Who is God? If someone asks you who God is, what do you say? Is God some ancient man with a long white beard sitting on a throne in the clouds? Frederick Buechner wrote, “Trying to explain God to humans is like trying to explain Einstein to a clam.” In other words we can know of God, but we can never completely understand God. I think this is true. Children sometimes have great thoughts about God. I recently read where a seven year old wished that someone would take a picture of God or perhaps God could take a “Selfie” and post it.
Today is Trinity Sunday. It is the day when we celebrate how God has been revealed to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We have experienced God as creator, redeemer, and sustainer. Perhaps God is more complex than God has revealed to us. Perhaps we have made God more complicated than we should. As for me, I tend to think about God in two ways. God is relational and God has to be experienced.
First, God is relational. Now this is not to say that God is only relational, but God is relationship. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit continually relating in perfect love that spills out to the whole world. If you think about it, all life is about relationships. God’s creation is in constant relationship. Further, I would argue, every subject is about relationships. Biology is about how life relates with other life. Sociology is about how people relate in societies. Economics is about how people financially relate to each other. Money is in fact promissory notes that help us relate to one another by way of goods and services. When we are relating well together, then we are all better for it. Heck even Math is about how numbers relate and can represent things in relationship to other things. All life is about relationships because God is relational. The essence and nature of creation reflects the essence and nature of God the creator. Moreover, God is concerned with healthy relationships, healing relationships, loving relationships, compassionate relationships. Sin is, in fact, broken relationship between God and humanity, God and creation, humans and fellow humans, and humans and creation. The work of God is healing and reconciling those relationships in healthy ways.
Second, I think God has to be experienced. It is often said that, “God can’t be explained only experienced.” When I was in college I tried to get a minor in religious studies. The religious studies department where I went was agnostic at best. I remember taking a course on Philosophy of Religion. We talked about God as omnipotent, God as omniscient, God as omnipresent, and God as the only non-contingent being. We philosophized soo much… that I lost God in the process. Learning to define God is good to a degree, but one can never fully understand God. We are limited beings with limited understanding, always. No matter how smart we think we are. God, by nature, is limitless. Once we try to put God into words, we are limiting the limitless. When we spend too much time trying to intellectually understand God, then we can miss out on appreciating the loving experience of God. That is why Jesus teaches the way He does. He says, "The Kingdom of God is like…" Jesus never sits down and explains the Trinity to the disciples or why everything happens. Instead Jesus wants us to experience life and the love of God. I learned the hard way that one can get lost in the intellectual understanding of God. In fact, it can lead to some scary and dry places. Not that it is wrong to question and to learn more about God, but never at the expense of experiencing the presence of the love of God. Distraught, I sought a priest in the area. He told me that whenever he felt lost and dry he always found his way back… in community. God is to be experienced in loving and healing relationships in creation and with others in community.
If people ask me what I love to do most as a priest, it is being in small groups talking about the love of God in their lives. Further, how people experienced the love of God in the stories in the Bible. There is nothing better than honest seekers gathered around the Holy scriptures. I love journeying with and experiencing God with others. In addition to worshipping God, that is what the church is all about. The church is the community of God where we can come and talk about our lives and experiences. That is why the community of God (aka the church) is so important. It is not just something to do on a Sunday morning. It is a blessing and great joy to gather with other seekers and lovers of God.
If someone asks me, “Who is God?” I say, “God is love in motion reaching out to us.”
