Message 10-07-07

 

Series:            What I’ve Always Wondered

Scripture:            Romans 8:18-30

 

Title:                                                    Where is God?

 

This week we’re going to wander back into last week’s message a little so that we can catch up the folks who have been prompted to ask questions from last week’s message. I can get into all sorts of trouble when I open my mouth up here, both in confusing people and in upsetting people. My hope is that if you’re confused or upset you will seek me out to simply let me know that. Please know that I’m not worried about either of those responses. It’s always great to hear that you’re connecting with me on something, especially if I’m getting it wrong.

 

I told a story about one of my daughters’ disobedience. Simply told, one of my daughters, when she was 12 or 13, acted out in a rather dramatic fashion that made me threaten her with not being able to go along with the rest of the family to a large outing. She was told not to do it again or she wouldn’t be able to go with everyone and she chose to do it again. I shared how I wasn’t so much angry as much as I was shocked. The whole family went off on the outing, going to a Christmas movie during the Christmas holidays, and she had to stay home. When we got back she and I reconciled and she was in tears as she shared that she didn’t know why she disobeyed. What I shared in reflection of that moment was that I wasn’t angry at my core. I wasn’t lashing out at her. I was simply allowing her choice to stand. But what I also shared was that I realized that my daughter was living in the wrath of her father at that time. I loved her. I wanted the best for her, but she was in my wrath.

 

That explanation of wrath may have confused some people who think of wrath as the angry response to evil. Wrath, for me, and as I find the experience described in the Bible is not just God’s response to evil, but our experience to that response. Wrath in the Bible is experienced as our separation form God. For me, wrath is not angry, destructive punishment. God isn’t lasing out at our actions. God is allowing the consequence of our choices to be fully experienced. We experience wrath as separation from community, from joy, from intimate relationship, even from life.

 

So my daughter was separated from the community of the family, she was separated from the joy of the experience and she was separated from me in our relationship. Physically and emotionally she was separated. She was living in my wrath and she was there by her own choice.

 

The Bible says that God’s wrath is expressed daily [Psalm 7] and it also says that there is a Day of Wrath. Jesus saves us from the wrath that is here every day and from the Day of Wrath. In Jesus we no longer live in the natural consequences of our choices but we do still live in a world where the consequences of separation are evident all around us. I think this leads us into the question we’re going to look at this week.

 

 

I’ve got two important questions for you to think about as we consider this and I believe we will get into the heart of this question. First question - Do you believe in Adam and Eve?

 

There’s a big debate happening right now in the life of our world over whether secular science or creationism is true. I’m not sure my question involved that. What I’m asking you is whether you believe we had initial parents to the human race. Not long ago a group of scientists brought forward the suggestion that we have all descended from one particular woman. They did this by tracking back DNA and they concluded that at some particular point in history all humanity, as we know it today, came from one particular woman. Their conclusion is that she stands at a particular point in the evolutionary chain. I’m willing to accept that. I’m also willing to accept that God created a woman that was referred to as Eve and that we read about in the Bible. I don’t have a big problem with the manner in which God created everything. I just accept that God created everything.

 

So, here’s my question again: Do you believe in Adam and Eve? And here’s what I mean… do you believe that there was a starting point in God’s relating to humanity in such a way that they understood that he was communicating with them and that at that juncture they turned away from God and we are living in the effects of that decision. It’s an interesting idea isn’t it? The Bible teaches and I believe that in the earliest stage of relating with God humanity turned away from God and we are living in the results. [Genesis 2, 3 & 4]. Our experience of the results of turning away from God I describe with one word – wrath.

 

There was a time in history when God began to relate with people and people, in a climactic moment, stepped away, turned their backs on God. Humanity then lives in separation from God and not just humanity but all of creation. We read in our scripture today that all of creation was subjected to bondage of decay. We live in a world that is tied to the response of humanity in a spiritual manner.   Our life on this planet is characterized by separation from God. All of life then is living in what I described before as the wrath of God – separated from community, separated from joy, separated from intimate relationship.

 

One of the most famous of Christian writers, CS Lewis wrote a Science Fiction book that captured this idea. The book is called Out of the Silent Planet and it tells the story of the first manned space flight to Mars. As the space ship passes away from the realm of our Earth the people on the ship hear sounds all around them and feel like something is going wrong with them. It is like they are in the midst of an immense chorus, like everything in the universe is singing.

 

And when they come to Mars, they find that the inhabitants of Mars all want to know what it is like to live on the silent planet. The earth people don’t understand what they mean until they learn that the singing they are experiencing is throughout the universe, except for their planet – planet Earth. All connection and communication with that planet was stopped. Everything else is still in communication with God, but everything and everyone on that planet is cut off – silent.

 

Now, I don’t believe in CS Lewis the way I believe in the Bible, but I like the way he characterized the concept in his story. The concept is that our planet in its entirety is living in a separation from God. Daily we experience the wrath of God.

 

Now, here’s my second important question: Do you believe Jesus saved us from God?

 

That’s an important question because we sing words like “when Jesus died, God’s wrath was satisfied.” Do you believe that Jesus was sacrificed so that God would be placated – that all God wants to do is smack down people? Do you think that God is watching for you to just get out of line, just waiting for the moment when you’re not paying attention to being good so he can get you? Does God slam us for being bad?

 

The Bible talks about God getting angry with people, with the people of Israel, and with individuals. Do you believe in an angry God? I’ve known angry people. Anger isn’t a bad thing. It’s just an emotion. But people who are angry people are displaying that there is some vicious thing going on in their heart. I don’t believe God is angry at his core. That’s not what the Bible says. The bible says that God gets angry but not frivolously. God gets angry at things he should get angry at. It’s not a matter of kindness to not get angry ever. Not getting angry some times just says that we’re apathetic. If God didn’t get angry then it would show he didn’t care.

 

Which gets to the issue of our question today, does the intimate damage we can do to each other demonstrate that God is not in charge. I believe it shows us the opposite. Intimate damage – abuse, murder, torture – just like accidents, sickness and other evil demonstrate that we are living separated from God. All of life, as we experience it, shows we are separated from God. When we see the other choice, when we appreciate each other, care for each other, recognize beauty, desire to make life better, God is speaking into our souls and calling us toward him and out of the experience of wrath. The wrath of God is swirling like a whirlwind around us every day. We experience that in the fullness of the evil we see and hear about daily. But all of that is the consequence of humanity’s choice to walk away from God and choose ourselves. I believe in a righteous God who is suffering in being separated from the people he created to be in relationship with him. The God who loves us is suffering in the separation from us.

 

Herman Melville who wrote Moby Dick grew up in a Dutch Calvinist home. His parents were very strict believers in pre-destination. God does everything. They taught their son that God was the one who planned each moment of each day down to the smallest detail. So when you learn that when Herman Melville was 12 years old he saw his father lose his business, go bankrupt, have a nervous breakdown, become institutionalized, gather himself together, move the family from New York City to Buffalo, start into a new business, go bankrupt again, have another nervous breakdown, become institutionalized and die – all in one year – then you have to think about what kind of impact an understanding of God making everything happen might have on a 12 year old. I believe that Herman Melville may have thought God hated him. His most famous book, Moby Dick, starts with the words “Call me Ishmael”. He claims the name of the person whose father, Abraham, threw him out into the desert.

 

But, my friends, God didn’t hate Herman Melville and God doesn’t hate you. God loves you and Jesus didn’t die to save us from God. He died to give us an escape from having to live in the wrath of God, in separation from God, in the destructive consequence of our choices. Jesus died to save us from evil, from ourselves, to bring us into the kingdom of God. Whenever a person who doesn’t know Jesus chooses integrity or recognizes beauty or lives to love others, they are close to the kingdom of God. That’s coming from God and they’re responding to it. It’s not just coming from within them.

 

Why do bad things happen to good people? Because our world is lost in the wrath of God, it is separated and sliding toward destruction. Does God not care about every form of destruction we live with? The Bible tells us that he revolts against it and that his heart is shredded by it. But we have chosen this experience. So what did God do? If God had been making the choice back in the story of my daughter instead of me, God would have said, all right then, I’ll stay home and you and the rest of the family can go enjoy the movie. I’ll stay here and sit on my bed and wait until you all get home. How much does God care. He sent Jesus to receive all the consequence of our choice, to clear the way for us to get back in touch with our creator, to clear away the separation and destruction and the destructive attitudes and choices, to help us to become real human beings again.

 

Will we still be touched by the destruction and wrath in which our world exists? Yes, we will see it around us, we will be hurt by it as it whirls around us, we will still live in its midst. Jesus told us, In the world you will have trouble, but take heart for I have overcome the world [John 15].