Don't Dumb-Down God

 

Here's a thought from an old man and it really needs to be developed. But I think it's going somewhere. We have two tendencies. One is the dangerous tendency to overcomplicate the prophetic message of God, the God who speaks to us, the God who has something to say about our daily lives. The God revealed in Jesus, in my faith, the tradition and commitment, the God who calls us, the God who loves us, the God who redeems us, the God who speaks to us, the God who comforts us, the God who forgives us and grants us grace and mercy, the God who has created us.

There is so much about that and so much about the message of Jesus that is very, very simple. And to overcomplicate that message in our daily lives or to ignore the earthiness of it. And the reality of it is to do a grave injustice and injustice to the message, to the everyday message of Jesus.

And in the prophetic and Torah tradition. The other extreme is to dumb down God. To think that by understanding the simplicity of God's message to us, that we've really grasped, grasped who God is and what God is and all of God, the things of God, the depths of God, the depths of God's creative power to rob God of the,  metaphor that points to a greater reality and a greater truth to refuse to stand in reverence and awe, which is what we mean by the fear of God.

We are overwhelmed with the unknowingness and “unknowableness” of God that we cannot fully comprehend God. We can't fully explain God.  I hope you understand what I am struggling to say. We walk a line between the need for simplicity as it applies to the word to us daily and the awe-inspiring reverence of an largely unknowable God who we can know because of God's own initiative and grace and trying to put things in terms that we can understand and in images that we can grasp.

That is the line we walk. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you. The Lord lift up his, countenance upon you and be gracious under you and give you peace through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.