Scripture text: John 6:1-21
“Blessing, honor, glory, and might be to God and the Lamb forever. Amen.”
That’s just a small sample of the lyrics from “This is the Feast...”, one of many liturgical songs we often sing here in worship. These lyrics are drawn from the many songs of praise from the book of Revelation, such as Rev 7:11-12.
And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing,These words all point to a God of magnificence, a God of wonder, a God beyond comprehension. A God of great strength and power, which shouldn’t be any surprise to anyone. We hear tale in Scripture that this same God crafted this universe in which we live, a universe so vast we have barely begun to measure it, let alone explore it.
‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.’
I was witness to the power of this God in Detroit last week. What else could take the hands of teenagers and use them to transform one of the most wounded cities in our nation? Our children in VBS this week learned about God’s mighty power, his ability and his willingness to provide, to comfort, to heal, and to forgive. And we read today in Scripture of how God can take even the feeble fare of the disciples to feed thousands of people and how he is master of storm and water, time and space. That’s power alright.
And it, quite frankly, scares the hell out of us.
In one sense, I suppose that’s reasonable. After all, a god who can do these amazing things is also a god who can squash us like bug without a second thought. But that’s not typically the origin of our fears. We don’t fear destruction at the hands of this powerful God. More often, I think we fear transformation at the hands of this God. We fear he will not leave us as we are. We fear he will show us how wrong we are about so many things and compel us to change.
There is however a solution to this problem, one we’ve often embraced enthusiastically and vigorously in our society. And that’s to make God as petty and small-minded as we often are. There’s an old saying “God made mankind in his image, and then mankind promptly returned the favor.” This god, a reflection of ourselves, only tells us how right we are about things. This god never challenges us. This god will not and, in fact, cannot change us. He cannot transform us. He cannot make of us a new creation. And that’s precisely how we like it.
This god is small, manageable, not powerful, and very very comfortable. He’s a god of self-affirmation, of “atta-boys” and “good jobs.” A god that tells us what we want to hear. A god that lies to us in the exact same ways we lie to ourselves.
Problem is, that’s not the God of Scripture. That’s not the God I, as your pastor, am called to serve and proclaim. That’s not the God who created the universe, who created you and me. But we who serve the real God have a very uphill battle. Because telling you what you want to hear about yourselves is precisely what our society does so very well. We are lied to constantly and we eat it up.
Buy this shampoo and it will make you sexy. We know it’s a lie and we do it anyway. Own this car and you’ll be a real man. Use this body spray and women will fall all over you. You know it’s funny. People are so often cynical about politics; they’re all liars they’ll grumble. And yet when one of them, a candidate or a pundit, gets up there and lies in such a way that you want to believe it, you never second guess them. You just eat it up. “Oh, here’s one that tells the real truth.” The cognitive dissonance is astounding. In one breath, they’re all liars. In the next, they’re God’s own prophet. Of course, they’re a prophet of your god, my god, that puny weak little god we’ve made for ourselves, that tells us precisely what we want to hear, that tells us how right we are about everything.
Why are you here every Sunday? That’s a question we probably don’t ask often enough. Why do we do this, spend this hour or so together? Is it so we can be lied to again, told what we want to hear? So we can worship a tiny puny God that has no power to change or transform? Or we here to find the truth? To seek the real? The answers should be straight-forward, but so often they are not.
I know you guys. I’ve been your pastor for three years. I follow a number of you on Facebook. I hear what you say. I see what you post. I’ve seen snobbery. I’ve seen racism. I’ve seen classism. I’ve seen economic and educational elitism. I’ve seen you defend the indefensible. I’ve seen you tear people down. I heard and seen all these things, and sometimes I’ve heard them and seen them from my own mouth. Yeah, I’m guilty too.
So why are we here? Are we here so we can remain those things? So we can be unchanged and untransformed? All our hypocrisies and sins to stay as they are. Or are we here to allow a God of power, might, compassion, and grace to renew our hearts and minds and to make of us a new creation?
Because let me tell you about that God. It’s a God that did create our universe so vast that we can barely measure it and will probably never be able to explore it. It’s a God that did fashion you in his image, each of us fearfully and wonderfully made. It’s a God that came to this world incarnate as the virgin’s son so that we could know him more fully and more intimately. It’s a God who made the ultimate sacrifice so that we could be with him in eternity. This is a God who loves us more powerfully that we can know. A God who wants to provide for us, to comfort us in our sorrows, who wants to heal us of every malady, and who seeks to forgive our every sin and flaw.
I said in my sermon two weeks ago that “God loves us as we are, but he doesn’t leave us there.” No, what he wants for us is to be more truly ourselves. To cast off these petty hatreds and fears, to be set free from our addiction to being right all the time (even when we’re not). To give us a heart of love, not of superiority. He wants to change us, but maybe not in the way we think. He doesn’t want to make us into something else. God doesn’t want us to stop being who we are; he wants us to become more fully who we are.
One of the best moments of the Youth Gathering was Natasha “T” Miller, a spoken word artist, a rapper, a poet, and truly one of the highlights of the whole event. She got up on Thursday night in front of our crowd of 30,000 and spoke of her love of her city. She spoke with passion and with power about how she (and many others too, most likely) don’t want to Detroit become something else. They don’t want it to be New York or Boston or Seattle. They want it to be Detroit only more so. Well, that’s what God wants. He wants you to be you, only more so. He wants me to be me, only more so. He wants this world to be itself, only more so.
That’s the change that God offers. That’s the transformation he brings upon us. To be ourselves, only more so. To be our true selves, to be the person we were created to be.
And the God who can feed thousands on the meager fare of a handful, a God who can command the wind and waves to cease, a God who can bring a group of frightened disciples “immediately” to their destination without moving, that’s a God has the power to transform us into who and what we’re meant to be. That’s his plan. That’s his power. Embrace it, don’t run from it. Amen.
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