When the Storms of Life Are Raging

last sunday in the church service one of the hymns described what i would call a "transactional god."  the words were based on second chronicles 7:14.  the hymn says that "if my people . . ." "then i (god) will . . . "  i suppose that the hymn was included because it was based on a scripture passage, and the thinking was "if it is in the bible, it must be true."  of course, the hymn doesn't include the context of the verse on which it was based.  in this portion of second chronicles, king solomon has just completed the construction of the temple, and god appears to him to tell him that god accepts the temple built to be the sacrificial center of worship for the people of israel.  god goes on to tells solomon that when natural calamities befall the people, they can come to the temple with humbled, repentant hearts and god will hear their prayers.  god promises that so long as solomon follows god's commands and honors god as his father david did, then he and his descendants will rule israel in perpetuity.

there is much in the passage that i find disturbing, particularly the idea that the natural disasters named in it are caused by god in retribution for the sins of the people, but the central idea of the particular verse on which the hymn is based is one that has been adopted by evangelical christians in this country to suggest that all the suffering in the usa is the result of the nation "turning away from god" by allowing such things as same-sex marriage and the separation of church and state.  their idea is that we can "make america great again" by turning by the clock to an imaginary time when all was right, everyone went to church, schools were filled with prayers and bible readings, people of color "knew their place," people of british descent controlled government and commerce, and english was the only language spoken.  all that is needed is for those of us who live here to humble our hearts, to pray, and to seek god's face, resulting in god hearing our prayers, pardoning our sins, and healing our land, so the trump crowd of evangelicals believe.

in contrast, the semon, based on luke 8: 26-39, told of jesus healing a man who was called "legion" because "many demons had entered him."  in his sermon, the minister emphasized that the man had done nothing to deserve the cure he received, and, in fact, had asked jesus to leave him alone.  when the man begged to stay with jesus, jesus told him to go tell others "how much God has done for you."  the minister pointed out that god's grace did not depend on the actions of the man but the freeing of legion from his mental illness was a gift that was entirely undeserved.  in introducing the story, the preacher pointed out that jesus had traveled across the sea of galilee to the region of the decapolis, an gentile area that would have been avoided by orthodox jews during the time of jesus, but according of matthew 4: 23-25 many of jesus' followers came from this region.  it seemed to me that the point of the sermon was to counter the "if you, then i . . ." message of the hymn that had just been sung and to insist that the religion of jesus was one of inclusion, not exclusion.

i may not believe that jesus was capable of curing a serious mental illness by speaking a sentence or that people can be possessed by demons, but i can believe in a god who loves us despite our failings, a god who cares about our suffering.  i cannot believe in a god who causes suffering to punish our shortcomings, but i can believe in a god that is present with us in our suffering, whatever the cause, and i can be a follower of a teacher who tells us about a god of love and compassion.

may we abandon belief in a god who is more about punishment and retribution.  may we not believe in a god whose actions are controlled by our own.  whatever our belief about the reality or unreality of god, may we seek to love and respect others, to include rather than exclude.  shalom.