What the God of Love Looks Like
November 20, 2022 + Last Sunday of the Church Year + Reign of Christ + Luke 23:33-43 + Pr. Michelle Sevig
What does God look like?
With permission from my friend, Pastor Katie Hines-Shah, I want to share her story with you.
One day while driving, with her son John in the backseat, he said he had a question about God. He asked, “What does God look like?”
Katie writes, “Friends, let me tell you, I was so relieved. This wasn’t a hard question like, “Where do babies come from?” or “Why do bad things happen to good people,” or “Why do Lutherans insist on sitting in the back pews even when they can’t hear well.” This was the sort of question I had been preparing my whole life to answer. Especially as a lady pastor in the People’s Republic of Berkeley. And so I launched right in.
‘Well it says in the Bible that we are created in God’s image, so some people think God looks like men and women and everyone in between.’
John said nothing. So I continued:
“Of course Jesus was God, and he probably looked like a Middle Eastern man, olive skinned and dark haired.”
From the back seat there was silence. So I muddled on:
‘But that’s not the whole story. There are many other ways people describe God. Moses finds God in a bush that is burning but not consumed. And the Hebrew people see God in a pillar of cloud and fire. And Jesus once even said that God is like a mother chicken.’
And then he cut me off.
‘Mom,’ he said impatiently, ‘I think God looks like a man. Sitting on a throne. With a long white beard. Like Santa Claus.’
She says, All I could think was, “Even in Berkeley. Even with a female pastor mother who almost certainly never even once described God in that way from the pulpit. It must be in the water…”
Pastor Katie continues with her reflection. But of course, I don’t think little John was alone holding that image of God. I think a lot of people have that image of God. If I’m honest with myself, I probably sometimes think of God in that way. An old man. Sitting on a throne. With a long white beard. Awesome in power. Able to dispense reward or punishment at a whim.
Like a king.”
Now when I think of the attributes of a king these words come to mind–male, authoritarian, powerful, wealthy, a class above his subjects, distant, inaccessible, untouchable, oppressive. Which is why for many years I’ve scoffed at the idea of God as king, and cringe when singing praise songs naming Jesus as king.
Today is the day formerly known as Christ the King Sunday. In recent years it has changed to Reign of Christ, or simply “the last Sunday of the Church Year” (yawn). The change is meant to reduce our automatic association with earthly kings, and reorient our understanding of Christ’s activity and presence in our lives, rather than his status.
But in a time such as this, I believe it's important to remember why this lesser festival day was instituted in the first place. Pope Pius XI instituted this feast day in December 1925, just after Adolf Hitler published the first volume of his manifesto, Mein Kampf. In the same year as approximately 40,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan marched on Washington, D.C., with an active membership of nearly 5 million people in the United States. In the aftermath of World War I there was a growing nationalist sentiment throughout the world. And Mussolini became the fascist head of the Italian Republic and was actively trying to win over Italy’s Roman Catholic majority through several religious appeasements. During this time Pope Pius XI wanted to counter what he perceived to be unhealthy nationalism and called the church to declare Christ’s kingship over all of creation. In other words, no matter one’s nation of citizenship, the first identity and allegiance of a Christian is to Jesus, not to political leaders or skewed ideologies.
Now is a good time to be reminded that in scripture we encounter God whose power and majesty differs radically from the reign of a human monarch or any political leader in a democracy. We need to use the image of Christ the king as a corrective to our human understanding of kingship because our king, Christ, has a completely different way of reining.
Our gospel reading from Luke brings us to the place where Christ is throned–on a cross-a human torture device that was meant to publically humiliate and destroy lives. Here, with the sign “King of the Jews,” hanging above his head, we see clearly how this king reigns and we get a glimpse at what God looks like.
Jesus refuses to exert his power, but instead appears in vulnerability.
He does not vow retribution on those who betray him, speak ill of him or even those who crucify him, but instead he offers forgiveness.
Jesus does not come down off of his cross to prove his kingly status, but instead remains on the instrument of torture and humiliation, the representative of all who suffer unjustly.
And he does not promise a better tomorrow, but instead offers to redeem us today.
“Today, you will be with me in paradise,” he says to the criminal suffering next to him. Today. Now. Not some future after-death promise, but today. In these verses Jesus is focused on this very moment, promising that those who believe in him, those who see in his vulnerability the revelation of God’s mercy and grace, will be ushered into God’s presence immediately.
On the last Sunday of the church year, we turn toward the cross to see what God looks like and how God interacts with their people. In Jesus we see that God stands with all the innocent of the world, all the vulnerable and forgotten, all those who suffer injustice and oppression.
We who follow this king are called to join God's insistent, consistent, and persistent solidarity with the weak, the oppressed, and the forgotten of this world. To say Christ reigns is to acknowledge that I do not, Caesar does not, our own political leaders do no, money does not, and hatred does not. Death does not have the final word. In the reign of Christ all are invited, strangers are neighbors, we turn the other cheek, we share the shirts off our backs, we love our enemies and we give our lives away for the sake of the world.
And that is radically countercultural! We, like the criminal on a cross next to Jesus, are invited to join him in paradise today where he reigns. The realm of God, over which Crist is king, is not lurking somewhere “out there.” It is already here among us. And that means no longer can we keep our faith a private affair and ignore the needs of our neighbor. No longer can we sing robust hymns about God’s glory and ignore the plight of God’s good earth. No longer can we pray that God’s kingdom come and yet manage wealth as if it actually belonged–rather than was entrusted–to us. And no longer can we relegate the realm of God to some distant future. The realm and rule of God is all around us, calling us to live by its vision and values even now.
What does God look like? A different kind of who is willing to embrace all, forgive all, redeem all–because that is God’s deepest and truest nature. But that is not the only metaphor/ image we have for Christ who reigns in our lives. As we’ll sing in a few moments in the new hymn from the purple supplement, Christ is also lamb and shepherd, prince and slave, peacemaker and sword bringer, the one who walks each day beside us and sits in power at God’s side, preaches a way that is narrow and has a love that reaches wide.
May this Holy One with many names and images, titles and metaphors guide us as we seek to show others what the God of love looks like in the world.
