22/02/09 St. John’s 10:30 The problem with God… Acts 17:16-32
1. Do you have a problem - with God?
People do.
Maybe you have seen the reports about the adverts on the buses…
“There's probably no God so stop worrying and enjoy your life.” The slogan assumes that if there is a God then we can’t enjoy life. Some people have welcomed opportunity for discussion that these ads have created. And Christians have responded. The Trinitarian Bible society sponsored ads that said “The fool hath said in his heart there is no God.”… I know it’s in the bible… it’s in Psalm 14 and 53 talking about how all people have wandered away from God. But… I don’t know… written on the side of a bus like that – in Jacobean English - it doesn’t sound like Jesus to me. And another group has sponsored another set of ads on the buses that say “There definitely IS a God So enjoy life and join the Christian party.” That’s a bit more cheerful. Although I think that neither the Christian ads nor the atheist ads are particularly effective and I’m not sure that either of them are desirable. All of these ads compare very poorly with the ads that have appeared on London buses and others around the country for the last few years… the Ads to publicise the Alpha course. The most recent one simply asked a question… “Where are we going?” and there was another question with it If God did exist, what would you ask him? I like that ad. It’s an invitation… not an assertion. I value the fact that we live in a free society where differing views can be expressed; I welcome that freedom and think we should thank God for it!!!... but I am not in favour of one group of people seeking to dominate or impose their views on another. The atheist ads could have said, “We don’t think there’s a God? What do you think?” That would be an invitation to discuss in freedom.
When Paul went to Athens the bible passage says that he reasoned with people, he debated with philosophers. As it is the recent spate of ads seem to be just hurling opinions at one another.
2. Many years ago ... when I was studying for my first degree I spent just a year studying Philosophy and Religious belief. So I was used to the arguments about atheism and religion.. they happened in the seminar room, or with my friends… not on the TV or on the sides of buses. It seems at the moment as if the arguments are becoming more public. It seems clear that in the UK… God IS a problem - for lots of people.
According to a survey by Tearfund just over two years ago… 66% of the UK population have NO connection with any religion or church. That is a lot of people. If the figures nationally were reflected in our parish... that means that at the moment there are about seven and a half thousand people living within a mile radius of this building who have no connection with this church, with any church or with any other religious group.
Do you know any of them?
God does.
Maybe that’s why he keeps on asking us to do all we can to make contact with them. to get to know them, to welcome them to this place, to serve them through Little Friends and Oscar,s and YPC and Community Care and through hiring the rooms out and welcoming all sorts of groups here and to our premises on Ironstone Road. Because whenever anybody comes it the beginning of a relationship with people who know Jesus.
3. At the moment that the media are giving a lot of attention to the debate between atheism and religious belief. The discussion is often centred around whether or not we have to believe in a God who created the universe and everything in it – in seven days. And you can be sure that and TV programme maker talking about creation will show some images of the opening book of the bible… and probably there will be a passage from genesis read.. usually in the 17th century AV.
By the way I don’t think you HAVE to believe that God created the universe and everything in it in seven days… 24 hour periods. He may have done… but I do notice that a day is defined as “a unit of time equal to the Earth's period of rotation about its axis, measured either relative to the Sun solar day or the stars sidereal day” But in the book of Genesis it says that God didn’t form the sun or the stars until day FOUR. So maybe those first three days couldn’t have been measured according to the earth’s rotation relative to the sun or the stars, and whatever the term morning and evening meant for those first three days, it can’t have meant the light produced by the sunrise or the darkness that falls at sunset… because the sun hadn’t been formed. Maybe the writer talked of “days” in the sense of stages in process of creation, periods of time. And certainly the bible uses the Hebrew word day in this sort of general sense lots of the time.. for example the Prophet Zechariah said And the LORD will be king over all the earth. On that day (same Hebrew word as in Genesis) there will be one LORD—his name alone will be worshiped. (Zech. 14:9) The prophet was not speaking of the Lord being King for just 24 hours was he?
Genesis tells us very, very, very clearly that God is the creator… but it does not claim to give us such clear answers to our questions about HOW he did it or HOW LONG it took him to do it.
I think maybe God might have intended us to enjoy finding out… because (as Pam was saying last week - when we honestly search for understanding about creation then what we find will lead us to marvel at our creator.
But sometimes we don’t – marvel that is. Instead of praising God we want to push him out of the picture.
Back to this problem with God again.
4. Richard Dawkins (the atheist and writer Pam spoke about last week – the author of the God Delusion) - He has a problem with God - he doesn't believe there is one. As far as he is concerned the Universe has simply come into being ... without any purpose it just happened. In the same way all Life and is simply the product of blind physical forces.
There is a real problem with his views. If the universe exists it must have had a cause. And Richard Dawkins admits that the universe must have had a cause… but still he wants to keep God out of the picture… and so he said during a radio interview with a journalist from London Premier radio… “If you want to define God as the singularity in physics that gave rise to the first fundamental particle, or something like that - then you can define God like that
A singularity in physics… Sounds a bit vague really. Actually I think lots of people might have a very vague idea of what they do mean when they talk about God.
It’s 32 years since the first Star Wars film came out… and we all learned about THE FORCE. The idea of this impersonal amoral force that pervades the universe. You can use the Dark side or be a Jedi ... .either way the Force doesn't care. Hundreds of millions of people have seen the films.. and know the lines “May the force be with you”
Do you think there are people here in Burntwood who have a vague idea about God?
Do you think there are people who thought well maybe God - whatever he is… this singularity in physics… started the universe off.. and then left us to it?
5. The bible tells us that when he was in Athens, Paul spotted many shrines, which bore the inscription... "to the unknown God" At these places sacrifices could be offered, words recited in an attempt to make sure that the people keep on the right side of whatever force or power may be out there.
Do you think that maybe there are still people today who believe in a God they don’t know?
Paul stood in the market place in Athens, and he said “This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about. He is the God who made the world and everything in it.”
Very often at a funeral when people might come here, or to a service in a crematorium chapel.. and they are not followers of Jesus.
I try to encourage people just to take a step nearer to God. I always think that it is important to honour the life that was given, and I think it is important to help people to say “thank you” to God for the life that he gave to the person who has now died. (As Paul said to the people of Athens… God is the one who “gives life and breath to everything”
But I know that I can often be talking to people who have a problem with God.
God is a problem for people who suffer the pain of loss God is a problem for people seeing the illness of people who they love…
God is a problem for people who are suffering...
(I’ve been with people who have been so angry… like the father who punched the wall of the hospital in anger and frustration on the day his child died... and said, “God you don’t care.” )
God is a problem for... people who find themselves saying “if there was a God in heaven he would never let this happen”
I wonder if people who are hurting don’t need an argument about God… they just need to know him. To meet him. To experience him.
Whenever you are with someone who is hurting simply pray that God will meet them. Remember that Jesus once said Blessed are those who mourn they will be comforted and perhaps that was because it is at our point of helplessness that so often we can meet with God.
6. You know what the real problem with God is…
He takes an interest in us.
And we find that a problem.
A God who is a vague impersonal force, a God who is a singularity of physics is easy to live with. A God who takes a personal interest in us, a God who even loves us… that is more disturbing.
A God like that is a God to whom we may be accountable. A God who knows me… may have an opinion about my choices, my attitudes, my life.
A God like that could be a bit of a problem for me.
Until, that is, we know that God is absolutely determined to love us. God is Love that’s what he’s like. He is loving. He does care. Really Care.
(we’ve been watching the repeats of Doctor Who.. great… God cares even more than the last Time Lord!)
Paul told the people in Athens that God cares so much that he not only brought creation into being, but continues to breath life into every living thing, he sustains all of creation. And then he went on to tell them some even more amazing news…
The news that the God who created all things has made himself known to us… in Jesus… and even more amazing he has shown his power to free us from the limitations of this life and death and raise us with Jesus to a new life, the life of eternity in his presence.
Some people said “that’s interesting”... and others laughed at him.
7. We live in a town where many people have a problem with God. They don’t know him
They certainly don’t want to be accountable to him
They have confused ideas about him,
And they don’t know the good news, the wonderful news that the unknown SINGULARITY IN PHYSICS, this CREATIVE FORCE has made itself known in our creation in Jesus.
Maybe to make God known to people who do not know him, we have to be prepared to tell them and prepared to show them what he is like.
We can Talk about his love… we have to show his love in action.
We have to talk about how he has made himself known to us… we have to talk about Jesus.. but we have to do more than that.
(Buy a new car.. the car showroom ahs a demonstration model… you can experience the car see what it is like.) We are called be God’s demonstration models… people who know you are taking Jesus for a test drive by what they see and experience they will either learn what God is like… or they will be misled.
We have to demonstrate in our lives the life of love and obedience and can integrity and compassion and kindness and courage that was seen in him.
And when we do… then like the people in Athens,
Some will say that’s interesting.. tell us more
some might sneer and some will hear and respond and will come to know the God who before was unknown to them.