January 27, 2002
Psalm 139
Romans 8:18-25

Last week we discussed the changeless nature of God--"O thou who changest not, abide with me"–this week, I'd like to talk about the God who is always changing, whose origin and essence is change. In our God-talk, we like to call God the Creator, the one who has produced the whole of creation. One of our primary names for God is Creator and in mythic language, we speak of God as creating the world in six days and resting on the Sabbath. But God is not so much Creator, as creating. Jane Parker Huber describes this as Creating God, creating still — God as the essential creating energy of the universe. It's more theologically interesting to imagine that we are perpetually living in the eighth day of creation, where we are always in the process of "making all things new."

When I was very young, I hated science. I loved words, music, art and the study of religion. I thought science was all about facts and experiments, such as dissecting cows eyes, with very little mystery or imagination. Now, I am fascinated by the connections that thinkers and theologians like our own Bob Russell, Sallie McFague and Ted Peters are making between the world of religion and the realm of science.

Quantum Physics suggests that we live in a universe that is totally alive, where everything connects, interacts and interrelates. Nothing is stationary or isolated; all is movement, motion and dance. Energy is the substance of all life, the wellspring of pure possibility, the rhythm and movement of a great cosmic dance. In the same way, Quantum Theology suggests that God, who is the essence of energy and life, is always changing, always moving — is the great cosmic dance. Change and movement is of the essence of God; God is no more a static reality than is an atom or a quark.

Charles Hartshorne, a theologian whose theology was inspired by Quantum Physics, calls God the Self Surpassing Surpasser of All. God, in other words, is always transcending the past, whatever was yesterday, and is constantly on the move toward the future. The being of God is always becoming. The Philosopher Whitehead spoke of God as having a primordial nature that existed before creation. But having created, God becomes defined as having a consequent nature. Or in other words, God is dancing with the universe and, in the dance, leads and follows at the same time.

The Christian view of God is a long way away from the deist notion of the Clockmaker — who winds up the mechanism of the world and retreats to a solitary heaven and lets the world go at it alone. Ours is the God of relationship, our partner in creating the ongoing possibilities for a new future. The God of love is the Lord of the Dance, both the stationary point and movement, the inescapable center and the parameter of a dynamic universe. Psalm 139 reminds us of the ubiquity of God: "If I ascend to heaven, thou art there! If I take the wings of morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there thy hand shall lead me." "When I was being made in secret, thy eyes beheld my unformed substance." "How precious to me are thy thoughts, how vast is the sum of them." Even ancient writers could imagine that God was not a static reality, but was actively on the move.

Why is it important to talk about a changing God?

We humans talk about the changlessness of God because we need to hold on to something that abides — "Change and decay, all around I see, oh thou who changest not abide with me." I think it gives us great comfort to talk about a God who exists outside of dynamic change in a world so loaded with change, alienation and destruction. And there are plenty of images and stories of God who is father, shepherd, king and caregiver to the people God serves.

However, we can talk about the dynamic nature of God because we want also to believe that our actions count for something, that we are co-creators and that history is not simply a story already told and completed. Paul's letter reminds us, "For we know that all creation is groaning" and we ourselves are groaning." Still a-borning.

We need to talk about the changefulness of the nature of God because one of the big ways we define God is as Love. It is the nature of love to be changed and to change. The Catholic theologian Diarmuid O'Murchu writes that love is the life energy that animates everything that exists. If we believe God really loves us, then God and we will be changed in relationship. "For God so loved the world"–God gave to it and was changed by it. The lover is always changed by the beloved. God's love for us is not static or detached, fulfilled long ago on a cross at Calvary. Rather, God's love is completely alive, filled with passionate longing and divine eros, willing to be formed and reformed through love.

Further to the point, the God we experience daily, in the rustling grass, in the cycle of seasons, in the radiance of brother sun and sister moon, this very God is an immanent God, God within, evolving with nature and history. In the language of mystic William Blake, "We see a world in a grain of sand, heaven in a wild flower, we hold infinity in the palm of our hand and eternity in an hour."

What has all of this to do with us, with the Church? The church is a theological institution; we should do what we do for theological reasons. What does the paradox of a changeless-always-changing God have to do with us here and now, in the midst of budgets, annual meetings, Sunday School and celebrating life as we know it? Next week, I'll approach this more specifically, but today, to be true to our life and tradition, we need to be radical and conservative at the same time. We've got to hold on to that which binds us to our traditions and, yet, we've got to make the old, old story relevant and real to this changing complex world.

God's design for us is creative and relational. There is vast freedom and creativity with God who is Love. As my friend Bill Coffin likes to say, God's love offers minimal control and maximum support for living. In other words, God is not in control and neither are we, but God is devoted to loving us and that is the best yet.

I have three nephews who are a great joy to me. Each one is different and unique and I love and cherish them. There is a poet, a wise guy and an athlete who loves his Walkman and his CD collection. All three are spiritual seekers in one way or another. It's in their bones to do so. One day I talked with Stevie J, who is the athlete and a music lover, about the God he is trying to know, and he said, "Oh, I get it, God's gotta rock!"

God's gotta rock. God is not static, but moving, not changeless, but dancing, creating, loving and even rocking. God goes before us as a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, toward a future we can neither imagine nor control.

This is the paradox as TS Eliot spoke it

"Four Quartets"

At the still point of the turning world.
Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call this fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from     nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except the point, the still point,
There would be no dance and there is only the dance.

Amen.