WE WANT OUR GOD BACK!

A meditation by the Rev. Dr. James G. Kirk

Harundale Presbyterian Church

Glen Burnie, Maryland

December 1, 2002

Text: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down.” (Isaiah 64:1)

First Reading: 1 Corinthians 1:3-9

Second Reading: Mark 13:24-37

When we read that an Israeli went to Kenya to get away from the suicide bombers only to return to Israel with his two sons having died from a suicide bomber, his wife on life-support and his daughter injured we want our God back. When we hear the Indonesia Islamist accused of masterminding last month’s Bali bombing—in which nearly 200 tourists were killed—reportedly said that it was a “holy bomb” that ripped apart that disco, and that it was aimed there because it was full of foreigners—i.e. non-Muslims, we want our God back.

When it’s reported that a second earthquake in less than six months shook Alaska south of Fairbanks and the ripple effect was felt here in Maryland, we want our God back. The closer we get to the New Year with more troops being positioned near Iraq, and the closer we get to what could become a “civilizational war,” we want our God back. When now we have to be concerned with fanatics with shoulder fired missiles lose in the world and the chance of a “dirty nuclear bomb” being smuggled into the United States, we have to want our God back.

We begin to understand what Isaiah is saying. The Israelites have just returned to Judah. They’ve had their time in exile. They’ve been introduced to the Canaanite gods, the gods of fertility and all the other ways of a secular society and now they want their God back. “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down.” Now Isaiah’s ready to admit that, “From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him.” Perhaps people in the United States are ready to admit that all the comforts of the secular life are not working. People aren’t as secure as they thought. True, people have more and bigger toys than they’ve ever had, yet do those toys make them happier than they’ve ever been? I don’t think so! I don’t see mainline denominational churches increasing their attendance in worship. This year at Harundale we’re seeing 50 people less in worship on average than this time last year.

Isaiah makes it sound as though it’s God’s fault. “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment…There is no one who calls upon thy name, that bestirs himself to take hold of thee; for thou has hid thy face from us, and has delivered us into the hand of our iniquities.” The fundamentalist Christians would have us believe that everything that’s happening in the world is God’s judgement upon us. They want there to be a war between the Israelis and the Arab world, since that will only hasten Armageddon, bring upon the end of the world as we know it and usher in the Rapture and that will be that.

There are also the fundamentalist Muslims like Azmi Abu Hilayel, whose son Nael strapped himself with dynamite and blew up an Israeli bus with school kids. When he heard about it he was quoted as saying: “I thanked God when I heard that my son had died in an operation for the sake of God and the homeland.”

The headlines the other day shouted “Sharon Vows Revenge.” There’s no doubt that if the latest attack upon the Jews can be linked to al-Qaida Israel is ready to go to war and it will be viewed throughout the world as a religious war between the civilizations as we know them.

So, the question becomes “whose God do we want back?” Do we want the God of comfort who’ll leave us alone until we really need God to be in our lives and will hasten to our side when we call? Or, do want a God who’ll deliver us from the madness, since we can’t seem to address the issues that have got us to the brink of disaster? Or, is our God the God of Armageddon and the best we can do is back off and let God be God and we’ll eventually inherit our reward?

Isaiah seems to be on the right track when he confesses, “we are the clay and you are our potter.” Today is the first Sunday of Advent. Mark tells us to “watch.” Paul tells us “to be molded.” What better time than now to use this Advent season to watch and be molded by God the divine Potter? Sure, we want God back. We don’t want to go on with this madness that’s going to destroy civilizations as we know them. We don’t want to live in fear the rest of our lives that some militant fundamentalist is going to destroy the freedoms that Americans have fought so hard to enjoy. We don’t want the church to fade off into the some hinterland of obscurity like they have in Scotland, where some of the sanctuaries have become restaurants and theaters, and the faithful have long since deserted them.

The God we want back in our lives is a God involved in the struggle to be faithful. The God we want back in our lives is the God who led the Maccabees to rekindle the lights of the Jerusalem Temple in purity and the festival of Hanukkah was born as “the days of thanksgiving and praise to the Almighty’s great name.” The God we want back in our lives is the God of the Puritans who founded this great nation based on religious freedom and ideals worth struggling to retain. The God we want back is the God of Mark who tells us to have our house in order and to watch for God’s presence in the midst of our daily lives. The God we want back is Paul’s God who’ll mold us during this Advent Season as the Potter who works with the clay. To that God be all honor and glory!

Amen