WHERE, O WHERE, ART THOU?
“O worship the king…. pavilioned in splendor and girded with praise.” (Hymnal 399, vs. 1)
“In his hand he gently bears us.” (Hymnal 410, vs. 1)
“We, who cannot exist without you.” (Collect, Pentecost XI)
“The Lord was not in the wind…the Lord was not in the earthquake…the Lord was not in the fire…and after the fire, the sound of sheer silence.”
(First Kings 19:9-18)
“The Word is near you, on your lips and in your heart.” (Romans 10:9-15)
“Early in the morning, he came walking toward them on the sea.” (Matthew 14:22-33)
Each of these quotations from this morning’s hymns and scripture are declaring the location of our God, just where, in terms of a specific place we can look to find God, the Christ, our Lord.
The first has God as a traditional king, festooned in royal robes, presumably high above us mere mortals. Another hymn has us squarely in God’s hands. What a gentle, intimate image.
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The Collect today talks about how we cannot exist without God. Indeed, nothing could be plainer than this. If God created the whole world, that surely includes us, and it means this Creator cannot get any closer than that. And the final citation says that we don’t find our Lord in the wind, earthquakes, or fires, but instead in the sound of silence.
These beautiful images of where God can be located surely represent each of us, for surely, since we find ourselves in worship here this morning, the God of our understanding has some existence somewhere in your thinking and living. The beautiful thing is that no one is dictating to you how this God must be for you, and the richness of our lives is that we all have different points of view and different stories to tell of how God has come to us and how God remains for many of us.
So, the question I’ve lived with for the past week is, “Where is God for me?”
A few things about my own development. As I was thinking about what I wanted to say to you this morning, it
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occurred to me that while we often think of God as a single individual, albeit a divine individual, it is not just unlikely but apparently not logically possible that God is singular like you and I are singular. I know that in poetry and hymns, we refer to God as him, as if we are speaking to one someone over against us. And this is fine, for this image of God is one who loves, and one thing we are assured of in not just scripture but our own lives, and that is that God is loving. Not just loving but love itself. And while it’s handy to speak of and even pray to a God as if God were singular, it is also thrilling to let this God, our creator, spread his wings and become intimately part of all of his creation. God is not like a cabinet maker or sculptor who designs and crafts his cabinet or sculpture and goes off for a cup of coffee: God becomes part and parcel of what he creates.
Isn’t this how God lives, in his creation, and through his creatures. And just think of what a wide array of creation this is. From remote galaxies and stars, to this beautiful bustling planet with the millions of species of animals from amoeba to fish and
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from lizards to giraffes, each a miracle of creation in itself. And then there are these most marvelous and dizzying creatures, you and I, who not only are given the gift of being aware of our existence but the added gift of being able to acknowledge, even to experience our creator here and now.
But the question might remain, just where is this God whom we have established to be in and behind all of creation. Think of it. Everything, everybody here, there and everywhere is of God, from God, and, yes, within God, for God is within all creation, you and me and everybody we have ever seen or known or will ever see or know.
So, in one sense we can say that we cannot see God and cannot point to him and say, “There God is.” On the other hand, because this God is creator or all and in all, we cannot say this easily because he permeates and lives in and through everything. So, there is no place where God is not. No wonder then (right?) that he can’t be pinpointed. For there is no pinpoint where God is not. Therefore, it ain’t easy to say,“Here is God!”
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Now I hope I haven’t either confused or maddened you with my excursion into the question of the whereabouts of our God, but if what I’ve been suggesting rings true to your own experience, then some wild things follow. Yes, we can point to sadness, losses, tragedy and death in this life of ours. But under even the most appalling thing we have experienced or heard about, there is beauty. Do you not in some way identify with that beautiful song by Ray Stevens? “Everything is beautiful in its own way.”
“Words can’t describe what I feel inside
When I see the beauty in each coming day
What my eyes behold can’t be bought or sold
And everything’s beautiful in its own way.”
As radical and in some ways even preposterous as is the notion of beauty in all things, the God we worship leads us to such a position. At least I am suggesting this to those of you who might not go this far with me this morning.
But along with beauty in all things is the notion of love. We say not just that God is loving, but that God is love! That is,
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wherever love is expressed, given or received, from our pet dogs to our bouncing children, to our hugging of our aging parents, to our having lunch with good friends. To the joy of being with our partner, to the fun exchanges we make with a friendly waiter in
a restaurant, to the comfort we bring a friend in the hospital. The world is so full of love, I’m surprised we all aren’t shouting with joy and gratitude for a world overflowing with it. And for me to
see that each of these expressions of love is from God himself, and none other, than I’m not so confused about wondering where my God is. “Where else?” I tend to ask. We needn’t look high in the sky, or in some remote book, or some deep passage of scripture. This love, this God is as close as our own breath. I know more daily how I see God in the very ordinary things of my daily life, that this background radiation of love is unavoidable! My avoidance is simply inattention. And the more I cultivate this closeness, this closeness becomes even closer! I
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guess it’s like love. We know something is truly love when it tends only to grow, like the flowers in our gardens. I wish we had the place and time to hear from each of you where you have found God and where God is for you now in your lives. I’m pretty sure you’ve been thinking of events
and experiences when you were dramatically convinced of God’s presence. It can be important, I think, to share these times in order to reinforce their memories in our lives.