WHO’S ON THE THRONE?

(and who’s not, of course)

When you put your ear to the Bible, you can hear many different sounds. Listen carefully. You can hear the almost imperceptible sigh of the wind of God sweeping over the still, dark, and as yet dead waters at the beginning of all things (Genesis 1:2)

Is that you, God?

Stay quiet now. Hear the crash of the first tree falling in the forest. And you can hear the first calf bawling for her mother, the first child’s cry, and the first mother’s scream. Is that you, God?

Soft footfalls in a garden. The whoosh of a flaming sword (Genesis 3). Is that you, God?

Women and men, youth and children, toddlers and babies, each one taking a last gasp before the floods overwhelm them (Genesis 7). Is that you, God?

Two daughters’ trembling cry as their father offers them up to be raped, and the Bible’s sound of silence (Genesis 19:8). Is that you, God?

A slave girl softly weeping as her master mounts her to plant his seed (Genesis 16:4). Is that you, God?

An old woman’s laughter at the thought of having a baby she later named Laughter (Genesis 21). The boy’s cry as his father draws the knife near the boy’s throat (Genesis 22). Is that you, God?

The piercing wail of thousands of parents upon discovery of their murdered first-born sons (Exodus 12:29)—while in the same moment mothers and fathers in the land of Goshen breathe a collective sigh as their sons are passed over (Exodus 12:21). Is that you, God?

Babies’ heads crushed against a rock to clear the Promised Land of the forsaken people in order to make room for the chosen people (Joshua 8:24). Is that you, God?

And the beat goes on

A bathing beauty is summoned by her king’s lust. Can you hear her moans? Are they of pleasure or pain? When summoned again after her husband’s murder by this same king (the one after God’s own heart), is she pleased, anxious, scared— what? Well, pregnant! And the baby dies. And the king cries. And the mother . . . ? (2 Samuel 11-12). Is that you, God?

So many sounds. So much confusion. So little certainty. A young man screams as nails are driven through hands and feet. Is that you, God?

Yet another helpless mother stands and watches her child sacrificed by the powers-that-be. Who stands with her? Who stands with all grieving mothers? You, God?

Stumbling out of a burial cave on broken feet . . . no crying he makes? What then—laughter? A victory yell? No, I think crying. Is that you, God?

Is this you, God?

Fast forward: The Black Plague, the Polio Epidemic, the Spanish Flu, the Asian Flu, AIDS, the Swine Flu, Ebola, COVID-19. You, God?

The Crusades, the Rhineland Massacre, the pogroms in Russia, the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, the Holocaust (Christians killing Jews). You, God?

Slavery. You, God?

Trojan War, Hundred Years War, American Revolution, French Revolution, War of 1812, American Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan War, Iraq War, Syrian Civil War. You, God?

For God’s sake, who is on the throne?

This tragic catalog of massive suffering brings us to the doctrine of God’s sovereignty: Who is on the throne? The answer hinges on the answer to another question—which throne?

God is on the throne in the heavenly place. This is something with which most Christians agree: in Heaven, God is in control. Christians would probably say it like this: in Heaven, God’s will is done—perfectly and always!

But we’re not in Heaven, are we, Toto? Here on earth God is NOT on the throne. Xi Jinping of China is on the throne. Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Angela Merkel of Germany, Jeff Bezos, Pope Francis, Bill Gates, Mohammed bin Salmon Al Sand of Saudi Arabia, and less we forget, Mark Zuckerberg—these are those who run the world.

Each is a lesser god who does what all gods do—whatever they damn well please. Let’s be perfectly clear on one other point: God did not place any of these in charge. Either they took charge or we put them in charge. God had little or nothing to do with it.

So what can God do?

When we consider all the events and happenings and actions throughout history, we wonder, where is God in all of this? Does everything that happens happen because God made it happen? Is God in everything? We elected Donald Trump. Was that God’s will? Now we elected Joe Biden. Is this God’s will? Can one of these events be of God and the other not?

Does God have the power to elect or appoint anyone into any position? Did God make Jeff Bezos one of the world’s wealthiest persons? It doesn’t appear to me as if God works that way, and thank God if that’s true! Rather, my view is that God gave us the kind of world in which we want to live.

And what kind of world is that? It is a world in which we are blessed with the freedom of choice. Because of this wonderful truth, we always have the power of repentance—the power to change. We can choose to love and create and embrace and cry and laugh and forgive and grab an oar—or NOT! (I’ll come back to the “oar” thing in a minute.)

God knows that for love to mean anything at all, love has to be a choice. God does not force faith upon us, or love, or obedience.

In America right now, half of us hate the other half, and God is not in any of our childish ways. When hate is winning then God is losing, and hate is definitely winning. What can God do? Not much I’m afraid.

God does have a plan though—a good one

Here’s a who-can-do-that story. Jesus is on a hilltop, and a storm is raging. Jesus sees his disciples in a boat struggling against a brutal wind, so he sets off walking across the water to check on them. He gets close and sees that each has an oar, that each is pulling their weight, so he begins to walk on by. Then Jesus hears them cry out that they are seeing a ghost. Because ghosts don’t exist and Jesus has no patience for that kind of nonsense, he walks on over, reveals himself, climbs into the boat with them, then (to put an exclamation point on the whole thing) he calms the storm (Mark 6:45ff). The disciples think Jesus might be a god. I think Jesus might be God.

If I’m right and Jesus is God, then this story has a message for today. We don’t need Jesus to come and rescue us. Like the disciples, we have everything we need to save ourselves from ourselves. Ironically, what we have is ourselves—we have each other. And of course, we have that “wind of God” still hovering over the waters.

Perhaps the problem comes when none of us want to grab an oar and pull. Maybe even more to the point, it could be that we don’t realize that we are all in the same damn boat.

To mask or not to mask—that is the question

A church leadership board meets for hours debating whether to require masks at their worship services. The conservatives in the room fear that the liberals are taking over the church. The liberals in the room are certain that the conservatives will have their way, like always. There they sit—all in the same room, each thinking that they might have to find a different church.

And the pastor? He’s wishing he’d listened to his crazy Uncle Harry and gone to veterinary school instead of seminary.

The World Health Organization (W.H.O) predicts that world-wide, 96 million people will be pressed into severe poverty because of the Coronavirus, 47 million being women and children.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, the leading cause of death for girls between the ages of 10 and 16 is childbirth. The problem? The men won’t wear condoms, and the girls have no access to contraceptives or good health care. And we are fighting over wearing masks?

Is this you God? NO!

This is not the plan!

Just grab a frickin’ oar, okay? That’s the plan.

I got nothin‘ except Oreos

At this point in my life, I have no answers. Seriously. I’m constantly shaking my head in disbelief at what I’m seeing and hearing, even at the words that come out of my own mouth.

Here’s another story. It probably won’t help, but as I said, I got nothin’! Last night I joined a small group packing boxes for Holland’s Community Action House. These boxes are given to area families, and each box is filled with a variety of items, most of which are healthy choices (canned vegetables and fruits, cereals, broth, rice, pasta) and other stuff like cake and pancake mix.

But as we were halfway through, someone stumbled upon a box filled with packages of Oreo cookies. “Oreos!” she cried out. “We have Oreos!” We all let out a robust cheer. The next twenty families, upon opening their food boxes, were going to get a treat—Oreos.

I don’t know who was in the room then—liberals, conservatives, Trumpians, anybody-but-Trumpians. And frankly, I could care less!

So that’s what I got—Oreos.

On Oreos, we can agree? Maybe.