There Are Good People

I’m finding that it is very easy to get negative.  I have found myself becoming increasingly negative over the years.  As our society has gotten coarser and often meaner, it has been a painful transformation.

Then there are good people who remind me that there are some amazingly good people in our midst. 

Rankin Paynter was at the Kmart in Winchester, Kentucky purchasing some items for his business.  The Kmart was in the process of closing and everything was on special.  Paynter thought about the merchandise in the store, his own success, and the fact that there were many needy people in the region.  He talked to the manager and purchased all the merchandise in the store.  ALL the merchandise in the store.

As all the merchandise was marked very low he had an opportunity to resell the items for a tidy profit-----but that was not his motive.  He gave it all away.  He knew the needs of the area and the needs are plentiful and the resources are limited.  He gave it all away to charity.  Many people will have new clothing, new shoes, new boots, new underwear, new towels, new sheets, new pots and pans, and such because of the generosity of Mr. Paynter. 

This morning I bid farewell and prayed for bunch of people from St. Marks heading to eastern Kentucky.  These 15 people are bring an immense about of skill to do work in one of the poorest regions of the country.  There work will be hard.  Actually, there work will be very hard.  They are paying their own ways to work down there and many are giving up work time and pay in order to serve others.  Money that could have been earned or spent having fun is being utilized to help people they have never met before.

There are Rankin Paynter’s we never hear about and there are many churches that send mission teams to many places.  Our world is filled with so many good people doing good things for other folks in need.  I see it all the time as my own church feeds and clothes so many people on a regular basis.  We are just one church among many who do these kinds of things.

There are good people.  Sometimes we just need to open our eyes to see them, and our hearts to learn from them.

I Do Not Like to be Called Ignorant

I was recently reading an article about Bill Maher and I found myself annoyed.

Maher has become something of a hero to many people who are on the 'left.'  He is a comedian who does a great deal of political commentary.  He takes great delight in being offensive to people and using vulgar language on HBO.  I no longer have HBO so I don't watch his show any more.  I'm not really missing it.

I wonder if many fair minded people who are on the more progressive side of things are offended by him.  I suspect there are people who are more conservative who find themselves embarrassed by the often malevolent bigotry of Rush Limbaugh.  Limbaugh and Maher are often two sides of the same coin.  One speaks on things from the left and one speaks from things on the right.  Both are mean-spirited and like to call people names.

They both have many fans, however and that, to me, is rather sad.

One thing that disturbs me greatly these days about Maher is that he is something of an evangelizing atheist.  I am a minister so I obviously disagree with his theology or lack thereof.  I also respect his right to believe or not believe.  I respect his right to share his opinion with others.  One thing which does disturb me, however, is that he lumps all people of faith together and sees people of faith as ignorant.

He has a tendency to interview people and illustrate his points by using people who often make many of us who are people of faith cringe.  Within religious life, within the boundaries of purely rational thought and faith, there are people on both extremes.  There are people who can literally 'think themselves lost,' and become so caught up in their rational thought, they lose sight of their faith.  Conversely, there are others who 'feel themselves into lala land.'  When one's religious beliefs completely contradict science and history and you have to make things up to justify your position, lala land is very much present.

Maher loves to interview the lala land folks.  They are often easy to make fun of.  Conversely, he's also interviewed folks who have thought themselves lost.  They begin to argue themselves out of faith and it all gets very bizarre.

He never does get around to people who blend rationality and faith.  There are many people who are well educated, very rational people, who also are people of great faith.  They are people who find themselves often in the middle of a continuum without many extreme positions.  I like to consider myself in this.  I ted to think I lean toward the 'rational' side but I very much am a person of faith.  And as a person of faith, I do not like to be called ignorant.

Frankly, the lala land or overly rational folks shouldn't be mocked either.  People are on faith journeys and a life of faith is a life of ongoing conversion and change.  Where we are today may not be where we are tomorrow.

Perhaps Maher is a nice reminder that our society of almost craven meanness is not healthy, not good, and really needs to change.

Sermon for Sunday, May 13, 2012
"The Greatest Love"
John 15:9-17
http://www.stmarksucc.org/files/sermon_5_13_12.mp4

http://www.stmarksucc.org/files/sermon_5_13_12.mp4

www.stmarksucc.org

The Abiding Strenth of Connection John 15:1-8

A Dirty Word in Church

 

You are probably wondering what word I’m going to drop here.  You may be disappointed, but it really is a dirty word in church.

The words is ‘but.’

We all use the word ‘but’ which literally means ‘on the contrary.’

We have all used the words, “I’m sorry,” and by themselves they are an apology.  When we say, “I’m sorry, but,” it is now a justification.  We all do this.  Check yourself the  next time you say, “I’m sorry,” and see if you add the word, ‘but’ to it.

Or, “I love you.  But.”  It really means, I don’t love you very much.

Whenever we use the word ‘but,’ we are saying, ‘on the contrary.’  “I loved the movie.”  But.

But is a dirty word in church.

“You are welcome here.”  “But.”

I sometimes wonder what the word but means in this context.  You are welcome here, but we don’t like your views on things very much.  Or your sexual orientation.  Or your political viewpoints.  Or your race, though churches are very clever in how they deal with this.  Or your economic status.  Or, you are a sinner and we church folks are not.

You are welcome here, but you need to get ‘fixed,’ to be just like us.

Which means, that you are not really welcome here.  You are welcome  here; on the contrary….

“You are welcome to have an important role in our church, but…”  This is generally aimed at women.  You are welcome to have an important role in our church but your lack of a penis means you are going to be limited in what you say, who you say it to, and what you do.  On the contrary, you are less important than we males are.

I have read and listened to a lot of the arguments about excluding women in leadership roles in churches.  They all seem to have the same premise.  We do not want women in leadership roles in churches so we are going to make things up and take history and the Bible out of context to ‘prove’ our point.  These arguments are really good.  But….  They are actually bogus.  They really are.

I have been pondering this a great deal of late.  We in the United Church of Christ don’t always recognize what we have.  When we say, “No matter who you are, you are welcome here,” we mean it.  We never add the word ‘but’ to the end of the sentence.

We are called radicals and crazy.

I think we are merely being a church of Christ.

Monday’s Musings

I watched part of the White House correspondents’ dinner the other night.  Mildly amusing.

I thought Jimmy Kimmel observing that a high school teacher told him he’d make nothing of himself, and then giving the President high five was the best part of the night.

President Obama was mildly amusing but nothing to write home about.  Too many bizarre dog jokes, in my opinion.

Jimmy Kimmel was mostly funny making fun of people from both parties.  I thought it was, however, pretty low making fun of Barbara Walters about her speech patterns.  I do not find that entertaining.  And his observation about fans of Bill Maher and Rush Limbaugh was not really a joke.  It was just sadly accurate.

Interesting to note that opponents of President Obama are critical of his ad celebrating ‘getting’ Bin Laden and that he’s politicizing it.  I suspect his opponents are helping in this process by pointing this out.  Obama was the President when Bin Laden was killed under Obama’s orders.  It’s his shout out----but I had ‘celebrating’ the killing of anyone.

Having a serial killer in New Albany does not make me feel very good.  How gruesome has this story been?  It’s chilling.

Roman Catholic Bishops going after Roman Catholic nuns.  This is called institutional religion versus Christianity.  Choose your side, I guess.  Which is more important?  An institutional church or Christianity?   They do not always overlap. It happens in every denomination when we make the ‘church’ more important than Jesus.  It is easy to do and we’ve all been guilty of it.  But wow, on this one.

I’m always fascinated by ‘grades’ given to NFL teams in the draft.  It seems, to me, not unlike giving final exams before a class starts, grading the draft.  One thing every player has in common with every other player drafted is that not one of them has every played professional football as of yet.  No one knows how any of them will actually do until they have a chance to actually do it.  Tom Brady was drafted in the sixth round.  Tony Romo was an undrafted free agent as was Victor Cruz.

I have been praying that Psalms every day, twice a day.  There is a lot of asking God for forgiveness and a great deal of celebration of God’s being so forgiving.  I am reminded on how much we all need to be forgiven and how amazing generous and loving our God is. 

This was today's combined anthem:  "And There'll Be Music."  It was composed by Jim Stanton of New Albany and  written in honor of Sara Cortolillo for her better than 40 years of service at St. Marks United Church of Christ.

Combined Choir Anthem today at St. Marks

The Presence of God

I have always been fascinated by monasteries. One of the great blessings I have living where I do is access to two amazing monasteries as well as the grounds of a Conventual Franciscan Motherhouse. I have made visiting Saint Meinrad Archabbey at least an annual trek. I find that no matter how wound UP I am when I arrive, I find myself immediately winding down. It is a quiet place and a very peaceful place. There is something good here; there is, very much, the presence of God here.

Despite the fact that I am a minister, the presence of God is often elusive to me. It comes, I suspect from my failings, my own sin, my own busy-ness, my own preoccupation with doing ministry without recharging myself. It often comes from being over analytical and forgetting to feel God’s love and just intellectualizing God. It is easy to rationalize away so many things and often one of those ‘many things’ is spending time with God.

One think I admire about the monks is that they do spend time with God every day. They are in the chapel at 5:30AM every day for an extended period of time and then they are back mid-day, evening, and at night. Well, their ‘night’ is 7pm, but if you have to be ‘up and at em’ at 5:30AM, I guess bed time is on the early side!

But they spend time with God every day and they pray and chant the psalms slowly and methodically. There is no rush.

The grounds of the monastery remind us that they have been prayed over mightily over the years. This monastery was founded in 1854 and the Benedictine monks have been around since the mid point of the 6th century. Their rhythm and style has never been quick but it has always been constant.

I do admire the monks. I am not called ever to be one and I have never been. They do, however, remind us of the importance of stopping to pray and being slow and methodical before God. There is something holy about that.

Sermon for April 22nd. The One Cent Miracle (audio)

Arisen! Mark 16:1-8 (Easter Sermon Audio)

Palm Sunday, 2012 Sermon (Both audio version and manuscript)

A Remarkable Covenant III: A Covenant of Grace
Mark 11:1-11
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
April 1, 2012

In the 17th century a Flemish scientist by the name of Jan Baptist van Helmont invented a word for a substance he identified. The word was ‘gas.’ It was the word he used to describe fumes from coal burning, from wine fermenting, from burned gun powder, etc. He realized all of these things had something in common so he developed a word that used all of them.

In 1907, the American humorist G. Burgess coined the word blurb to describe a short summary or brief advertisement. A few years ago the word “Google” went from being the name of a website to the action of searching for something on the Internet. And, most recently, in 2006, Noah Glass coined the word Twitter for mass text-messaging with short updates or “tweets.”

Things change.

On a day in Jerusalem so many years ago things changed. Jesus arrived, on a donkey into the city of Jerusalem and things changed. He was no longer an outlying preacher, he was no longer an eccentric preacher and miracle worker who wandered in the wilderness, but now he was in the center of action for the region. He had arrived in Jerusalem. Everything changed.

There were people in the crowd genuinely excited for the entrance of Jesus. Things were changing and they were happy. There were others who were taking a more ‘wait and see’ kind of attitude. Still others were angry. They saw Jesus as little more than a trouble maker. Jesus was entering with mixed reviews.

From the perspective of Christianity, this marked a change of covenant.

But then there was Jesus. Nothing has ever been simple about Jesus. He confounded and confused people in his own time, and so it is no wonder people today are still wrestling with him and his message. People still grapple with the legacy of Jesus, his life, his death, and his resurrection and his power and charisma seem undimmed from two thousand years ago

In the last few weeks I have been talking about the three great covenants of the Bible between God and people. The first was made through Abraham and it was simply identifying God as God and God’s people as God’s people. The second was through Moses and it was a covenant of living loving lives by following commandments or God’s Law. The third is the final covenant and comes through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and it amazing, unique, beautiful, and a clear demonstration of God’s love for people.

What makes this covenant so remarkable comes down to really two things. The first is that it is a transformational covenant. It is a covenant that is not static in any way. It demands more than good conduct or being righteous.

Whereas we look at the 10 Commandments as ‘thou shalt nots’ this is a covenant of ‘thou shall.’ It is living a life of ongoing transformation and conversion. It is living a life always seeking something more.

Jesus had a radical and troubling message to the world that still knocks people off their kilter.

Love one another.

You may wonder why a person with a message of ‘love one another’ is so radical and ends up getting killed.

When we love one another we don’t allow people to go hungry. When we love one another we do not allow people to have no clothing. When we love one another we embrace and accept one another with no reservation. When we love one another we commit ourselves to never be violent to another. When we love one another we try to heal all of a person’s hurts. When we love one another we can never hate. When we love one another we can never judge. Loving one another is not about rules; it’s about loving one another and loving one another is really, really difficult.
Loving one another demands that we see the inherent worth and dignity of every person, expect justice, equity and compassion in human relations; and practice a radical acceptance of one another.

Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey listening to the voices of a cheering crowd was bringing a message and living a life people were not really ready for. If we are truly honest, we still aren’t ready for it.

The second aspect of this covenant is that it is a covenant of grace. It is a covenant of forgiveness when we fail. It is a covenant filled with ambition and yet an amazingly compassionate anticipation that everyone will fail.

It is a covenant of grace that Christians debate about all the time.

A priest, a minister, and a rabbi were all on vacation at the beach. Hour after hour the priest and the minister were arguing about what God’s grace meant. The rabbi kept begging them to stop as they were ruining his vacation. But the priest and the minister kept arguing.

They finally came upon a lamp and when they picked up the lamp a genie came out and said, “I will give each one of you one wish!”

The priest said, “I want to be Pope,” and he was whisked away to Rome.
The minister said, “I want to be the pastor of the largest mega-church in the country,” so he was whisked away to Houston.”

This left the rabbi standing alone on the beach with the genie. The genie said, “What is your wish?” The rabbi said, “Oh, don’t worry. You granted it when you whisked those two away.”

Therein is the problem with grace. We love to debate about it more than we like to embrace it. We love it for ourselves more than we like the grace of God being given unto others.

And, again, Jesus riding into town on a donkey brings all of this and people were not ready for it; and we still aren’t.

Jesus ushered in new words, new ideas, and a view of God that was radical and transformational. Jesus coming into the world, living, preaching, teaching, dying, and being raised changed how we approach God forever. It became the new and everlasting covenant which remains forever.

On this day, on this Palm Sunday, we celebrate Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem but we need to do so recognizing a sense of profound irony. The crowds which cheered on Sunday, jeered on Friday. The people proclaiming him the King of the Jews on Sunday were shouting for his death on Friday. Jesus was, in so many ways, a very difficult Messiah to embrace. He still is. But we are given the opportunity to embrace Jesus for who he really was and is to our lives today. As he entered into the city of Jerusalem he enters, again into our leaves. It is up to us to cheer or jeer.

Grotesque Hypocrisy

I have been reading columns written by a man who would currently be my Bishop had I remained Roman Catholic. He is a person I knew well. He was a professor in the seminary I attended in the 1970’s and was and is a Biblical scholar. From an academic perspective, he knew his subject well and was a good teacher of the material. At the time I very much respected him for his knowledge, but found him greatly lacking in compassion as a human being.

One thing very disturbing about him was that he was a proud misogynist. He would often quiz is (open book) on passages from Wisdom Literature over chapters we were assigned to read. We practically had, committed to memory, all the misogynist passages in those books of the Bible as he was often inclined to ask about those. It brought him great delight to watch many of the women in class, nuns, squirmed as these passages were read aloud. He made it abundantly clear these women were not really very welcome in his class, but he was ‘forced’ to accept them in his classroom. He would often lament as to how unfair it was that women were in our classrooms as, in his day, a seminary classroom was only for men. He felt, and he was very vocal about this, victimized by this openness.

He is no longer a theology professor. He is now a Roman Catholic Bishop and he is still a victim. These days he is being victimized by the Federal government for the oppression they are laying on him. In recent columns he very eloquently uses a great many tidbits of historical facts to validate his position which, not unlike his laments of his oppression while teaching in the seminary, is a steaming pile of nonsense.

Ironically, this poor, oppressed Bishop, who lives in a nice house, drives a nice car, and writes whatever he wants with impunity, isn’t always very concerned about the oppression of others. In fact, he contributes to it.

He is currently one of the leading Roman Catholic Bishops who is aggressively seeking out Roman Catholic theologians who may vary, at least in his opinion, from Roman Catholic teaching. He seems to take a certain pleasure in silencing female theologians within the Roman Catholic tradition. While writing how terrible it is when people criticize folks like him for misogyny, he gleefully practices it.

So, while this man who whines that he is a victim because of governmental oppression denying him free speech (which is bogus), he gleefully attempts to silence theologians he does not approve of. The grotesque hypocrisy of this ought not be lost. The fact that I am not mentioning his name is very intentional. I choose not to give this man any kind of forum. He, tragically, already has one and has the capacity to mislead and to silence others.

I thank God every day I am no longer Roman Catholic or in that region or will ever see him again. Within the United Church of Christ I have never met anyone even remotely like him and I doubt I ever well. Being a misogynist is not something we celebrate in the United Church of Christ. Silencing people we disagree with is not something we celebrate within the United Church of Christ. As for him, and the current oppression he is experiencing, I will pray for him. Hopefully, one day, he will grow a heart and recognize that oppressors have no right to condemn others for oppression. Most especially, when one’s claim of the oppression is bogus. The grotesque hypocrisy of this man is distasteful grotesque. The people of his diocese deserve much, much better.

A Good Thing

George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin. That much is a clear fact. He admits to doing so and so there is no question as to who killed Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman claimed self defense and was not arrested. Under Florida law, self-defense is very admissible even on a public street and so the local sheriff chose not to arrest Zimmerman.

The State of Florida and the United States Justice Department are now stepping in and evidence seems to be rather damning to Zimmerman. In the 911 call Zimmerman made to police, he stated that he was following Martin----and was told not to do so. In a phone conversation recently made public by Martin’s girlfriend, she claimed that Martin was getting scared because Zimmerman was coming toward him. Martin, who was armed only with Skittles, felt he was in mortal danger----and he was.

I’ve had several thoughts, the first being that self-defense, while a potentially valid defense, in a questionable scenario, which this seems to be, should be determined in court. If the sheriff arrested Zimmerman there was a chance for the truth to come out and justice to prevail. The sheriff, however, simply determined to not make the arrest. I do not understand this.

More significantly, however, has been the role of social media and the potential benefits and potential dangers.

The potential danger, of course, is this kind of free speech allows information and misinformation to flow freely. There is a lot of really excellent information passed along on the Internet; there is also a great deal of truly bad information passed along on the Internet. Additionally, there can be loud cries for things simply not true and authorities cannot make their decisions totally on what people on Facebook want them to do.

However, the potential benefits are very much present. In the case of Trayvon Martin no arrest was made and George Zimmerman had nothing to fear-----except social media has kept a potential injustice alive and has made people in authority take another look.

When one hears the cries of Trayvon Martin in the last seconds of his life, that can only be a good thing.

A Remarkable Covenant II: Being a Law Abiding People
Text: Exodus 20:1-17
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
March 18, 2012

Random Saturday Thoughts

It feels very weird to have it be still winter on the calendar and have the air conditioning on in the house because it's very warm and humid outside. I'm wondering if we'll have a snow storm for Mother's Day?

We, as a nation, are out of Iraq. Thanks heavens. I really believe we need to get out of Afghanistan as soon as possible and not get into a war with Syria or Iran. I never agreed with the war in Iraq and we accomplished our immediate mission in Afghanistan very quickly but never withdrew.

Recent arguments about the offensive comments of Limbaugh and Maher are troubling. People defend both of them and I really do not understand how or why anyone can defend either of them. They are both very crass individuals and neither is worthy of defense. Of course, they are both incredible wealthy being crass so they have nothing to lose.

Peyton Manning is one of if not the greatest quarterback in the history of the NFL. I have no idea what his future holds and if he'll be healthy enough to play. However, having said this, it is difficult to imagine him playing for a team other than the Colts. I hate the fact that he'll probably retire as a member of some other team. It just seems so wrong on so many levels.

I wish I liked basketball. People who like basketball have so much fun in March. It's just not very interesting to me.

Is it just me or are most of the 'issues' being debated right now in the Presidential debates, not really issues. I was listening to a former speech writer for Condi Rice speaking about this. She is a young woman, a life long Republican, and she's bewildered by the people running for office and feels she has no one she can really vote for with any sense of confidence. She sounded like her choice would be to either not vote or vote for an independent person from neither party.

Our two political parties seem to forget that elections are won or lost based on 20% of the population who tend to be independent, centrist, pragmatists.

Melissa Harris-Perry, a professor, has one of the best talk shows on the weekend. She's on MSNBC at 10AM. Cool and intellectual conversations take place. There is no yelling and no name calling and a great deal of respect given to everyone at the table. I hope this catches on.

One thing is for sure. Having college basketball play off rounds in Louisville really generates excitement in the downtown!

Lastly, Jeremy Sapp and JR Stuart are in "Tuesdays with Morrie" at St. Marks. Wow. Brilliant play with two brilliant performances by two very, very fine actors.

A Remarkable Covenant I: Being God’s People

A Remarkable Covenant I: Being God’s People
Text: Genesis 17:10-16
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
March 11, 2012

Within the Bible there is the concept of covenant that occurs time and time again. There are minor covenants and three very major covenants.

Covenants are things we make and use all the time without necessarily calling them covenants. A covenant is an agreement between two parties.

If you go out for pizza and you pay for the pizza you are making a covenant that if you give the person money, that person will give you the pizza.

When we purchase a car or a house, we sign a contract that is, in essence, a covenant. If we get married or committed to someone, that is a covenant. When we join churches, it is a covenant. And God has made covenants with us; and we make covenants back, to God.

The Bible has minor covenants that were made with God and people such as Noah and David. There are also agreements, covenants, made between people. There are, however, three over-arching covenants in the Bible. This week I will examine the first of the three, between God and Abraham.

To do this, however, first we need to ponder God and how we view God.
First, we need to see how people viewed God back in Abraham’s day.

In the time of Abraham people perceived the concept of God very differently than we do now. For most people in that era, gods were considered to be regional and functional. There were gods for the sun, the moon, the sea, the sky, the moon, the earth, for war, for love, etc. Cultures saw gods as being tied to distinct geographic areas and were limited to certain powers.

Suddenly, into this mix enters God making a covenant with Abraham. The revelation of God was that there was only one God and the God of Israel was the one God, and God was making a covenant to Abraham and his descendants. God was going to be their God and they were going to be God’s people.

This first major covenant between God and God’s people had one amazing thing taking place. God was, in essence, announcing to the world that God was bigger than they had ever conceived.

The amazing thing about all of this, however, was that people still struggled with how they perceived God. As a result, in Hebrew, there were a multitude of names for God with often different meanings.

These included:

Elohim - strong One, divine
Adonai - Lord, indicating a Master-to-servant
El Elyon - Most High, the strongest One
El Roi - the strong One who sees
El Shaddai – literally, God of the Mountain,Almighty God .
El Olam - Everlasting God
Yahweh - LORD “I Am,” meaning the eternal self-existent God.

People took the concept of multiple gods and gave all those qualities to the one God of Israel. God became one God with many names most of which came from the attributes people saw in God.

In contemporary times we don’t always have a vast array of names for God, but people maintain a vast array of theological opinions about God.

For some, God is a cosmic judge looking to condemn people for every and anything they perceive to be wrong. This past week a minister in Minnesota preached a sermon about the tornadoes in Indiana and said that this was a lesson to everyone about repenting from their sins. God is perceived as an angry and cosmic judge.

Others see God as a something of a cosmic puppet-master controlling each and every aspect of our lives with detailed plans laid out for us each and every day of our lives. We’ve probably all heard sermons or people speaking about God having an explicit plan for their lives from who will be in their family, where they will live, and what kind of career they will have.

For some God is a cosmic Santa Claus waiting for our prayers, and seeking, diligently to provide for our every want or need. Much of what we read and hear about with the prosperity Gospel is based on this. If we pray hard and have faith, then all our dreams will come true.

Others see God as a cosmic observer who sits back and simply watches the universe do its thing with no intervention. God listens to prayers, but does not act until, perhaps the end of life or the end of time. God is something of a removed observer.

Some see God as one who creates, observes, gently guides, and allows life to take place. God is a combination of passive and active, but generally allows life to take place without a great deal of intervention.

All of this, of course, has the addition of the character and personality of God. Some see God as angry and vengeful; others as loving and kind; others as a being with an amazing sense of humor who finds our efforts to be, if nothing else, amusing and entertaining.

Now that I have laid a whole host of things about God, we are left with the fact that God made a covenant with Abraham, and upon this covenant much has been built. It also forces us to ponder what it is we believe about God and what attributes we believe are important about God.

I have three. The first is that God is transcendent.

The word transcendent implies that God is ‘out there,’ great and almighty. God is one who is beyond perception, independent of the universe, and “other” when compared to us. In fact, the word ‘holy’ is, at its core, ‘other.’

It means, in essence, that God is magnificent beyond our perception, comprehension, and understanding. No matter how hard we try, we cannot truly understand God.

In the movie O God there is a wonderful scene between God and Jerry, with God being played by George Burns and Jerry being played by John Denver. Jerry and God are standing in Jerry’s bathroom and God is standing there and they are chatting. Jerry asks, “Is this how you really are?” and God’s response is, “No, if I came as I really am, you couldn’t have gotten it.” This is statement of a transcendent God. God is so beyond our compression we could not stand in God’s presence and fathom what we are experiencing.

On the other hand, God is also immanent. An immanent God, is one which exists within — within us, within the universe, etc. — and, hence, very much a part of our existence. God as immanent is God looking like George Burns in Jerry’s bathroom. When we sing hymns like “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” that is a reference to an immanent God, one who is our friend. When we attend a funeral and sing “In the Garden,” pondering images of God walking and talking with us, that is a vision of an immanent God.

These are the first two but you may be thinking, “Hey, wait a minute. A view of God as transcendent and a view of God as immanent are opposites.” Yes, they are, and that is part of what makes God, God. God is both greater than we can imagine, and here in our midst. The fact that we can’t perceive it is part of the magnificence of God.

The last attribute of God that really moves me is that God is Eternal. I usually begin prayers with the phrase, “Eternal God,’ because it’s an image I love.

Many scientists say that the first dinosaurs walked the planet 542 million years ago. To give you a point of reference, Jesus lived 2000 years ago and Abraham lived around 4000 years ago.

This means, if we repeated the 2000 years between the time of Jesus and us, here and now, we’d have to repeat it 271,000 times with Abraham’s time needing to be repeated 135,500 times! Geologists tell us that the earth began to take its shape 4.5 billion years ago which means that the era between Jesus’ time and our time would be repeated 2.2 million times and change. The average 80 year old person would live their life over again better than 56 million times.

I’m throwing all these numbers out because I think it gives some perspective on what the word “Eternal” really means. God as Eternal means that God is God in every age and every era. Philosophers tell us that God’s eternity is not linear, year to year, like ours, but one moment. The formation and destruction of the earth is one moment, to God. The dinosaurs and the year 2525, from the song, are one moment. Our sins and Jesus dying on the cross for sin are simultaneous.

Going back to the covenant between God and Abraham, there is something amazing and mind-blowing to acknowledge. This God, this one God, this God who is so magnificently ‘out there,’ this God who is so lovingly ‘in our midst,’ and this God who is God for all eternity, chooses to make a covenant to people, literally and profoundly simply, being our God. It is, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” It is magnificent and it is beautiful.

I am reminded of one of my all-time heroes in Christianity, Thomas Aquinas. He was a Dominican Friar in the 13th century, very much a Pre-Reformation Reformer who spent half his time being charged with heresy. He was for theology and philosophy what Galileo was for astronomy, Newton was for science, and Einstein was for math----brilliant beyond brilliant. He was an amazingly prolific and profound writer. Yet, later in his life he had a profoundly intimate experience of God and he stopped writing stating that, compared to God, everything he had ever written, was little more than straw.

This God, this God of all eternity, this God of distance and closeness, this God who can render geniuses silent, is the God of the covenant with Abraham and now with us.