"How Can We Speak of God?"

Sermon preached by John C. Hall on March 1, 2009

Text — Psalm 25:1-10

Some people are interested in exploring what we mean when we use “God language.” Today we’re not going to come even close to saying everything there is to say on this subject. And nothing we say is going to comprehensive, or final on this subject. We’re continuing a conversation that’s been going on for thousands of years, and we’re not going to settle it in a day.

I’d like to start by mentioning 2 very different ways of using the word or name “God.”  The first is prayer — or speaking to God, or listening for God.

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

O my God,   do not let me be put to shame;

Make me to know your ways, O Lord;

   teach me your paths.

This is classic “prayer language” — from Psalm 25.I think of prayer as a calling out, or crying out, to God — in fear or pain or joy.  This is something people do because they want to, and it doesn’t need any justification. 

Imagine that you see someone praying, maybe kneeling, and visibly upset, even crying. Would you go up to such a person, tap him or her on the shoulder and say, “Pardon me, but I noticed you were praying, and I want you to explain what you think you’re doing?  Who do you think you’re talking to? Have you thought this through?” It’s difficult to imagine even the most hard-hearted, cynical, know-it-all, religion-hater would do that.

People don’t “think through” prayer before they do it. And they don’t need to. We pray because we want to. It’s a way of improving our perspective. It helps us live our lives. It’s helped me live my life.

But prayer takes other forms than speaking to God. It also takes the form of letting God speak to us — through the sacraments for example. By receiving Holy Communion.  By having ashes put on your forehead.  By singing a hymn, or sitting in silence. We don’t need reasons to do these things. We don’t need to explain them. We can just do them. We do them because life is complicated, fragile, often difficult and sometimes painful. It’s also miraculous, pleasurable, and full of mysteries. So we pray.  It doesn’t need justification any more than crying, or cheering or laughing. 

I could stop right there. And it might be good to stop there. But there are people — like many of us — who can’t resist asking the question: “Who are we I praying to?  Is there anyone out there? Are we talking into the void? Are we talking to ourselves?

And if you’re inclined to say, as many of us are, “Yes, there is someone or something out there” — however you conceive of that — then you almost have to ask “What is that someone or something like?” 

Now right there, we take a huge leap from “worship language” — the language of prayer, language that addresses God — to what looks more like trying to describe God, or theology.

Crying out to God is one thing. Describing God is something different. And this is where the real trouble begins, and where explanations and justification come into play, for better or worse.

I can remember back when I was in seminary (theology is popular in seminary) there was a strong zeal in some Divinity students to correct other people’s wrong thinking about God and to tell them what God is really like. This is why new ministers can be so insufferable and self-righteous, and unfortunately many clergy never get over it. Look what I’m doing right now. I’m trying to educate you about God, right?

No, I am not telling you about God. I’m talking what humans do. The subject here is language that uses the word “God.” Language about God is not the same thing as God.

But anyway, back to the point. I remember it was the fashion among new ministers to get outraged over things people said about God. Take the statement: “It must be God’s will.”

Very early in my ministry, a teenage girl was killed in a car accident. Her parents Marty and Shirley were devastated emotionally. And in the midst of that devastation Shirley said at one point, “It must be God’s will.

This is the kind of thing that zealous Divinity students love to jump all over: I could imagine my classmates saying “What do you mean, it must be God’s will? How could this be God’s will? What kind of God would will such a thing?” I could practically see the veins bulging out of their necks. Divinity students can be like Job’s comforters. Sincere, but blinded by a sense of their own superior knowledge of God and God’s ways.

What’s going on here?  After a tragedy like the death of a child, I probably wouldn’t say “It must be God’s will.” But why would the girl’s mother say it? Was she trying to describe God, really?  Was she trying to make an intellectual point? Was she trying to defend God? 

Here’s another possibility. Maybe saying “It must be God’s will” is another way of saying, “We have to make peace with this terrible thing. We have to believe, or we have to find a way to believe, that life is still worth living.”

There’s an extremely important difference between what our words about God seem to say on the literal level, and how they function, how they help us live our lives.

The end of our passage from Psalm 25 seems to shift from prayer to a description of God.

Good and upright is the Lord;

All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness,

On the literal level, that looks like a description of God, but how do those words function? Maybe they express a hope that the Lord is good and upright and that justice will be done.

I hope I’ve raised some questions in you and stimulated your appetite for this subject matter. I think it’s an important subject because, if we go down this road it can help us appreciate why human beings are religious, why we pray, why we have rituals, and it can help us appreciate religious language and forms of prayer and beliefs that are different from ours. And the world can use more of that kind of understanding.