Have you ever noticed that when you are meeting a new person for the first time and you go through the common niceties of exchanging information— where you are from, how many kids you have, what you do for a living, etc— that the information you share depends on the person? For example, if I meet a mom while dropping kids off at school the conversation often includes the number and ages of our children, how long we have lived in town, the kids of activities the kids are involved in. If I meet a new person at a conference it may be focused more on the number of years we have been doing ministry, the different contexts we have worked in, where we went to seminary… I am giving background on the same person—ME— but the content that I include in each interaction is dependent on the situation. It turns out, that people in the Bible did the same thing.
The last month or so I have spent a lot of time with the book of Acts— not just reading it, but reading about it, talking about it, doodling about it, examining individual words and phrases, trying to better understand the context and significance. It has been challenging (Acts 5 is not easy) and it has also been so life giving. This past week the focus has been Acts 7 and Stephan’s role in the early church. We briefly hear of his work teaching and ministering to people and then the conversation quickly turns to how upset he was making the established religious leaders— they understood his teaching of Jesus to be undercutting the role of the Temple and the authority of the law of Moses. They accuse him and ask for his defense. Stephan launches into a historical summary of the people of God. On first reading it is easy to get to the end and internally mutter “yep, that about sums it up— so what are you trying to get at” and then you realize as you pay closer attention that through his summarization he is indeed undercutting the role of the Temple! Stephan points out how God is not stationary but God has always been transient, leading and guiding, calling and sending— not staying in once place but God is all over the place. Stephan is also quick to show that throughout history people who identified as the people of God had misunderstood and even so far as worked against God’s will and vision for the world, and he accuses his accusers of following in their ancestors footsteps by rejecting Jesus and those who are continuing his mission in the world. All of that by just re-introducing them to their own faith history.
It got me thinking— how would I summarize the entirety of scripture down to a few key figures with only a few supporting details, and what would that summary reveal about who I believe God to be, particularly in relationship with humanity.
So here goes!
For as long as humanity has existed God has chosen to be in relationship with men and women. When the descendants of Abraham were suffering, God intervened through Moses- a person who “belonged” nowhere, an Israelite raised by Egyptians. When God shared God’s intentions with Moses, Moses himself didn’t believe it, presenting all sorts of excuses as to why he was not the man for the job, but God persisted and Moses stepped up. Through Moses God liberated a subjugated people and began to shape them into a community.
As that community was formed and grew over the years God continued to work in the world through the most interesting choices of human beings— children (David), murderers (David again), prostitutes (Rahab), widows (Esther), sellouts (Shadrack, Meshack, and Abendigo), people on the margins and viewed as unworthy or incapable of being successful by society were invited to be a part of God’s work and helped realize God’s vision in the world.
When God decided to appear in human form, God didn’t choose a position of power or prestige. Instead God chose to be born a baby of humble social standing to a woman that was perceived by society to be unwed and unworthy. Jesus worked with and ministered to people across the social spectrum. He empowered women to ministry when simply talking to them was not allowed. He socialized with prostitutes, lepers, and swindlers when his religious counterparts looked on in scorn. He touched the untouchable, loved the unlovable, and all the while inviting them and so many others to join the movement of loving people more fully than ever before. When asked for an example of how to love purely, Jesus did not point to a person of power, he did not give a religious leader as an example, he didn’t even point to himself— Jesus instead used someone so far off the perceived spectrum of worthiness that it would have shocked the ears that first heard it… a Samaritan. Samaritans were the “others,” the faithful would go miles out of their way to ensure they didn’t travel through their towns, they were believed to be the enemy of God— yet here the incarnate God is pointing to a Samaritan who loves a stranger extravagantly as the ultimate example of love.
God did not stop being God when the scriptures were bound. God lives on. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus God passed the baton onto the followers—the broken, flawed, seemingly incapable followers— to continue on shaping a community of people who fully love God and love each other to the best of their ability. God continues to do that in the lives of people today— inviting those perceived by many as outsiders to be vessels of grace, peace, and love in the world minute by minute, day by day.
So what does this say about who I believe God to be? God is creative, unbridled, unconcerned with the way things are “supposed to be” from the eyes of the masses, but intimately engage in transforming the lives of ordinary, messed up, marginalized people (people like you and me) so that we can take part in transforming the world. It turns out I am a fan of introducing people to our faith history, it is pretty amazing stuff. I hope when the day comes and I look back on my life, I find more evidence of a life lived that does not fall in line with how Stephan defined our “ancestors” but rather I hope my life is a reflection of recklessly buying into God’s crazy vision that even the most broken can be redeemed, strangers can become family, and love can change the world.
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