If God were a superhero, all of this would be so much easier. Our enemies would be routed. Just when we think all is lost, God would soar back through the sky and destroy all evil.
If God were a sorceress, all of this would be so much easier. Drawing a sparkling flask from her robes, God would have just the right potion at hand to defeat the virus, and the magical skill to conjure enough vaccine for everyone.
Even if God were an efficient government agency — well, that is less colorful but even that kind of god would be reassuringly predictable. The temple staff in Jerusalem, whose tables Jesus dramatically overthrows: they seem quite comfortable with the vision of God as Bureaucrat.
If God were any of these things, all of this would be so much easier.
That God is not only not these things, but not a thing at all — that God does not exist in a finite way as we do, but rather is the essence of existence itself — well, this can often feel quite disappointing.
We want God to use power — and we want to place our hopes in God as the all-powerful One — so that all that is right and good and just, as we see it, will come to pass. Children will not be abused or neglected. Innocents will not be imprisoned or killed for crimes they did not commit. A deadly pathogen will not defeat us. The planet will not slowly lose the power to support life. My own inner demons will not prevail over my better self. And the individual life of a good person will not be cut short by illness or accident. If God is truly all-powerful, then, we reason, surely God will do all these things!
But God does not do all these things. Unlike the superheroes and sorcerers of our imaginations, God does not exercise power as a clear, discrete, cause-and-effect change agent. God does not enter the world as Captain Marvel, or Dumbledore, or even a competent federal employee. I can not fill out an application online to request goods and services from God. I can send Grace Church an email with my prayer requests! But as you know very well, that is not the same as placing something I want in an online shopping cart.
So, what then? How do we understand who God is, and what God does or does not do?
I want to call upon the ancient Israelites to join this conversation about God and power.
The Israelites — those poor, grimy, dusty, all-too-recently-freed slaves — they seem to be following Moses from the frying pan of Egypt into the fire of Sinai. They recoil in terror from the foothills of God’s mountain. They tremble with fear, sure that if they even touch the mountain, they will die. The writers of Exodus borrow every image from the ancient world they can to evoke for us the presence and power of God: fiery volcano, shattering earthquake, thunderous cloud, a roiling vortex of devastating power. And yet, in all this cacophony, these poor slaves can hear the voice of God. Unable to touch God, who is always revealed at a distance, they resemble the frightened disciples behind locked doors after the Resurrection. The disciples experience the risen Jesus as an unnerving, even disturbing Stranger, yet they hear his comforting voice, and they even watch as he eats food in front of them. God in Exodus — and if we read our Gospels closely, God in the Resurrection — is distant, yet present; awe-full, yet loving; impossible to grasp, yet right here next to me.
And when God speaks, God does not deliver the inaugural address of the new head of a federal bureaucracy, or the wise counsel of a wizard in a time of peril, or a stirring speech by Captain America. God is actually more intimidating, and intimate, and relational, than all that. God at Sinai proclaims in the Ten Words a covenant: not a relationship of magical protection, but a relationship of trust and love.
A covenant: a relationship of faithfulness on God’s part, and good behavior on the part of every living person.
A covenant: a relationship.
And so, in all of this, I hope our scriptures can help us realize that, next to the fiery God of Sinai, and next to Jesus, who cleansed the temple of its short-sighted staff, and, later on, shattered the locked doors of the disciples, our visions of God as a superhero or a wizard begin to pale. They lose their luster. They offer a quick fix of a magical god who will zap away our problems, but in the end, they are dreams that just don’t amount to much.
Consider the superhero. I love Marvel movies, but something that has always bothered me about them is all the little people, constantly fleeing the scene, screaming in futile fear. Extras, walk-ons, sometimes nothing more than computer-generated images, the crowds in superhero movies are little more than background art. They shriek in terror, for that is really their only role. Or they succumb to destruction: they are mowed down mercilessly, while our hero watches, her face flush with a determined desire to avenge them. (“Avengers” is one of our names for the heroes!)
But the crowd at Sinai is not like this. The Israelites themselves cut a striking figure in God’s story of salvation. Though only Moses climbs the mountain, God is personal for every single “little” person. Everyone hears God’s voice in their own minds, on their own hearts. The lives, the choices, and the future of every human person are a matter of great concern to God. (This can be quite unnerving, if you think about it!)
So, God is more than a superhero.
But God is also not a wizard. The wizard is a compelling archetype: the grandfather steeped in exotic wisdom; the elder who blesses her village with graceful, otherworldly serenity; the clever wonderworker who smiles knowingly, winks irreverently, and subverts the villain who attempts in vain to destroy our community. But wizards are limited; wizards die. And we ourselves are not in possession of magical powers. So if God is a wizard, then God is not only made small and mortal by this confining stereotype, but the idea that we are made in God’s image is also robbed of its power, and meaning.
The flawed disciples of Jesus are not powerless and dull in the presence of the risen Jesus. They are inflamed by the Holy Spirit to become apostles, not merely enthusiastic superfans of the Risen One, but those who by the Spirit’s power are able to create communities of faith in which that same Risen One is encountered, known, broken, and shared.
So, God is not a wizard. And that in turn can mean that we are not merely passive recipients of God’s grace.
Who is God, then? And where is God? And if we aren’t just extras in the movie, how do we fit in, exactly?
The apostle Paul can help, if we let him. Paul points to the cross, and says that the cross shows us who God is, what God is doing, and even who we are. The cross: a symbol of state-sponsored execution, yet also for us the Tree of Life. The cross: the intersection of heaven and earth, where the Humble and Living One who created all things hangs in death, and by doing so, shatters death. The cross: foolishness and a stumbling block for the wise, but enlightenment for the little people, raising them up into God’s people.
On the cross, God overcomes oppression by becoming the one perfect victim. On the cross, God restores life by submitting to death. On the cross, God is superabundant in power, yet vulnerable and compassionate, searching even the heart of the most wicked tyrant for traces of virtue, praying for his forgiveness, and inviting him to repent.
God, then, is at once infinitely more awesome (and frightening) than a superhero, but also frustratingly less straightforward in using power to directly and neatly repair and heal this world.
The cross is glorious, yes. But it is also complicated, paradoxical, awful.
Sunday by Sunday, we respond to God’s revelation in scripture by gathering together in prayer. We pray to God for the sick and the suffering; for leaders and the people they lead; for this community, this planet, and for our beloved dead. No superhero, wizard, or government official will hear, let alone respond to, these prayers. The One God does hear our prayers, and in fact knows them before we even think to utter them. And God responds to these prayers, though not magically, not right on schedule, not by swooping in for a satisfying movie ending. God responds to our prayers in God’s own presence and power in our lives, in our bodies, in our relationships, in and with our identity and mission as the Body of Christ. The fiery God of Sinai forever eludes our full understanding, but this we know: God is faithful. And the Crucified and Risen One is among us even now, breathing peace upon us, and forming us into his Body.
Where is God? God is here, as close as your own beating heart. God is here, shattering our locked doors, and dispelling our anxiety. God is here, as we join together in prayer.
God is here: our strength, and our redeemer.
***
Preached on the Third Sunday in Lent, Year B, March 7, 2021, at Grace Episcopal Church, Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Exodus 20:1-17
Psalm 19
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
John 2:13-22