FIRST SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY
January 9, 2011
St. Andrew’s Church
The Rev. M. Anthony Seel, Jr.
“America’s Four Gods”
Acts 10:34-43
Who does the grocery shopping for your household. I admire those who regularly wage the grocery store battles. Last year, I was part of the MOVE weight loss program at the Binghamton V.A. Health Clinic. Now, I know that you’re saying to yourself, “why would Fr. Tony need to be involved in a weight loss program?”
One session of the MOVE program was devoted to a video that explained grocery store marketing. The video took us through a typical grocery store beginning with the produce section. About every grocery store I’ve ever been in gets you started with the produce section, and this is a good thing since produce is good for us. The video explained how endcaps generate increased sales of the items placed in them and how eye level placement in aisles also increases sales. Folks, with all the marketing expertise that is employed at the grocery store we don’t have a chance!
Honestly, for me, a grocery store is sensory overload. They’re almost as bad as a Chucky Cheese, although Chucky Cheese is sound and sight and a grocery store is more reliant on sight alone. There are so many choices between similar products it can be baffling. Similar products come in different sizes and weights with different prices and nuances in ingredients. It’s all too much. How do you regular grocery shoppers do it?
There’s a similar complexity in the American religious landscape. Roughly 90% of Americans believe in God and about 85% of Americans believe that God is loving. However, after that the homogeneity of belief vanishes.
Baylor University professors Paul Froese and Christopher Bader looked at the wide range of beliefs about God in America and determined that this hodgepodge of ideas could fit under four headings. In America’s Four Gods, Froese and Bader offer two questions that they believe lead to the four most prevalent conceptions of God in the United States.
Question #1 is “To what extent does God interact with the world.” [Note: quotes and information on America’s Four Gods is from the Christianity Today book review by Matthew Lee Anderson, “The Divine Divide,” which can be accessed at http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/november/21.65.html]
Question #2 is “To what extent does God judge the world?”
From the answers to these two questions Froese and Bader teased out America’s four Gods.
God #1 is “the authoritative God, who both judges and is closely engaged in the world.” This God is like the stereotypes God the Cop and God the Judge.
God #2 is “the benevolent God who is ‘engaged but nonjudgmental.’” This is the Santa Claus God or God the Loving Grandfather.
God #3 is “the critical God, who happens to be judgmental but disengaged. I call this the bad mother in law God. Before you throw things, notice that I said bad mother in law. I’m sure that there aren’t any bad mother in laws here.
God #4 is “the distant God, who is neither engaged nor judgmental and could care less about how humans muck about.” I call this the Slumlord God.
Who is God for you?
The typology of Froese and Bader is helpful for getting us beyond the usual liberal-conservative over-simplification, yet it clearly lacks the subtleties and distinctions that we find in Scripture. The God who is revealed in the Bible is both loving and just. The God who is disclosed in Scripture is both transcendent, that is, way beyond us, and immanent, that is, near to us.
In our Old Testament and New Testament lessons we see God engaged in our world. In our Psalm we see the promise of even greater involvement in our world by God than we find in much of the Old Testament. In our Gospel lesson we see the beginning of God’s greater involvement being revealed at the Jordan River.
After Jesus is baptized a voice from heaven declares “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). Could there be a clearer sign that God is involved in our world? I don’t think so. God at Christ’s baptism identifies Jesus as His Son. Jesus is the One the prophet Isaiah spoke of in our first lesson; God sent His Son to be a light for the nations (Isaiah 42:6). That’s our Epiphany theme today.
Our God is the benevolent God who has come in Jesus to show Himself to the world. This is the message that the Apostle Peter proclaimed to non-Jews in Caesarea as recorded in Acts chapter 10.
vv. 34-35 So Peter opened his mouth and said: "Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”
This is the consistent message of the apostles once they understood that the gospel was for all people. I know that there are Christians who believe that Jesus is for Christians, Yahweh is for Jews, Allah is for Muslims and others can find some other way to God. Let’s be clear - that’s not what Jesus taught. Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
Let’s also be clear that the apostles did not preach or believe that there are many ways to God. Peter’s preaching in Jerusalem as given to us in Acts chapter 4 is representative of the apostolic message. About Jesus, Peter proclaimed, “there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (v. 12).
There are so many religious choices, it can be more daunting than a grocery store. There’s no question that America has more than four Gods. Still, the work of Froese and Bader is helpful. To what extent does God interact with the world? As biblical Christians we believe that God is extremely active in our world. Attentive Christians can see the hand of God at work every day. Attentive Christians sense the work of God in their souls and in the world at large.
In our second lesson, the Apostle Peter explains that Jesus “went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him” (Acts 10:38). Jesus gave this same ministry to the 12 apostles and later to 72 of His followers. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was given to all Christians so that they could continue to do the works of Christ.
Jesus preached “the good news of peace” and He delivered it: peace with God, peace with others, shalom- the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. As His people today are filled with His Spirit He gives to us His peace and also His power for salvation - salvation from sin, salvation from illness, salvation from the world, the flesh and the devil.
Does this mean that we are delivered from all sin? Yes it does. Does this mean that we will never sin again, that we will never be sick, that we will never face temptation? Of course not. God’s gift to us of the good news of peace means that through Jesus Christ we have God’s forgiveness for our sins and as His Spirit grows in us we are being delivered from all sin and evil.
In Christ, God has come near to us. By the Holy Spirit, God has entered every faithful Christian. God is still active in our world.
To what extent does God judge the world? God will judge all sin and evil. Near the end of chapter 10 of Acts, Peter declares that Jesus is “the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead” (v. 42). We say the same thing when we recite the Nicene Creed. In that ancient creed of the church we proclaim that Jesus “will come again to judge the living and the dead.” Our God is just and He will administer justice.
Our God is God #1 of America’s four Gods. He is authoritative and He is both judge and engaged in our world. Our God is benevolent and engaged like God #2, but He isn’t Santa Claus or the loving grandfather God. Our God is critical of sin and evil, but He is not disengaged like America’s God #3. Like God #4, the God revealed in the Bible is distant in His transcendence, yet unlike God #4 He loves us very much. He loves us so much that He sent His Son to be near us and He sent His Spirit to live in all those who believe in His Son.
So, what does it mean for us that our God is authoritative, engaged, benevolent, critical of sin and evil, beyond us in His transcendence and yet also near us in His Son and Spirit? A short answer is that God is exactly who the Apostle Peter says He is. He is Lord of all (Acts 10:36). He will judge the living and the dead (v. 42). He loves all people and He offers forgiveness of sins to all who will receive Him in His Son (vv. 35 and 43).
God is transcendent - way beyond us, and immanent - He sent His Son and anointed Him with the Holy Spirit to do the works of God in this world (Acts 10:38). This is who we worship. This is who we love. This is the One who revealed Himself to us in Jesus. This is the one, true God who has anointed us with His Spirit so that we can now do God’s work in this world.
The good news of peace through Jesus Christ is for all people. If you belong to God through Jesus Christ, God has anointed you with His Spirit to do good. The Gospel is the power from God to heal those oppressed by the devil. Let us rejoice that we have received this power. Let us rejoice in our salvation. Let us take the good news of peace through Jesus Christ into the world.
May God overcome the darkness of this world as He shines His light through us into our world.
