Saturday 28 February 2015

What Do You Get A God Who Already Has Everything?



Scripture:

Psalm 30:6-12
7 By your favor, O Lord, you had established me as a strong mountain; 

you hid your face; I was dismayed. 
8 To you, O Lord, I cried, and to the Lord I made supplication: 
9 “What profit is there in my death, if I go down to the Pit? 
Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness? 
10 Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! 
O Lord, be my helper!” 

Observation:

The psalmist cries out to the LORD in the midst of feeling abandoned by God. In the quoted text, we hear a kind of bargaining with the LORD that amounts to:
'Don't abandon me, You need me!'
And you know what, it looks like it might have actually worked. 

This is a troubling statement, 

"God needs me/you/us/anything." 

It is not only troubling, for some it is downright scandalous. 

We push back against the notion that God could be anything 

but self-sufficient, almighty, all powerful. 

We whisper to ourselves, 'Who needs a needy God?"

Now, I am not saying that God fundamentally needs individual creatures, or the sum of all creation in order to exist. We have a sense from scripture and tradition in the church that God exists prior to and beyond the created orders of being. 

What I am saying is that scripture and experience seem to bear out the fact that God chooses to need to be in relationship with creatures. 

Application:

Maybe this is where the Psalm ties in to the prayer assigned for today's Moravian Texts. That prayer talks about how Jesus reveals God's way to be counter to the way of the world. Where the world says: "more = success and power"; God says, "all have a share in the abundant enough". Where the world says (sinfully): "real power is the ability to get what you want without relying on anyone else"; God says, "real power is revealed in the willingness to risk being vulnerably available to the other for the sake of genuine relationships."

This has me thinking today about what kind of power I put my faith/trust/hope in?

Am I worshipping the living God through the ways I plan for retirement? Or, am I trying to make myself less and less reliant on all others (God and neighbours)? What about how I parent? What about how I pastor?

What about you?

Prayer:

Dear God,
I don't know why you choose to behave as though you need me (us), but I am sure glad you do! Grant me grace to imitate your power in all my relationships. Amen.

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