Closing Sermon: Understanding God

Micasa Hotel Apartments, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Sunday, 16 June 2002

By Kenneth Lau

I have a lot of difficulty understanding God. In fact, I think that if the Bible were made into a movie, it would stumble a lot of Christians. I'm talking about the Old Testament, of course. The main problem I have is that there's a lot of suffering and death in there, which I find difficult to reconcile with the concept of a loving God I had been taught all my Christian life. I was born a Roman Catholic, attended church for twelve years, and left because I did not believe in God. I considered myself an atheist and even bought Bertrand Russell's "Why I am not a Christian". I prided myself on being able to think logically, and thought that believing in God meant you had a weak mind.

But after I came out and cried at how final it all seemed, I realized that I had been running away from God, afraid to disappoint him for being gay, just as I had been afraid of disappointing my family. So I said "God, I'm sorry for having turned away from you. Let me give it another shot." Anyway I opened the Bible and read Genesis, because we all start at the beginning.

And I found it all very difficult to understand.

In Genesis 6, God wipes out humanity, saving only Noah, his three sons, and their wives. And he wipes out all the animals too, saving only those that could fit into the ark. The Bible depicts this in a very matter of fact way, but imagine the scene of utter destruction — everyone crying out in horror, knowing they would soon die. Mankind was evil. So why were animals destroyed? Why didn't God simply wipe out humanity and spare the animals (even though that would not have made it less horrific). After that, there is regret: "Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done." (Genesis 8:21)

Now, I know you're going to say: no one can understand God. And you're going to quote me Isaiah: "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom." (Isaiah 40:28) Or Job: "To God belong wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his." (Job 12:13) "How great is God — beyond our understanding!" (Job 36:26) "God's voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding." (Job 37:5)

Yes, I am human, and cannot even pretend to understand God. But you know, sometimes I wonder if God really understands us. But how can this be? Isn't God all-knowing and all-powerful?

In Genesis 1 we find God totally in control and supremely confident of Himself. Beneath him "the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep." (Genesis 1:2) And God said: 'Let there be light, and there was light.' (Genesis 1:3). God simply has to speak, and His will is done. All this is done so effortlessly you wonder whether he really needs to take a rest on the seventh day. It's a familiar image of God, and it's the image of God you and I have. It's the image of a majestic and benevolent God, drawn by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel.

This image of God doesn't last very long.

In Genesis 2, God creates Adam in his own image out of the dust of the ground. But Adam is lonely, and God realizes this. After all, God knows everything. He says: "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." And then God does something strange. He creates the entire animal kingdom, again out of dust, and brings them before Adam for him to choose a helper from among one of them. God presents poor Adam with one animal after another. Monkey? Giraffe? The result is predictable: "But for Adam no suitable helper was found." (Genesis 2:20)

What on earth made God imagine He could find a helper for Adam in this way? The God who knows everything finds it difficult to understand what Adam needs! Or perhaps — He knew what Adam wanted, but was reluctant to give it to him, knowing what might happen as a result. In any case, we can sense a division between God and His creation, a division that is not the result of sin (because Adam had not yet sinned) but something inherent in the act of God creating man in His own image. As this separation increased, sin became inevitable and Adam and Eve were driven in shame from Eden, never to return.

You know the rest: God favors Abel's fat offering over Cain's offering of grain without explaining why. Cain gets jealous and kills his brother — the first murder. But God is merciful, and spares his life, placing instead a protective mark on his forehead: the mark of Cain, bringing sevenfold vengeance to anyone harming him. Later, the separation between mankind and God becomes so great that God rejects his own creation and kills everything except Noah, his family and an ark full of animals. And though God never again wipes out humanity, the cycle of rebellion and annihilation becomes depressingly common. The violence stuns in its ferocity. In Hosea 13:6, God proclaims: "The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open."

We don't understand him, and he doesn't understand us.

Just when you think this is going to go on like a doomed relationship, God does something really radical. He appears on Earth as Jesus, who is divine yet fully human. He was in fact, as human as you and I, and he brought with Him a simple message. He said that if we want to understand Him, we should love God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and with all our strength, and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. Do this, He says, and you will have eternal life. (Luke 10:25-28) "There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:31)

Yesterday Clarence talked about the different levels of reasoning we go through: Level 1 — We do something because we are afraid of being punished. Level 2 — We do something for a reward. Level 3 and 4 — we do something to conform to authority or to our peers. Level 5 — we do something because we understand the principle behind it. If you think about it, one way of understanding the relationship I just described between mankind and God is that we slowly progressed up the levels, until He in His infinite wisdom decided — by grace — that we were mature enough to handle Level 5 reasoning. Love God, and love your neighbour.

He understands us, and we understand Him.

But let's make sure we really understand Him, because the implications of what many of us call the Great Commandment, and what the Anglicans call the Summary of the Law, is actually quite profound: the Law itself is summarized in a Great Commandment that not only allows but actually requires some laws to be broken.

Jesus makes this perfectly clear when he healed on the Sabbath.

He also said: "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." (Matthew 5:43-44) He explains this in greater detail when he tells the parable of the good Samaritan, an enemy of the Jews, who helps a Jew left for dead by a priest and a Levite. (Luke 10:30-37)

So finally we have it — love God and love your neighbour — level 5 reasoning that can be applied to a variety of situations. I know it's difficult to follow, but if we take a moment to understand what Jesus commanded, we will realise He gave us something extremely precious, a principle that can be applied to many different situations. Yes it is difficult to love our enemies as much as we love our neighbours. To ask this may seem as if we are asking for perfection itself. But Jesus says: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5:48) And really, it is this striving for perfection that marks our lives as Christians.

I used to not believe in God because I could not see Him. But because He came down and died for our sins, we live. And He lives on inside each and every one of us. I believe in God because I can see Him. I see Him in each and every one of you. Let us pray.