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Ungodly
I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord; I will meditate on all your work. – Psalm 77:11a & 12a (NRSV)
There’s a problem with being made in the image of God: it’s easy to acquire a God complex.
“I have the divine right to…” “I hold the indisputable position to…” “I have the sovereign authority to…” “I have the superior righteousness to…” Fill in the blank with any example from the news. The divine right to go to war. The indisputable position to rewrite history. The sovereign authority to withhold food. The superior righteousness to deny freedom.
After all, God went to war, biblically speaking. God instituted famines, subordinated the histories of other gods, captured cities and peoples and subjected them to God’s divine will. We who are made in the image of God can surely do the same.
Of course, we might prefer not to see ourselves in the image of a warring, petty God.
More appealing might be: I have the divine right to love. The indisputable position to care for creation. The sovereign authority to demand justice. The superior righteousness to believe I am one of the “good guys” in a world of “bad guys.” Still a God complex, albeit in the image of a magnanimous God.
(There’s also the less obvious God complex, which sounds like: I am forever wrong. I hold no significance. I cannot change. I am subject to the world’s whims. Still an immovable position that inflates self-perspective.)
Against any complex, the psalms remind us: Our works are not wonders for meditation. Our images are not the grace to which people turn. Our reputations are not the power by which earth trembles or waters part.
We are made in the image of God, yes. And we are not God, ever.
To confuse the two is ungodly.
Prayer: Call my mind to meditate on you, O God—morning, noon, and night.
cross-posted with the Daily Devotional (ucc.org)
Many Miracles
The crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard [the disciples] speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? … [Yet] in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power. What does this mean?” Acts 2:6-12 excerpted (NRSV)
Language is a delightfully mystical phenomenon. Set aside the oddities of grammar and the hazards of translation, and you’ll find that language is a kind of miracle: A few funny scribbles on the page, a line here, a swoop there, and voilà! The scribbles now convey ideas that live beyond the page and the ink.
I can write three symbols, for example—R, E, D—and your mind’s eye immediately paints a picture of blooming roses, or of campfire sparks drifting up to the sky on a summer night, or of your grandmother’s red sweater that she wore to church on Pentecost and Christmas, always with a gold broach appropriate to the holiday.
Letters are only scribbles and sounds, yet when assembled together, they can capture our lived experiences. Miraculous!
As with most miracles, of course, language can be a source of confusion and conflict. Do we insist upon a single interpretation, confining language like wine to an old flask? Do we worry its inconsistencies to the point of death-by-grammar, concerned that nothing so messy as language can yield new possibilities—like the darkened sun and the bleeding moon welcoming God’s new day? When communication is strained, should our tongues retreat from language in favor of silence?
I imagine someone muttered to themselves on the day of Pentecost: “This is too many tongues, too much fire, too many languages, too much noise.” But who is God, if not the One with too many miracles still unfolding?
Prayer: I prefer to understand it all, O God. Thank heavens the Holy Spirit continues to interrupt and confuse me with new miracles.
cross-posted with the Daily Devotional (ucc.org)
Remembering
Remembering, O Light, that your sign of mercy is my sign of trust, from horizon to horizon, sunrise to sunset, mountains to seas. Taking a deep breath in, letting trust reach down to my toes. Remembering, O Life, that your time of patience is my time of wilderness...
Restraint
The LORD God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.” - Genesis 2:16-17 (NRSV) When the new year dawned last month, my social media feed was filled with people saying...
Ashes
Breath by breath, grief by grief, joy by joy, pain by heart-rending pain these fragile ashes turn and return and resign to the Holy, to the Trembling, to the Deep Mystery, to the Heritage of Relentless Love without which these same ashes could only sift and settle...
Stubborn
Most Holy Judge: for what we plainly know but cannot bring ourselves to confront, forgive us and be merciful to those harmed by the fallout. The truth does not need prophets yet you send them anyway, each one an invitation to understand and repent, to make way for...
Tent-Making
Let me pitch my tent by a lamppost in the snow somewhere in a dream of witches and wardrobes and wonders that taste of delight and courage. Let me roll out a heavy tarp under a mysterious new moon resting alongside the wise wind and the patient oak tree, until...
I Cannot Fly
I cannot fly, O God of the soaring eagle; I cannot even leap with a dancer's grace. But today I can wake and I can rise, and perhaps the strong wind will remind me not to be so rooted in fear. I cannot measure up, O God of the starry heavens; I cannot even pretend to...
From One Grasshopper to Another
It is God who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to live in; who brings princes to naught, and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing. - Isaiah...
Tremors
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God. God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved. - Psalm 46:2-5 excerpts (NRSV) My daughter...
Patience
Paul stood up and began to speak: “The God of this people Israel made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm God led them out of it. For about forty years God put up with them in the wilderness.” - Acts 13:16-18, excerpts (NRSV)...
