Signs of an Emerging God.

The following entry (which I have made per request) is based on a Power Point presentation for a Sunday School class, in which we discussed the theme of my sermon: “From Mold to Manger: Seeing the Signs of an Emerging God.” Originally preached in 2006, the sermon can be found on the church website (www.parkroadbaptist.org) under the “Worship” tab, “The Park Road Pulpit,” August 8, 2010. The sermon texts for this Advent sermon are: “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me…” (Malachi 3.1-4). and, “In the fifteenth year of the reign of emperor Tiberius…” (Luke 3.1-6).

Power Point pages are separated by double asterisks. I have added brief explanatory remarks, but not a full transcript of the lecture.

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Two Views

Theme for Advent 2006: “The Forest and the Trees”

competing, contrasting views of God

Does the Bible present one view or multiple views?

One truth or multiple truths?

In his book A New Kind of Christianity, Brian McLaren takes on his own tradition’s view of scripture, and asks if scripture is to be understood as “constitutional law” (the traditional/conservative view) or “legal library” (McLaren’s new understanding).

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Two Views

How many times have you heard, “Well, the Bible says…” (As if the Bible never contradicts itself, and if you can find it in the Bible… then it’s obviously right!)

So, consider…

For there is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, for all are one in Christ… (Galatians 3.28)

…and…

For I do not permit women to have authority over men (1 Timothy 2.12)…  let the women remain silent… ask their husbands (1 Corinthians 14.34-35)… be submissive (1 Peter 3.1)…

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I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. 3Within two years I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the Lord’s house, which King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon (The Prophet Hananiah, recorded in Jeremiah 28.2-3).

…and…

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. (The Prophet Jeremiah, recorded in Jeremiah 29.5-7)

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For by grace are you saved by faith. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone boast… (Ephesians 2.8)

…and…

“Lord, when did we see you hungry?” And the King separates the sheep from the goats by what they did and did not do… (Matthew 25)

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The contrasts/conflicts within scripture can be harmonized. (We’ve been doing it for years!)

But I believe it is better to let them stand as conflicts. Contrasting/competing ideas about God and the world. Scripture is a collection of experiences with life… with God… The Bible speaks the honest experiences of people, just like us, who sometimes have differing understandings.  

We don’t need “the answer” from the Bible – we need to allow the experiences recorded in scripture help us learn how to think for ourselves.

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One Biblical View

“The God of the Forest”

For God is above all and through all and in all… (Ephesians 4.6)

Is God above all?

Is there a “big picture”?

In faith we say, “Certainly!”

But… how do we understand that truth?

Is it the only truth?

The only image of God? or is it One image among many?

Is it a truth for certain stages of life? (as children think of their parents)

Was it a truth for a different age?

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On Developing a “Theology of Reality”

There was a day when this was the only truth.

God created…

            God controlled…

                        All things…

This is no longer what we believe.

Evolutionary process…

            Weather patterns and bacteria and mental illness…

                        God is no longer ascribed all control…

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On Developing a “Theology of Reality”

We need not deny God to accept a new understanding.

(But we ought to accept the new understanding!)

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The God of the Trees

Finding God among us. (Not necessarily beyond us.)

“This sermon offers the God of the slime mold and the manger. The God who has always been, and ever is, emerging from the seemingly insignificant, disconnected details of a complex world. From this view, the traditional understanding is exactly backwards. God is not out there … large and looming. Looking down. Controlling and capricious. Crafting and manipulating. God is here. With us. In us. The Word always becoming flesh (John 1.14) through every single detail.” (Sermon: “From Mold to Manger”)

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A Word About Slime Mold

No brain.

            No “top-down” management.

                        Intelligence “emerges” from its collaborative behavior.

                                    No way to know: individual or collective

Ants also show “emergent behavior” (“Queen” – not really a Queen… just mother of all ants)

High level Computer Software is written using emergent processes (“Artificial Intelligence,” not “top down” programs)

What about God?

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The God of the Trees

This is not the majority report of Christianity – but it is no novel idea of mine

Divinity: less the point of departure than the destination (Teilhard de Chardin)

Process Theology even God is developing/evolving with us

God is less a Supreme Being… than the “ground of being” (Paul Tillich), “In whom we live and move and have our being…” (Acts 17.28)

Robert Wright: “…maybe it is up to us, having inherited only the most ambiguous evidence of divinity, to construct clearer evidence in the future” (in his book, Nonzero).

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God and Emergent Behavior

Are we moving to a new truth (with the help of science)?

God is not “out there…”

   “above…”

      “controlling…”

         “top down…”

God is emerging from within/among us

Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There it is!” For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among/within you.’” (Luke 17.20-21)

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God and Emergent Behavior

When our eyes are open, we can see this emerging logic (logos) everywhere:

*When the fullness of time had come (Galatians 4.4)…

*She brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger (Luke 2.7)…

*And the child grew in wisdom and stature and in divine and human favor (Luke 2.52)…

In him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (Colossians 1.19)…

*He learned obedience through what he suffered, and having been made perfect (Hebrews 5.8-9)…

*God made him to be Lord and Christ (Acts 2.36)…

*That at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow (Philippians 2.10)…

*To all who believed… he [gives] the power to become children of God! (John 1.12).

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The Trees – Nothing Insignificant

“Nothing that has ever happened in your life is insignificant. Not one moment that you have ever lived is disconnected from another, neither is a single of your breaths distinct from the life of this diverse and wonderful planet. Every day. Every hour. Every word. Every thought. Every action… stands on its own, as a discreet instrument in the hands of God. There may be a big picture, but we have only the details to work with.” (Sermon: “From Mold to Manger”)

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…and the Forest

Faith leads me to believe there is, in fact, a big picture… Yet we cannot know it.

The point is that we are so often preoccupied with that big picture and that miss the living that occurs when we give ourselves to the details. We cannot know how our lives impact others, and how they are impacted by them. Life in faith should call us to live for the moment, in the moment, drinking deeply of each moment — for there we find God! 

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