Article 1: God – a relational being
August 29, 2010
BMC- Job 37
Introduction: Facebook
How many here this morning know what Facebook is? How many here this morning are on Facebook? How many here this morning, could get onto their Facebook page right now without leaving their seats if they wanted to?
Well, for those who aren’t familiar with it, Facebook was “founded in February 2004 from a Harvard Dorm room”[1] for college students to connect and meet. It reached nearly 1 million active users in its first 11 months.[2]
It began as a tool for college students and then high school students. Now it has moved far beyond a tool for students to meet and connect with other students. Now it is a global, intergenerational tool for connecting with people. Now it is “a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers.”[3]
According to Facebook, there are more than 500 million active users, 50% of which get onto the site in any given day. The average user has 130 friends and people spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook. There are more than 70 translations available on the site and about 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States.[4]
I first got on a few years ago when I was youth pastoring to connect with the youth of my congregation during the week. I soon discovered that it was a great way to stay connected with college friends that live miles away. Then I discovered that it was an easy way to connect and share ideas with other pastors and to connect with family members to share pictures and plan events. Soon I began finding that Facebook allowed me to reconnect with people that I knew in high school but had not heard from since. Now I’m finding that it is an effective way to get to know people in my own congregation and community and to share information that is important to me.
At its root, Facebook is about networking and relationships. You invite someone else on Facebook to be your “friend.” You join groups that are for people that share common interests like our Bethel Mennonite Facebook group. You can even choose to list your relationship status. For instance, my profile page tells everyone that I am married to Beth and has a link to her profile page as well.
Certainly, we could spend time this morning discussing the pros and cons, the wonders and the pitfalls of using Facebook; but in the end only time will tell what this phenomenon means for our society. What’s significant to me this morning is that at its root, it is about relationships. It is attractive to people because it is about our relationships and being connected to people. It is taking our understanding of what it means to be in relationship with people in a whole new direction; but it is representational of the relational component of whom we are as people.
We as people are inherently relational. We are inherently relational because the God of the universe that created us is inherently relational as well. I believe that this is central to our discussion of Article 1 of our Confession of Faith and our witness of the baptisms that will take place today.
Article 1 Highlights
This morning, we begin a new sermon series in which we dwell with our Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective. Adopted in 1995, it serves as a tool for growing together in faith and uniting together as a congregation, a conference and as a denomination. It is not our center, Jesus Christ is our center. It does not replace our use of the Bible, it enhances it.
The confession of faith contains 24 articles. Each of these articles addresses an important component of our faith. Some of these are universally agreed upon in Christianity and some name areas of our faith that may be more distinct. Each article gives a statement, offers scriptural references for that perspective and offers additional commentary where necessary. While each article focuses on a particular aspect of faith, each article is also interconnected with the other articles to create a coherent and holistic expression of our faith.
This morning we begin with Article 1 God. As I noted on my blog this week, it is impossible to encapsulate all that God is within one article. It is even more impossible to encapsulate all that God is in one sermon. But perhaps in our reflections together, we can focus in on some of the key attributes of God and consider the importance of those for our faith.
In this article, we recognize that God is the creator of all things. We recognize that God is perfect in love holding together seemingly impossible tensions like judgment and grace, power and mercy, and freedom and commitment. But we also recognize that God in God’s infinite greatness is so much more than we are and so much so much bigger than we can grasp or imagine.
Get your own dirt[5]
You’ve probably heard that “One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.
“The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost."
“God listened very patiently and kindly to the man and after the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well, how about this, let's say we have a man making contest." To which the scientist replied, "OK, great!"
“But God added, "Now, we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."
“The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
“God just looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!"”
Humanity has come a long way and we are able to do many miraculous things, but we still have our limits, limits that God does not share with us. God is so much more than we are and this is what our passage in Job describes for us today.
Job 37
Job 37 describes an all-powerful God who controls thunder, lightning, snow and rain. God is able to control the elements. We struggle to even be able to predict the weather let alone control it. The passage goes on to ask Job, “Do you know how God does it?” Moreover it asks, “Can you join God in doing these things?” Of course he cannot. Those are things that only God is able to do.
And so this passage in Job exemplifies God’s might, God’s strength, God’s power. God is more that what we are, but when we put this passage into context, I believe a deeper and more profound reality is demonstrated here. The book of Job tells about the goodness of Job, the afflictions he underwent, the lack of compassion that the friends showed him, and the frustration with God that developed in Job.
But in the coming chapters that close out the book, we also see that God responds to these accusations against Him. His response contains additional reminders of who we are as humans and who God is as God. They remind us of God’s greatness, but I would suggest to you today that the fact that God responds here is very significant.
The fact that God responds to Job indicates that God wants to be in a relationship with Job. God is almighty and powerful. God could have ignored these accusations knowing how misinformed they were. God could have responded by ridding himself of Job; but instead, God chooses to respond, an act that happens within the context of a relationship. And the fact that God in all of His might and power desires to be in a relationship makes all the difference in the world, doesn’t it?
Meter Reader[6]
Leonard Sweet shares that “In the New Jersey office of SpiritVenture Ministries, parking is at a premium and meter reading is raised to an art form. Three meter readers patrol the downtown 8-8 daily on foot and in vehicles. The one heavily tattooed is friendly, and knows everyone on the street. The two others are sullen and surly, and one seldom looks up from her pad and chalk.
“{Leonard} once had an assistant who must have averaged a ticket a week. She never seemed to mind getting a ticket from the friendly one. She always has an excuse for her (“Can you imagine a worse job in the world?” or “She’s got to make a living just like everyone else” or “I really need to walk more”). But her fury rose to the heavens when she got a ticket from the other two with whom she had no relationship. (“How can you put money in a broken meter!” or “He just loves ticketing this car,” etc.).
“Relationships make all the difference in the world. Not until you’re in a relationship does a person behind the uniform (or whatever it is they’re hiding behind) become a real, live person.” Likewise, it is through God’s relational character that God becomes real to us and that we are better able to accept the ups and downs of life personally knowing the God that is control of the universe.
God is relational
The fact that God is relational in nature shouldn’t surprise us though. We see this throughout the whole of scripture, right? From the very beginning with Adam and Eve, we read of God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze.
We also see this in God’s calling of Abraham to be the father of a nation. God desires a relationship with Abraham, but more than that, God desires a nation of people who will pass God’s blessings that they receive onto the rest of the world. The nation of Israel was not meant to be a holding tank of God’s blessings, but rather to be a conduit for God’s blessings to flow through and reach the rest of the world. God did not only desire a relationship with Abraham and Israel, but with the whole world and God began working at this through Abraham and his descendants.
We read of many other people throughout the Old Testament that God has had a very personal relationship with including Moses, Samuel and Elijah. But perhaps the crowning example of almighty God’s desire to have a relationship with us comes in the person of Jesus Christ. We will reflect more deeply on Jesus next week when we come to article 2; but God’s willingness to take on human flesh, to dwell among us, and ultimately to provide a way for our salvation from sin and death; is the ultimate example of God’s desire to be in relationship with us.
It is the ultimate example not merely because God literally came to earth in human form and walked and talked with us. It is also the ultimate example because of the sacrifice that God was willing to make in the life, death, and resurrection of his only son. It is in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that God gave up his most precious son, in order that all of humanity might have a way to be redeemed and restored to right relationship with the God of the universe.
Back to Facebook
Well, it occurs to me this morning as we reflect on this article about God, a relational being, and as we prepare to take part in this membership renewal commitment and witness these baptisms, that perhaps our faith is not completely unlike the Facebook experience that we reflected on earlier. Perhaps the relational dynamic of Facebook contains parallels to our faith experience with a relational God.
While God is the creator of the universe and beyond our imaginations, isn’t God also sending a friend request to each one of us desiring to be in relationship with us? We accept that friend request from God when we accept God’s son, Jesus Christ, as our Lord and savior. Instead of sending Facebook messages to God, we pray to God. Instead of posting something on our walls, God writes on our hearts and meets us in our everyday lives.
When we choose to get baptized, we are publically declaring our love and our commitment to Jesus Christ and to God alone. This is not so unlike updating our relationship status on our profile to say that we are married to a certain person and in the process publicly declaring our love and commitment to that person.
When we are baptized, we also become an official part of a larger group of people, the church, through membership. Membership is something that stays with us, but it is also something that needs to be maintained and reaffirmed. This morning we do that through our annual membership renewal covenant, but in reality membership is so much more than making this statement. Membership is our regular attendance in worship and our daily interactions with others who attend our congregation. It is giving of our time and our resources. It is offering an encouraging word, a helping hand or a nurturing question.
As in membership, so also on Facebook, we can reaffirm our commitments in many ways. We log onto Facebook on a regular basis and we join groups, “like” pages, comment on walls, post links to videos and websites that mean something to us. We express our commitments in a variety of ways on Facebook, just as we express our commitment to Bethel Mennonite Church and its participants in a myriad of ways.
Conclusion
This morning we consider Article 1 of the Confession of Faith and the greatness of God, a being far beyond our abilities or our understanding. But we also consider God’s desire to be in relationship with us. We consider the ways that baptism serves as a public declaration of our desire to be in relationship with God as well. And we consider the ways in which our membership at Bethel serves as an expression of that ongoing commitment to maintain our relationship with the creator of the universe. May we draw ever closer to God and daily renew our commitment to following in the way of Jesus Christ. Amen.
[1] http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics#!/press/info.php?timeline
[2] http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics#!/press/info.php?timeline
[3] http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics#!/press/info.php?factsheet
[4] http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics
[5] http://www.getyourowndirt.com/
[6] www.esermons.com Collected Sermons, Leonard Sweet, ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc., 2008, 0-000-1415
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