Let’s talk about the active presence of God. One of the recurring confessions that I have heard through the years from people of faith is the fact that many of us do not feel that we have experienced the active presence of God. The first time I received such a confession was in 1998. I led a spiritual retreat for some college students for my Presbytery of origin in Georgia. I was still in seminary and kind of new at the game, but it seemed to go pretty well.
We were cleaning up after ourselves at the retreat center and one of the students pulled me aside. He said, “I really enjoyed the retreat, but you talked a lot about experiencing God’s presence and I don’t think I have. I want to, but I’m not sure I can. I believe in God, but I just feel like a hypocrite or like something’s wrong with me.”
We talked a little about what some may call “Imposter’s Syndrome” – that feeling like you are just pretending because you don’t understand. We talked about the importance of ritual and community. We talked about prayer as a conversation and God as an “active listener” as we work out our concerns. I’m not sure how much it helped, but I encouraged him to keep seeking and assured him that God was active and present. We ended our conversation with a conversation with God.
He was certainly not the last person to boldly confess an active practice of doubt when it comes to the activity of God, and I want you to know that if you are in that place today it’s okay. I was once bold enough to say to someone who did not believe in God that it was okay because God still believed in them. I want you to know that. God believes in you. God suffers with you, celebrates because of you, and hopes in you. I believe that.
Whether you believe that or not, I think the question of God’s active presence is a good place to start with our reflection on the text, since it was the question the Israelites were struggling with. Our reading from Exodus 33 follows the gift of the law at Mount Horeb, and the unfortunate incident of the Golden Calf (look it up in ch 32, you will be shocked).
The scene of our text is God speaking to Moses, as one might to a friend, in the tent of meeting while the Israelites await their fate outside. Moses argues that the only way for them to know that God is with them, and for others to know that they are God’s people, is for God to go with them. God agrees. Then Moses gets pushy. “Show me,” he says.
God agrees but says, “You can’t see my face and live, but I’ll cover you when I walk by and you can see my back.”
There’s not much we can do with a story like this except to say that the fullness of God is just too much for a person to see and survive. Admittedly, that is a bit of a nonsequitur, but I think it has more to do with the idea that the reality of God is beyond our ability to conceive. Rather, once conceived we no longer need to believe in something beyond our own imagination.
This is why the name of God is not just “I am,” it is, “I shall be as I shall be.” In fact, Jewish tradition holds that the name of God is written in an unpronounceable form, and when the Torah is read, they instead say “Adoni” which is the word we translate as “Lord.”
This unknowable one is yet talking with Moses as a friend over tea – but clearly is not physically present – and then says, “I’ll show you what you can see without doing you harm or harming those you love.” Moses agrees, and the people move forward with the active presence of God.
The signs and wonders that indicate that God is active and present only hold out for their time in the wilderness, and from then on it is arguably a little murky. Of course, we believe that Jesus was God’s self-revelation in the most complete way possible, and our hope rests on the expectation that God is with us – that God is completely accessible – through our faith in Jesus.
It is this Jesus, whom we read about today, that not only upholds us in our times of trial but challenges us in our expectations of what it means for God to be active and present in our lives and in the world!
Here in Matthew 22, we find Jesus in the temple. It’s the week of the Passover. He rode into town on a Donkey. Pilgrims from across the region saw the spectacle and shouted, “Hosanna!” Jesus purified the temple of the money changers – the ones who have made a business out of exchanging Roman money for Temple tokens and selling animals for sacrifices, all for a profit that takes advantage of the poor.
Now the Pharisees, the keepers of the law and tradition, are busting his chops with a question about paying taxes to Rome. These taxes, by the way, pay for the occupation of Rome – a foreign power. This tax is a terrible injustice, but some profit from it. That means that this question is intended to polarize. They might as well have said, “Are you an enemy of the state, or are you a puppet of the empire?”
Jesus calls them out as hypocrites, then he makes them produce a coin. He wants them to know that he knows they are demonstrating something different than they profess to believe. Then he asks about the graven image of Caesar and the inscription, which denotes the divinity of Caesar.
In saying, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s,” Jesus is not endorsing the tax. He is reminding them of Psalm 24:1-2, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it.” For the readers of Matthew’s Gospel, he is reinforcing what he has said before about serving two masters and giving all to the poor and everything else he has said about the Kingdom of Heaven that is in our midst, even as close as our breath and within us.
Early Christians, perhaps even Matthew’s community took these words to heart. I don’t mean to say that they gave all that they had and lived as one because we really don’t see that anywhere but the very early church in Acts. The thing that lasted longer was their compassion, and it was grounded in the expectation of God’s active presence and the hope of the resurrection. It was grounded in the idea that, in the words of Douglas King, Jesus looked upon their faces and “the imprint of Caesar’s face on that coin, and in both of them he sees the image of God reflected in creation. What he does not see is anyone or anything worthy of our ultimate allegiance.”
God is, of course, worthy of our ultimate allegiance, and Paul gives thanks to God for the way the church in Thessalonica is expressing their allegiance to God. They express it in word and deed, and their actions demonstrate what they believe.
There is another church that is like that you know, and it’s you. I’m not saying that there is no hypocrisy among us that every one of you is perfect or that none of you question what I mean when I say that God is active and present. In fact, I am quite aware that some of you have a list of questions waiting for the day they meet up with God face to face.
I will say that I have 13 years of memories, and some of you have more than me, of the faithfulness of this congregation as demonstrated by your actions – your offerings of time, talent, and treasure – that express your allegiance to God. Every one of those memories is precious to me because they remind me what it means to exhibit the Kingdom of God to the world.
Many of you don’t know this, but when I first got here I asked Tom Foard how long we had until we would be out of our cash reserves. He said, “Five years.” Tom Foard was rarely wrong when it came to money, and he followed that with, “Let’s not worry about that.” Turns out he wasn’t wrong to trust in the Lord.
His loss still saddens me, but his faith still affirms mine. Likewise, during the pandemic, I asked Chuck how we were doing. He told me that while we were struggling, people were still giving. Given the quality of recordings that I was putting out, I was shocked, but it turns out you value something more than quality entertainment from the pulpit. You value being the church. The fact that we made it through the pandemic and have even improved since then blows me away, and our Lenten giving challenge was the icing on the cake!
I tell you these things to say that I see the active presence of God in and through you. People tell me that all the time, but don’t you think that’s a pretty low bar for me as a pastor? I just show up wearing the costume and people are triggered, for better or for worse, but you, you guys are the ones our friends in Cuba will talk about.
You guys are the ones that people in this community will talk about when they get a meal and conversation whether it is through Meals on Wheels or a free lunch at the Wesley. I hate to tell you, but – while they are glad for the food – homebound elderly folks are hungry for interaction. Likewise, UL students are hungry for someone who looks like their mom or dad or grandparents who wants to hear about their day.
That may not be your thing, or you might not be able to break free in the morning or on Mondays at noon, and that’s okay. What matters is that we find ways to give our ultimate allegiance to God and to recognize that God is active and present in all things.
The beautiful thing is that you have each other for that. You have church officers to guide you and task forces seeking creative solutions to problems before you as a church. More than that, God is with you and will support you and guide you as God has, as God does, as God will, and to God be the glory for that – now and always. Amen!
Comments