community and as individuals. Our primary purpose as children of God is to be lovers.

Obviously, we are supposed to love the people around us who have the conventional claims of normal relationships. We are to love our children, our parents, our spouses. Church members are to love one another. We are to love our neighbors.

This is sometimes a very difficult calling. But Jesus challenged us to go way beyond even this, beyond the affection and love common in traditional relationships. He called us to love people outside all our normal circles.

You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5:43-48.

This is a tall order, but one worthy of our entire life. Because we are the children of God, we are called to love. As we love, we enter ever more deeply and richly into an understanding of God. It is impossible to really know God while we are deeply alienated from people. Here's how the Apostle John put it:

If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has gven us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. 1 John 4:19-21

Genuine spirituality is inextricably linked with human relationships. Fractious people may love God to the best of their ability, but they do not yet understand God very deeply. Religious people who are constantly in conflict with their neighbors, their kids, the spouses have only a rudimentary understanding of God. God is love – not in some special theological, philosophical sense – but in the sense of being richly, happily, hopefully engaged with people.

At present, in the United States, in some circles Christians are famous for denouncing other people. Christians bomb abortion clinics. They hate homosexuals. They circulate emails of a naked woman who was supposedly President Obama's mother. (This last was sent to my by my 90 year old dad. It had been sent to him by church friends!) To the extent that our public and private speech is characterized by ridicule, condemnation, violence and harshness – to that extent we do not yet know God.

We understand God most deeply when we are happily, hopefully engaged with people. There is a place for religious theory. But we test that theory by how it works out in our relationships. When people claim they are loving, we can test their claim by observing how they treat people they disagree with.

* * * *

One of the things I like about natural science is the definiteness of the answers. In basic physics or chemistry, there is usually one right answer. A piece of space junk of a known mass orbiting the earth at a known distance has a specific kinetic energy. It's not a matter of opinion.

When I help my daughter, frequently even after helping her understand how to do a problem I'll arrive at a different answer from her. When that happens, we don't say, “Well, the numbers work one way for her and another way for me.” Instead I go through the calculations again. Because usually I've made a mistake entering the numbers into my calculator or I've copied something down wrong. Anyway, we keep working until we both have the same answer, because there is only one right answer, and if we keep at it long enough, we will come to the same answer.

In theology it's not so simple. There are some problems people have been arguing about for 2000 years. They read the same Bible, but they come to different conclusions. (And I haven't even started talking about the perspectives that come from religions other than Christianity.) Give us another thousand years to study, and we still will not all come to the same conclusion.

I cannot prove that God is love. I cannot prove beyond dispute that the statement, “God is love,” is the most important, the most fundamental of all doctrines. So I offer it as my testimony and the testimony of my church. We believe this is the core teaching of the Bible. We believe it is the closest thing to spiritual bedrock.

We invite you to read the Bible for yourself. We invite you to consider the testimony of the Spirit of God in your own soul. And if it makes sense to you, we invite you to participate with us in seeking to make this truth the foundation of your relationships, the core of your spiritual life, the pole star of your ideas and convictions.

God is love. This is our first conviction. We are called to be lovers. This is our first commandment, our first and greatest obligation. God wants partners in loving. He loves you and he wants you to partner with him in loving others.