Does God lie awake at night, worrying about things?

            Yes, I know -- that image immediately pictures God as a person. A person who sleeps, in a rumpled bed, tossing and turning. In other words, someone just like one of us, only more so. Psychologists call it “anthropomorphization”-- seeing others in our own image.

            It’s the kind of misplaced identity that led Marc Gellman to title one of his books, “Does God Have a Big Toe?”

            But basic question is not whether God lies awake at night, but whether God -- whatever God may or may not be -- worries.

            Does God worry about what people call him, her, or it? Does it matter whether God’s real name is Yahweh or Jehovah? Is Allah okay? How about Brahman? Or Ahura Mazda?

            I suspect God doesn’t care at all about names. What counts is the awareness of something bigger than our egocentric selves, something beyond us yet within us, to which we need to pay attention.

            Does God worry about creeds and catechisms? Definitions matter to us, because we write them. But would an undefinable presence care about getting defined just right?

Sex, and nothing but…

            And does God worry about sex?

            Well, perhaps. If all humans quit having sex, there would soon be no humans left to worship God.

            If only we knew what “worship” meant. Once upon a time, it meant sacrifices -- the smoke of burning flesh or grain rising into the sky was supposed to please God’s nostrils, and perhaps provide virtual nourishment. Pagan temples believed worshippers achieved unity with God through orgasm, so they kept in-house prostitutes. Today, most people would probably understand worship as gathering on Sunday morning to sing songs unlike anything they listen to the rest of the week.

            But some Christian factions apparently believe God is obsessed with sex.

            Earlier this summer, 150 members of the evangelical Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood signed the Nashville Statement on “biblical sexuality.” (Read it in full at https://cbmw.org/nashville-statement/).

            The Statement’s 14 points affirm, over and over, that the only acceptable form of sex is between one man and one woman, and only within marriage. Any other sexual relationships-- extra- or pre-marital, homosexual, bisexual, transgendered -- are utterly taboo.

Biblical sexuality

            The Statement’s Preamble asks, rhetorically, “Will the church of the Lord Jesus Christ lose her biblical conviction… and blend into the spirit of the age? Or will she… draw courage from Jesus, and unashamedly proclaim his way as the way of life?”

            I’m not sure where they get their biblical angle. The Bible includes not one word about Jesus’ own sexual relationships. But he pardoned a woman caught in extramarital sex. The great King David had several extramarital relationships, and maybe a homosexual one. Lot’s daughters committed incest with their father. A woman named Tamar seduced her father-in-law.

            “Biblical sexuality” is hardly what I’d recommend to my granddaughter.

            So does God lie awake at night worrying about what consenting humans do, in private?

            I expect that God would worry far more about incessant wars and threats of wars. About toxins marketed to unsuspecting consumers. About industrial effects on the world’s climate. About extinctions of vulnerable species.

            I think God would worry most that we don’t follow the biblical “way of life” modelled by Jesus.

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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.

            To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

I called last week’s column “An Antidote to Seasonal Depression.” Tom Watson found that it increased his depression:

            “That the world is, for the most part, currently operating so antithetical to the Charter of Compassion is enough to make anyone who tastes life deeply depressed and wholly limp from the weight of living. Juxtaposed, however, are those who persist in trying to push the Charter of Compassion string uphill, and that's just enough to keep hope alive. I'm so thankful for those who don't give up hope no matter what.”

Hanny Kooyman wrote, “My son recently communicated to me that it doesn’t get you very far in this world to be compassionate and consider others -- the way I taught him.  Not so easy to keep standing strong when all around you harsh methods are used to simply make a living or prevent you from making a living. What I learned just recently regarding Equifax for instance is that we all have become ‘products’ of commerce instead of human beings worth to be respected. Shocking.”

While I don’t run this letters section as a forum, and don’t allow extended back-and-forth debates, your letters do sometimes (often) provoke responses that deserve exposure. Last week, a letter by Robert Caughell spurred Judyth Mermelstein to respond: “While I'm all for re-evaluating programmes and policies, a fixed five-year interval would mean the rule of short-term thinking by politicians, and uncertainty for anyone else involved.

            “Imagine starting a seven-year medical program knowing the requirements could be changed before you finished and invalidate your degree. Not to mention studying anything seriously with no idea whether your courses will be still offered or your thesis supervisor still around. (Been there, dropped out.)

            “Imagine the chaos and waste of resources in revising major infrastructure projects already in progress. (Yeah, that happens here in Quebec: see "superhospitals" and "Turcot interchange," for example.) [Or the Site C dam in B.C.: JT] You really don't want to make that kind of thing normal practice. Many things -- climate change mitigation, for example -- require a longer perspective than ‘if it hasn't done the trick in five years, scrap it.’

            “Also, ‘scrapping’ people sounds to me like reducing humans to cogs in the machine. Surely we don't want a society designed to eliminate people whose jobs are terminated in the name of efficiency? (As opposed to the one we have that merely devalues and impoverishes them.)”

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PSALM PARAPHRASES

We all need family histories. Psalm 78 asserts that no one is so poor as a person with no roots.

1          If I say, "Once upon a time," everyone knows a story is starting. 

2          I do not know the meanings of my stories;
I pass them on as they were passed to me. 

3          Only you can decide what they will mean to you.

4          This is our story. This is where we came from.
When you hear this story, you must also tell it,
so that others may also know where they came from. 

5          Our story is not limited to our own lives.
We belong to a long line of travelers, snaking single file through history;
We bear with us the beliefs, the convictions, the experiences
bequeathed by those who passed this way before.
From Abraham and Sarah, from Rachel and Jacob, from David and Bathsheba, from Mary and Jesus, we learn our family story. 

6          Only by knowing where we have come from can we know where we are going.

7          Only by knowing who we are can we know that God is with us. 

So…

12        Once upon a time, we were slaves,
exploited for economic growth, held captive by capital.

13        But God freed us from the prisons of our past.
God flung open our minds, and let us see new possibilities.

14        By signs and symbols, God led us to new life. 

15        In arid canyons of crisis, God showed us how to drink deeply of life.

16        In barren wastelands of despair, God gave us joy. 

For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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YOU SCRATCH MY BACK…

·       Ralph Milton’s most recent project, Sing Hallelujah -- the world’s first video hymnal -- consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca

·       Isabel Gibson's thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com

·       Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>

·       Alva Wood's satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not particularly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.

·       Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at twatson@sentex.net

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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