I want to ask a question. How do you think and talk about God? This is not just an academic question for the sake of some more or less interesting conversation. This is a vital question. It is one of the more important questions we should ask ourselves from time to time.

It is important because our perception of God and our concepts about God influence our living. They influence our values, our attitudes and our actions. If we think about God as some sort of indulgent parent, putting up with anything as long as we say the magic words "forgive me" from time to time, our living is going to be different from someone whose perception of God is the direct opposite-someone who views God as a stern judge, ready to hand out stiff sentences for any violations of divine law. If we think of God as some sort of script-writing puppeteer who is in control of all we say and do, one who predetermines all that will happen, our attitude toward life is likely to be different from someone who thinks of God as One who has given us freedom and holds us accountable. If we think of God as One who is involved with us in the living of our lives, we are likely to view and live our lives in ways different from those who think of God as the Creator who is no longer really interested in us or our planet. How we think and talk about God is important. It shapes our attitudes, values and behavior.

How do you think and talk about God, the God most clearly revealed in Jesus Christ?

To be sure, God is more than our brains can comprehend and more than our concepts can express. When we think we can fully understand God, we not only fool ourselves, we make fools of ourselves. Any god we can fully comprehend and clearly describe cannot be the true God because any god we can comprehend and describe is no more intelligent or wise than we are. The true God is beyond what our brains can comprehend and beyond our ability to describe or define.

And yet we are humans who have been created both to think and to talk. So, as life confronts us with mysteries such as the birth of a baby, the death of someone we dearly love, the undeserved gifts that come in good times, and undeserved tragedies that strike-as life confronts us with mysteries such as these, we try to make sense of it all and we talk to one another.

How do you think and talk about God?

Some people think and talk about God in terms of what they do not believe. For example, they might say: "I do not believe God really cares," or "God? I don't think much about God; I think God is irrelevant," or "I do not believe in God."

Thus far, when I have been able to have conversation with persons who hold such views, what I have discovered is that the god they say does not care, or that is irrelevant to our living or that they do not believe exists, is a god I do not believe in either.

For most of us who have problems believing in God or believing God matters, it is primarily a problem in the way we think and talk about God. Our problem with metaphors about God has led us to have problems with God. Let me try to explain.

Because the true God is beyond our ability to comprehend or put into words, we use metaphors to think and talk about God. But all metaphors are merely metaphors, and finally they are inadequate. They are helpful to a point, but if pushed beyond that point, the metaphors are no longer helpful in pointing toward God, but become distorted perceptions of God. I believe a lot of people who think they do not believe in God are persons who have confused some of the words that have been used to point toward God with the reality of God. They may say they have discovered that God does not exist, or that God does not care, or that God is irrelevant, but what they have really discovered, without realizing it, is that their way of thinking and talking about God is inadequate and misleading. In their confusion, they threw out God rather than upgrading their way of thinking and talking about God.

One of the ways the scriptures show us that God is more than the metaphors we use is through the wide variety of metaphors the writers of the scriptures have used as they tried to talk about God. Here are just a few that came to my mind: a potter, a sculptor, a gardener, a warrior, a judge, a king, a mother hen, a faithful husband, a loving father, a landlord, a shepherd, and the list can go on.

Since the beginning of the Hebrew-Christian heritage, men and women of faith have used a wide variety of metaphors to talk about God. Each of these metaphors has been helpful in pointing toward the truth about God-up to a point. But if pushed too far, any of these metaphors can become a distortion of the truth about God.

How do you think and talk about God?

In the passage that was read today, Paul spoke of us humans groping toward God. It is as if we are stumbling in a dark room, feeling our way along, searching for the switch that will turn on the light.

To some extent, this is an accurate metaphor for describing our search for God. We search in the dark until, by the grace of God, we stumble across or we are led to the place where we are aware of God touching our lives and of our lives touching God. And then it is as if the light was turned on, and we see in our lives what we were unable to see before.

How do you think and talk about God-the One revealed in and through Jesus Christ?

In the passage that was read, Paul wrote that it is in God that we live and move and have our being. This brings us to another metaphor about God-one that I have found very helpful, even though it too has its limits.

God is to us what the ocean is to a fish. In God we live and move and have our being. We can no more understand or control God than a fish can understand or control the ocean. We can no more escape God than a fish can escape the ocean. As the poet who wrote Psalms 139 stated:
Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light around me become night,"
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

How do you think and talk about God?

In the passage from Acts, Paul said that in God we live and move and have our being. This is what the verses I just read from Psalms 139 are saying. In this metaphor, God is not thought of as being way off out yonder or way up in heaven far removed from us. To be sure, God is beyond us, but it is like the ocean is beyond the fish. God is beyond us and yet God is near. God surrounds and supports us, not too unlike the way the ocean surrounds and supports the fish. And just as the ocean is there regardless of whether or not the fish are aware of the ocean, so God is here, constantly around us whether we are aware of it or not.

And this God who is near to us is for us and not against us. The primary word used in the letters of John to describe God is "love." The Gospel of John declares God loves the world. This God in whom, Paul said, we live and move and have our being is not a hostile God or even a neutral God. The God revealed in Jesus Christ, the God proclaimed in the scriptures is for us and not against us.

To be a human being means we think and talk. If we do more than merely grow older, if we truly mature as human beings, then we also mature in our ways of thinking and talking.

How do you think and talk about God? This is not merely an interesting topic for conversation. This is an essential question. How we answer this question influences our outlook on life, our attitude in living, as well as our values and priorities that shape what we do. How do you think and talk about God?

God, help us always to be growing in our relationship with you and in our understanding of you. Amen.

Pastoral Prayer:
God, send us your peace that is beyond this world's understanding-the peace that is rooted in trusting you, the peace that is ours when we totally give ourselves to you, the peace that comes when we are working for you. God, give us this peace.
And in the peace of total trust and commitment, God use us as you see fit so that what we say and do can help bring the peace this world needs. God, you know this planet needs peace. People are wounding and destroying one another body and soul. They are doing it with weapons; they are doing it with words; they are doing it with silence and failure to act.
God give us that peace that comes through trusting you and serving you so that we will be instruments of peace, helping to bring your healing to those we meet and to those we may never meet.
This we pray in the name of the prince of peace who taught us to live when the taught us to pray: "Our Father …"