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3/7/10 - 3rd Sunday in Lent - Psalm 103:8 PDF Print E-mail
Written by Mark Giroux   
Sunday, 07 March 2010

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I have a lot of experience with eye doctors.


I first got eyeglasses in sixth grade, and over the years, I have had a whole lot of eye care appointments. It's really not that bad. My favorite part is when the doctor tries different lenses in the fancy eye goggle machine and lets me say which lenses work best. "Is that clearer or fuzzier?" I look through one set, and the doc says, "Number one?", and then I see another set, and the doc says, "Number two?", and I pick the best vision.

Some lenses are a lot better than others. Sometimes there is only a little difference. But it is important for me to choose the best lenses to give me the clearest vision.

Believe it or not, this applies as well to reading about God in the Bible! We need to choose the best lenses for the clearest vision.

Now, let me remind you that the Bible is not one book. It is a library of 66 books. And like any library, the library we call "The Holy Bible" has a wide variety of books in its collection. The book of Ecclesiastes is very different from the book of Luke. The book of Jonah is very different from the book of Judges. The Bible is a library, and gives us a wide range of views on a zillion topics.

Including the topic of what God is like.

In picking out new glasses, I have tried so many different lenses in all those optical offices over the years. I choose the best lenses for the best vision. The same goes for the vision of God. There are so many lenses through which we can look at God in the Bible.

Sometimes God is pictured as an angry, vengeful tyrant. Sometimes God is seen as having the tender love of a mother. The Bible pictures God as a fire, or as a wind, or as a rock. It matters which lenses we choose. It makes a difference.

What is your vision of God like? Loving? Angry? Gentle? Harsh? Arbitrary? Generous? It makes a difference. I believe we slowly become like the God we honor.

My friend Andy Pierce called my attention to a recent article from The Washington Post. The article is about research by Andrew Newberg, a neurologist, on how our image of God affects us.

His research suggests that "contemplating a loving God strengthens portions of our brain - particularly the frontal lobes and the anterior cingulate - where empathy and reason reside. Contemplating a wrathful God empowers the limbic system, which is 'filled with aggression and fear.' It is a sobering concept: The God we choose to love changes us into his image, whether he exists or not."

That last sentence is the one worth remembering. "The God we choose to love changes us into his image, whether he exists or not."

There is an old Native American myth about how every human being has two dogs living inside. One of our interior dogs is affectionate and loyal, while the other dog is vicious and aggressive. The stronger dog is the one we feed the most.

There are so many lenses through which we can look at God in the Bible. Sometimes God is pictured as an angry, vengeful tyrant. Sometimes God is seen as having the tender love of a mother. The Bible pictures God as a fire, or as a wind, or as a rock. It matters which lenses we choose. It makes a difference.

What is your vision of God like? Loving? Angry? Gentle? Harsh? Arbitrary? Generous?

It makes a difference. I believe we slowly become like the God we honor.

And that is why a verse from our Psalm of the day is one of the lenses I will always choose.
Psalm 103 says, "The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness."

I'm not saying that is the only lens on God offered by the Bible, that sprawling library of religious books. But I am saying it is one of the best lenses to choose, to focus, and to polish.

"The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness."

Today is that Sunday in the month when we offer prayers for healing. It is always a tender liturgy for me. I care so much about the people of St. Mark's, and I know that many of our number are carrying heavy burdens.

I want to stand with you on the hope that our God is full of compassion, not anger.
I want to stand with you on the hope that our God is full of mercy, not rage.
I want to stand with you on the hope that our God is of great kindness.

One of our parishioners, like so many of you, is dealing with sorrows for a family member. But in the midst of the worry and struggle, she wrote this to me in an e-mail: "I believe that to be faithful is to be hopeful."

I immediately wrote back that I would have to steal that line for a sermon. I believe that to be faithful is to be hopeful. And the ground of Christian hope, and Jewish hope, is this: "The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness."

There is a wonderful legend from the Sufi tradition of Islam. Sufis, you may know, belong to a mystical strain in the Muslim tradition.

The story goes that there was a well-respected and beloved teacher named Hufis. Hufis was a Sufi sheik who could do all sorts of wonderful works and marvels. And one day he heard of another sheik named Raaleh. Travelers from the other side of Persia said that she could do even more wonderful things. So Hufis set out to find her, and met her on the shore of the Persian Gulf. And as it happened, it was prayer time. Muslims pray five times a day, as you probably know.

So Hufis took out his prayer rug and flung it out on the water. Then he walked across the water and said his prayers kneeling on the prayer rug floating on the water. When he finished, he turned to Raaheh and asked, "Can you do that?" She took out her prayer rug and threw it into the air. She then climbed an invisible staircase, and knelt down on the floating prayer rug to say her prayers.
When she finished, she came down.

And she said to Hufis, "What you and I have done today, the fishes and birds do every day. Would it not be more wonderful if we would instead learn to treat each other as human beings?"


What is your vision of God like? Loving? Angry? Gentle? Harsh? Arbitrary? Generous?

It makes a difference. The God we choose to love changes us into his image, whether he exists or not .I believe we slowly become like the God we honor.

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, slow to anger and of great kindness.
 
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