When was the last time your God died?

when was the last time your God died?

 

not God

not YHWH

not the reality that is somehow behind all that is

a part of all that is

a part of you

 

but that “god” you had in your head

built perhaps out of stories from the Bible

or the Koran, or the Torah

or built, perhaps out of sunrise and sunsets

out of mountain high and valleys low

 

that god you have created out of your own

heart and mind

your own experiences

 

that god others have created for you

 

when was the last time that god died?

 

for me, my sense of who and what God is

has died many times

 

I don’t think my “god” died

Ever

until I started to take God seriously

 

growing up God was a given

pretty vague if the truth were told

a reality accepted but never really take seriously

 

that changed when I left my home church

and the home of my birth

and wandered into the world

 

where the Vietnam War was raging

and friends died

where, in college, I face true failure for the first time!

and had to abandon my pre-med track

out of sheer ineptitude

 

that changed when I met people who actually seemed to think

that God should be a part of one’s daily life

that one actually was connected to God

 

God got more real

and more troublesome

 

because everywhere I turned I ran into something

about my vision of God, and how God works

that didn’t work

 

and so the god of my childhood died

to be replaced by the god of my college years

 

and then I hit seminary

and everyone seemed to have, at some level

a different god

and their god was different from my god

 

oh sure, we all pretended it was the same god

but in reality we all had our own version

which we arrogantly pieced together

as we waded through Hebrew and Greek,

and studied the Bible and read

Calvin and Luther, and the Niebuhr’s, and Schillebeeckx

and Tillich and Barth! 

 

my god became more defined and more troublesome

 

I became surer about what I believed

 

and then life hit

my first church, and my second, and third

incredible success, massive failure

 

where was God when I needed God?

that God I thought I knew

but how died, again and again

the god who protected the good and trounced the evil

the god who honored a life well lived

 

when my father died of cancer, my god died

the good who keeps good men alive

 

when my mother died (at 69 of bulbar palsy)

god died again

 

when I made so many mistakes in life

inspite of my knowledge, and my good intentions

when I got divorced

 

god died

 

the god who guides, who comforts

the god who is there in the valley of the shadow

 

but there is something about God

even though my understanding, my perception of God dies

God keeps showing up

 

after every death and resurrection!

I guess that is how God works

my inadequate understandings of God die

and God returns, newly alive

not yet fully understood

 

never fully understood

which is why my version of god must die, and die, and die again

 

but with each resurrection

God becomes a little more real

not better understood, but more real

 

experienced in new ways

deeper ways

 

God returns

and I connected to this reality

this power

this Love

that I do not understand

 

but which is present

and which empowers

and comforts

and yes guides (how well I listen is another matter)

 

I am connected to this reality

that does not change the world

but changes how I see the world

how I experience the world

and how I related to the world

 

recently my god died when racists invaded our capitol

and died again when evil was accepted and enabled

and my god will die again

 

something, somewhere, at some point in time

will violate what I thought I knew about God

and that god will die

 

but there is always resurrection

as God continues to show up

rising out of the tomb of my disappointment

in the early morning’s light