Rev. Cn. Richard Hogue
Last Sunday, the Rev. Cn. Allisyn Thomas delivered a wonderful sermon. The key phrase was “when we meet Jesus, we all go home by a different way.” It was all about those touchstone moments when we feel the divine in our lives and we can’t help but be changed. Following that vibe, I want to take that a radical step or two further this week. I want to wonder aloud with you: Does God change in encounters with us, too?
There are a lot of folks who find that question theologically repellant. God is, after all, immutable, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, the Alpha and the Omega, and beyond any human conception or idea, transcending time and space. To all of that, I happily agree, and I feel that makes the idea that God can change all the more likely. Applying our human absolutes to God is meaningless to a God who is beyond those very definitions and ideas. All these perceived absolutes pale before the God we label with these qualities. They are less absolutes as much as absurdities. Our philosophical foundations are folly in the face of the incomprehensible.
We need look no further than our first reading from Jonah for some evidence of this:
‘The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
‘When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.’
Let me repeat that last line one more time for emphasis: “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind.”
Now, we can go back and forth and chase our tails quoting contradictory scriptures about God’s unchanging nature against the verses that say the opposite, but that just points us to the reality that from where we sit in the universe, the inscrutable God systematically defies our expectations. Leave aside the many, many instances where Hebrew Scripture reports that God changes or feels differently: For Christians, doesn’t Jesus’ very life point to the divine itself changing in relationship with humanity? God chose human life, therefore God changed. It may have been the most profound time, but it was not the first nor the last time God changed in relationship to humanity.
And here, I want to go one step further into the bewildering and the radical nature of God’s love for us. God didn’t just change in Hebrew Scripture, and God didn’t just change in becoming human. I want to take a step further and wonder aloud with you: Can God change with each of us as we attempt our human journeys. Can God change every time grief or joy overwhelm us? Can God change with every new pain and every new moment of profound insight? Can God change every time we feel the human condition anew, at the highest, at the lowest, and in the most mundane ways? Perhaps God shapes the arc of the universe with us. Perhaps God must necessarily adapt when we grow or wilt in our response to God’s undying love for all of us.
Again, I believe we need look no further than our readings for this morning, from our Gospel:
‘After John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
‘As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.’
God invites us on a journey of perpetual mutual transformation, profoundly changing us along the way. God’s experience of us must necessarily change. The heart of the matter is that every moment, in every life, ever, changes how God sees and feels the world. The love is that big, that all-consuming. Square the theological circle however you like, but human logic stops applying when we take a step back to look at the life of Jesus, God’s profession of love for us all. God’s love is so whole and yet so adaptable, that God chose life as one of us, with all of us, understanding us each in a new way.
God invites us on a journey not only so that we might change, but so that God can find new insights to reach us, individually and collectively. “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” God is changed when we say no to hate and yes to love. God is changed when we choose faithfulness instead of selfishness. God is changed when we choose to follow even when we fail. God is changed when we bring others into transformational relationship.
God’s immutability, omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence are all rooted in love, and love is something that necessarily changes and grows. We know this in all our relationships, parent and child, sibling and sibling, among friends, among lovers. All are dynamic even if the underlying devotion remains. I believe that is a divine quality. We receive this dynamic ability to transform, to develop, and to grow from a God who knows and is uncontainable, unpredictable love, a God unrestricted by our horizons, and yet deeply invested in expanding them. God’s heart does change, even if God’s love is undying. In changing our own lives, we are changing the shape of love now and forever. In saying yes to love, we are changing everything, forever. “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” Amen.
