Pastor, Western Presbyterian Church
Washington, D.C.
January 3, 2010
Text: John 1:1-18
Last week, as I looked at the opening verses of John’s Gospel for the thousandth time, what struck me anew is the way John explains everything in creation as flowing directly from God. It is especially clear in the third verse where John writes: “All things came into being through (the Word), and without (the Word) not one thing came into being.”
John’s world view is not uniquely Christian. It is the dominant world view of most people throughout history. Overwhelmingly, our ancestors believed that the hand of God was at work in everything. Whether they were animists or Christians, Jews or Hindus, Muslims or Buddhists, most people in prior generations believed they could not understand their existence or the world apart from God.
When a family did well economically, it was a sign that God was pleased with them. A birthmark on a child’s face was a sign that God had a special purpose for the child. The defeat of a nation’s army was a sign of God’s displeasure.
Our generation presents a stark contrast to the God-oriented world view of our ancestors. Rarely, if ever, has a generation been so disinclined to view God as the cause of things in the world as is our generation. We have a determined predisposition to understand things apart from God. Wherever and whenever possible, we look for a cause or explanation for reality in something or someone other than God.
Over the past three hundred years or so, the Western world has slowly but surely detached itself from a theocentric world view—an understanding of reality in which God is at the center of everything that happens. This explains, in part, the problem fundamentalist Muslims have with our society and what we export to the rest of the world. Indeed, it explains why religious conservatives of many different faiths have problems with our culture.
When something surprisingly positive happens, we are inclined to say, “Wow, that was a bit of good luck.” When a person self-destructs, we are inclined to see it as just that—the actions of a self-destructive individual. When nations go to war, we see the causes as geopolitical and economic. When we find a cure for a disease, we praise the brilliance of the scientists.
Are we a happier people because of our decision to marginalize and minimize God’s influence on our lives and history? Are we wiser? Do we better understand why things are happening to and around us? I think not.
The issue is not whether or not God causes something positive to happen to us but what we do with it. As people of faith, we view a positive turn in our lives as a gift, an opportunity to serve God in new and creative ways.
People self-destruct when we abandon God and God’s plan for our lives. We make decisions based on self-interest rather than God’s interests. We follow the laws of the marketplace, not the laws handed down on Mt. Sinai.
Nations go to war when they rigidly pursue national interests rather than thinking of God’s demand for peace and justice. Worried more about the concerns of ruling an empire than God’s Rule, nations fight with one another like angry kids on a school ground—attempting to prove who is the Alpha nation.
There are many reasons why we in the West have increasingly looked to ourselves and the operations of nature to explain our lives; some of them very positive. Two, in particular, have helped to define the modern relationship with God.
First, nature and humans are key actors in the creation of history. So we have felt a need to understand better how and why we do what we do. With increased knowledge about our own behavior (individually and collectively), we gain more control over our lives. The effort to understand human actions apart from any type of divine influence has led to important advances in science, civil rights and elsewhere.
Second, we don’t want to ascribe bad things to God. To do so makes us either fear or hate God for doing or not stopping bad things from happening. When a child dies, we don’t want to ascribe that to God’s will and we shouldn’t. When a tornado devastates a city, we don’t want to ascribe that to God’s will and we shouldn’t.
However, in the process of 1) gaining a better understanding of our own power and the power of the forces of nature and 2) being rightly hesitant to ascribe every good or bad thing in life as a direct act by God, we have pushed God to the margins of history. We have unwittingly transformed God into the deus ex machina of the Deists, a God who creates the world and then steps away from it, leaving the creation on its own to do what it will.
Gratefully, every year in December, the Christmas story presents a very different picture of the world, one opposed to the idea of a universe operating on its own powers. At Christmas, we remember that God so loves the world that God intervenes in history to become human. The God of Bethlehem is the polar opposite of a distant and detached God.
John’s Gospel places the birth of Jesus within a larger cosmic and theocentric context. Says John, “the entire world is a product of God’s will.” Nothing that exists, exists apart from the will of God. Nothing that happens can be considered apart from God’s intentions for the world.
Certainly, this does not mean that God directly causes everything to happen in history. The creation, history, you and I each have our own autonomy. God has given us free will. With that freedom, we can freely create or destroy; love or hate; forgive or seek vengeance; seek peace or wage war. The choices are ours.
However, as we exercise our freedom, Jesus calls upon us to consider what God would have us do. This is the essence of a theocentric, God-centered life. It isn’t about what God does. It is about what we do as followers of God.
As disciples of Jesus, we can’t do what we want to do in every given situation. We do what God calls upon us to do. And when it isn’t clear what God would have us do, we pray for guidance and wisdom; we seek out other people of faith and talk with them to discern God’s will.
This is why the effort to understand human behavior and the inner workings of the creation are not contrary to the journey of faith. They complement one another. As we understand why we do things and how nature works, we have more knowledge. This knowledge increases the likelihood that we will make the right choices God asks us to make.
For example, there is a lot of alcoholism in my family’s history. There is some scientific evidence that alcoholism and opiate addictions are linked to the presence of a certain gene. I could use this new knowledge to explain why a number of my ancestors were alcoholics. However, to do so would be to ignore all the people who possess the gene but do not become alcoholics.
Why do some individuals avoid addiction while others do not? In many instances, individuals avoiding addiction allow God’s Word, rather than a gene, to direct their lives. They are God-centered people who refuse to allow biology to define them. So science and faith come together to give us a more comprehensive understanding of what we are fighting when we are fighting something like alcoholism and how we can win the battle.
After World War I, rather than follow the approach to enemies commanded by God, the victorious allies used an approach as ancient as humanity itself. They imposed punishing, onerous peace terms on Germany. In the years that followed, resentment over the unjust peace terms grew in Germany; anger ultimately exploited by Adolph Hitler.
Following World War II, George Marshall proposed a radically different approach to vanquished foes. His plan was consistent with God’s commandment to love our enemies. Rather than punishing Germany, Italy and Japan, Marshall convinced the allies to help their former foes rebuild their nations and economies. As a result of pursuing this God-oriented approach, we have had almost seventy years without a worldwide war.
A God-oriented approach does not seek to explain every action in history and nature as being directly caused by God. On the contrary, a God-oriented approach recognizes human free will and the constraints it places of God. However, a theocentric approach attempts to understand and see everything as God understands and sees things. Utilizing God’s perspective, it seeks to do what God would do if God was in our position.
It is simply blasphemous to suggest that God causes the death of a child. However, once a child is dead, the living have options. We can become bitter, immersed and overwhelmed by our grief. Or we can do what God asks us to do: “Choose life” and live our days to the absolute fullest.
It is heresy to suggest that God has ordained the United States to be the dominant power in the world. But it is imperative that we attempt to live our national life in ways that are consistent with the Way God has told us to walk.
As we begin not only a new year but a new decade, may each of us become more God-oriented in the way we lead our lives. Let us take better care of our bodies, the environment, those we love, and, yes, those we don’t love. As a nation, let our foreign policy look first to diplomats not weapons; concern for the poor, not special tax breaks for those with lobbyists; relentless efforts to protect the environment, not mindless overuse of natural resources. And of all the New Year’s resolutions we can make, none will be more important than this: We resolve to make our lives God-centered in every way, on every day.
Let us pray: Gracious God, you call us into relationship with you. We pray that we will heed your call. As we do so, may we grow in wisdom and truth. Amen.
