God's Will Be Done Forevermore

 

Bible verse comparison: New International Version (left) and The Message (right), emphasis added

Over and over the people in the Bible are perplexed. Sometimes "the greatest among Gods" seems paradoxical and topsy-turvy (crucifixion for eternal life). Other times the Creator's actions seem to come as commandment or dictator's omnipotence and omniscience. Still other times the lessons seem unfair (grape harvesters hired at different times but paid the same, regardless of hours labored). No matter how logical and penetrating the human mind, the wrestling never seems to accommodate God's ways and will. As soon as the person "makes sense" of God's wishes, then the faith is dead or at least loses vitality and liveliness.

An advocate for the devil could point out that God is always right(eous). Disaster, blessing, incompetence, abuse can all lead to different outcomes, but despite the inconsistency that people see and experience, God is always right. God's position cannot be wrong, no matter the suffering or distress that people find themselves in. And while that perception and experience may be painful, it does not deny that God is present in good times and in bad. The ups and downs do not exclude God from being present; indeed, at extremes of joy or sorrow God's abiding presence is especially valuable.

Another implication of this idea that "God always is right" is that there is no escape; no place to be outside of God's circle of care and presence. You could be in air, on land, or at (or under) sea and God will be present; and God's will reigns. So the devil's advocate may be right about God can't lose; in good times or in bad, God wins. But that does not mean that human life is a rigged game of chance. Rather, it means that God is inescapably present in all that one sees and does, and present for all time; from first breath to last. A person cannot escape God's world or otherwise not show up; "not playing, just watching."

Echoing the all-encompassing blanket of God's presence and love for what the Creator has made, there is the imagery of "knowing all the hairs of your head" and "knowing you before you were born." This sense of knowing a person, or personalizing a relationship (not knowing facts and other fragments of information pulled from its context). God's timeless presence is in tune with the idea of knowing everything, omniscience: not a trivia master but a personal relationship with every large or small sentient being, whether animal or vegetable. Inescapable and never letting go. By accepting this bond between Creator and one's own self, it is easy to feel one's exterior (physicality) and one's interior (intangibles) linked to the surrounding creatures in this moment and for all the passing milliseconds one strides the planet. Perceiving self as being isolated from the surroundings is a perspective that is impoverished and short-sighted. Instead, all this creation is co-present with one's own time and space; all of this is joined together in a massive convoy traveling down the road together.

God is Love; but Love is God, too?

The rhetorical masters of ancient Greece listed all the persuasive moves and structures in a person's speaking. One of these is called Antimetabole, the flip-floping of word order to come up with a sometimes refreshing or sometimes startling inversion: God is Love; Love is God. (ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν)

The passage in 1 John 4:19 is what the Tuesday Men's Bible Study read and riffed on today. Instead of quoting the familiar KJV or NIV, though, here is BibleGateway.com where many versions of the text can be displayed side by side, or simply looked up individually. Looking at the HWP, Hawai'ian Pigin, currently only published for the New Testament gives an unfamiliar voice to these familiar words about "love is..." The spelling is phonetic (e.g. brudda =brother) and there are a few Polynesian words that might not be known to most English readers (e.g. ohana =community/family). But by sounding out (speaking aloud) the text, the passage will bring to mind John's words. Even though HWP will be inconvenient, requiring slow pace and careful sounding-out the words, there is a directness, raw and earthy embrace of the heart of the meaning that is worth the effort (click the image for full-size view):

1 Johns 4:19 from https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numba+1+From+John+4&version=HWP

Love has so many senses in English. In the Greek of the New Testament there are the four distinct words (philial =brotherly love, eros =marital love, agape =community love or charitable, storge= family love). But in our consumer 2019 there is love of country, NASCAR, wood smoke, pristine snowfall, as well. Like so many other instances of physical experience in the material world, any given element or relationship structure can be perverted to misuse or abuse the thing, too. So there will be cases of false love; something that might resemble love at first blush, but --like the concept of Truthiness (seems like Truth, but in the end not so)-- these manifestations turn out to be mistaken, lacking the essential life that makes the love true in the "God is Love" sense of sincere, abiding, firm, and so on.

So with that caution about being vigilant to discern love from love-ish imposters, there is some merit is taking "God is Love" and turning it around to say that "Love is God," that is, in the small ways and big ways that one's day is peppered with situations the exhibit and express love between people at play, at work, fully immersed in creative effort or in a casual moment of joy or reflection; in all these glimpses of Love, there, too, is God. God is present when Love is present. Where there is Love, so, too, there is God. Looking at the world at hand today and the worlds seen in mass media far away or from times long ago, suddenly all the instances of love stand for God's place, side by side in those blessed times. Turning the argument upside down by acrobatic logical gymnastics and saying, "where there is no love, there is no God" ignores the idea of ever-present God, in good times and bad; in sickness and in health, in prosperity and in poverty.

In the end, despite the shortcomings of playing around with rhetoric and logical, linear verbiage, this "God is Love; Love is God" exercise does stimulate a fresh vision: that every time a feeling of affection, esteem, and connection arises, it can be a reminder of God's own basis for relating to the creatures of the Earth, whether the two-legged kind, or the many, many other kinds. Since most people grow accustomed to a certain manner of thinking, and routines of response, by flip-flopping the "God is Love" phrase there comes a chance to re-think, re-view, and re-embrace that foundational way of being in the world. Similarly, the unfamiliarity of a Bible translation like HWP can spur a person to re-think, re-view, and re-embrace one's relationship to The Word.